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Published: January 19th 2009
Sapa Landscape
Rice paddies cover the landscape, only broken by the occasional "house." They smell as clean as they look! Day 7/8/9/10/11/12
For many of you reading this, you may have serious doubts that Steph and G actually endured all that is written below. The usual phrases associated with S & G are "laying around all day - getting up to only go to the fridge", "taking naps in the afternoon", "watching TV marathons for hours on end". However, the last few days have been filled with phrases more like, "stepping over huge piles of buffalo poo", "trekking for 18K (about 11 miles)" & "waking up to sounds of pigs being slaughtered". So for those doubters, we have attached some pictures to this blog, but can provide further photo evidence via email if need.
The trip started with a grueling 8 hour overnight train to Lao Chai ( in the NE, right on the border of China). Some mis-informed person described our cabin a "soft sleeper", but Stephanie thinks this is false advertisement as she didn't do any of this so called "sleeping" that was promised. G luckily slept like a baby the whole way up. Unfortunately, she made the ill-fated decision to sleep on the bottom bunk, only to be sneezed on my the little French girl in
Dzay People -Ta Van
Woman in traditional dress. Despite her age, she was running circles around us trekking. the bed over.
After only a few moments noticed, we were told we had arrived in Lao Chai by the crew and quickly scrambled to get dressed and off the train. We were greeted by the tour company and taken to eat breakfast before heading of to Sapa. Nothing would have been better then a nice egg sandwich and pancakes with a nice cup of tea, but instead we got horrible tasting cold omelets (not a fav of either S or G).
The workers must have noticed that we ate nothing cause they offered us a traditional Vietnamese breakfast for the Tet New Year - Cat Cake. It has a heavy square of sticky rice filled with soy bean and meat, wrapped in banana leaves, served cold. After a confusing exchange of the words "pork" and "fork", we found out it was indeed pork meat not fork meat. Not exactly a Denny's Grand Slam breakfast, but it actually wasn't quite bad - just had a really strange texture and after a few bites we politely gave the ole' "oh I'm so full" (rub the belly) bit. We met up with our guide for the next 2 days - Kin
Trekking Su Pan
Two Thirds into our journey, we passed through Su Pan village . . . . cursing the day we were born! - an adorable and quite funny Vietnamese guy and jumped in the van to pick up two more trekkers and head to Sapa. The 1 hour trip was us basically teetering on the end of death with every winding turn up mountain after mountain.
As soon as we reached Sapa (9 AM), a bunch of girls spotted our minibus and began chasing the bus down a dirt road. The girls were mostly young between 8-15. But there was a quite older lady running at the same pace as the younger ones. They were Dzay people, and dress in full traditional clothing. When the four of us got out (the other two trekkers were 30 something girls from Northern Spain), they swarmed around and seemed to tag team each of us, bombarding us with the same questions - "Where are you from?", "How old are you?", "What's your name?". Their English was quite good, but you can tell the 6-7 questions were all the English phrases they knew and didn't understand a wold of our replies.
A bit of advise for anyone going on a trek - be sure to read the brochure first before signing up. If the
Ritz Carlton Vietnam Style
After a 18k walk, this was the first class accommodation awaiting us at our Home Stay in Ban Ho with our Tay family. number 18 is written with the word kilometers after it - think twice before handing over your money. And if your American, find out how many miles in 18K. PS - its about 11 miles. About 1 hour into our trek, G asked this important question and got the shocking reply of 18K. But there was no turning back now - onward we went for the next 8 hours.
The first village we came to was the Ta Van village where the Dzay people live in quite primitive house along a dirt path. When G asked, "Where are the men?" Our guide, Kin, told us that the men leave everyday to go up into them mountain to collect wood and women are left to tend to the kids and the house. When a woman gets married she wears huge hoop silver earrings, while the little girls just have small hoops in their ears.
As we walked, we couldn't help but look at the beautiful scenery around us. There were rice paddies constructed in the steep mountain sides as well as encompassing most of the valley. There was a small rocky stream flowing the entire way thru the valley
Kin - Our Guide
Don't feel sorry for his frail demeanor . . . this little Vietnamese man was trying to race us, pulling us up steep rocks, and not even breaking a sweat. with house built close and clothes lines blowing in the cold winter wind. There were countless dogs taking their early afternoon naps along the way. Buffalo and pigs roamed freely around the area and the stench of them roamed even more free.
The girls continued to trek with us and even helped out S &G out when it got to a steep climb or decent. Most of the girls only had on flimsy plastic sandals, not even bothering with socks on this cold day in the north of Vietnam. S & G began to seriously question the huge amounts of money they dropped for their high tech hiking boots. We continued thru a bamboo forest high up on the mountain side till we got a spectacular waterfall. The minute we set our bags now and drew out the camera, each tag team of 2 Dzay girls busted out loads of bracelets, bags and headbands and really didn't ask, more like demanded, "You buy from me?" We weren't that surprised that all their kind efforts for the last 7K weren't for nothing but still we didn't expect the persistence that they would put up against our gentle "No, thanks". They
Dinner at our Homestay
This is all that could fit in my camera lens! No there weren't 15 people eating . . . just the 6 of us! just kept at it, piled on their cute factor (or in G's case the sweet old factor). Realizing there was no way out of this, we each gave in and bought some stuff. Unfortunately, when Steph's 2 girls didn't have change, she had to buy something else for her 100,000 Dong (About $5.50). Even more unfortunate was that when G's 2 girls, heard that Steph bought two things, they swarmed G again saying, "Your friend buy 2, you only buy 1. You buy something from me." G reluctantly gave in and bought some bracelets for 50,000 Dong to appease them. We each ended up getting head bands - something we really don't need, but they are actually quite beautiful and are handmade by the girls in the village, so we just laughed it off and said goodbye to our money and enjoyed the beautiful waterfall and view.
Next we trekked down and into Giang Ta Chai village for lunch. Well, it was just loafs of bread, tomatoes and cucumbers with hard boiled eggs but you know the old saying, "when in Rome...." After, a short break, onward we went crossing a ricketing bridge then a steep climb to the
Egg and Yellow Noodle Soup
A nice lunch awaited Steph after her 1.3km vertical climb! G was chillin . . . . lazy cow. main road. We got about 45 minutes of a break from the continues up and down of the mountains and valleys, but embarked on a new adventure of dodging motorbike sand huge piles of buffalo poo.
Then came perhaps the hardest part of our trek - a steep downhill trek for about 6K. Our guide was a God send, helping us down some steep rocky bits and occasionally we relied on old sit on your but and slide trick to get down some sandy slopes. Unfortunately, G twisted her ankle on the way down and only later realized the pain she would be in store for. Finally at around 5:30PM, we reached the Ban Ho village, home of the Tay people, which was where we would be spending the night. In the house lived the grandparents, parents and 5 year old son and it seemed they all slept in the same room as the upstairs was reserved for trekkers like us.
Already enjoying a beer were two Aussies, Emma and Greg, that were also lodging here for the night - along with their guide - Sho. We were treated to a huge array of dishes for dinner -
Bac Ha Market
Busy Sunday Market. They sell handbags, live dogs, buffalo, and pigs intestines. A lot of elbows were involved to get through the chaos. rice, vegetables, pork, chicken, beef and spring rolls. The family and guides ate dinner in the kitchen, but S was quite happy for the distance, as they were having dog for dinner. But after the plates were cleared, all 6 of us were invited to sit around with the family and drink the notorious rice wine. After many of shots later, most being done my Vietnamese and the Aussies, we gathered around the fire and exchanged stories for the next few hours. Steph was the first one to bale and hit the hay at around 10PM, but followed pretty soon afterward by G and the Spanish girls. Needless to say, we slept quite well under our mosquito nets despite the freezing temperature and rather short blanket.
The next morning after S tending to her two huge blisters and G trying to massage her sore ankle, we dined on crepes, honey and bananas before heading to the The Lavie waterfall, named by the French. S even climbed her way to the top of a pile of rocks for a better view of the crystal clear waterfall. However, G realized that she wouldn't be able to do the 4K back to
Local Women - Bac Ha Market
Ethnic Minority Women in local dress at the Bac Ha Market. Apparently it wasn't Kayne who brought back Neon. the main road - 1.3 of it straight vertical - she waved good bye to S and hopped on the back of a motorbike.
Both of us had quite and adventure. G weaved in and out of traffic, without a helmet, practically falling off the bike a few times. She chilled out and rested her ankle and chatted to the others that forwent the hike opted for a bike ride. While Steph, panted her way up, taking breaks every 10 or so minutes to catch her breath and managed to down her whole water bottle and half of her guide's within the first 30 minutes of the hour and half climb. After being passed by a middle aged woman and and 8 1/2 month pregnant Dzay guide, she bucked it up and finally came straggling up the dirt road.
We arrived back to Sapa around 5 PM and ate dinner around 6:30 PM and after playing a few rounds of cards and watching an extremely bizarre Vietnamese show, we fell asleep at 10 PM in our mosquito net cocoons, since we had a 6:45 AM wake call on Sunday morning.
The Bac Ha market was our fist stop in the AM, but it was a 3 hour drive away, so we plugged in the Ipod and once again did the winding drive of death. But this time we came even closer, as a motorbike tried to over take a truck going the opposite direction. When they saw our minbus going full speed ahead, it had no choice but to swerve off the road and run straight into a fence. The driver of our minibus came to an abrupt stop but didn't actaully get out to see if everyone was okay and off we went. Steph was by the window and it looked to her that all was okay with motorist as they were trying to dismount the bike without falling into the ditch btw the road and fence.
The Bac Ha market was busy with the 9 minority groups that live in the area getting prepared for the Tet New Year. It was quite spectacular scene with all the women dressed in brightly colored outfits. S couldn't help but get one of the neon plaid scarves, while G chose a stunning scarf for herself. At the edge of the market was the animal portion with pigs, horses, buffalo and dogs all on display for sale. We made our way past the fruit and nut stands then ventured thru the food stalls for as long as our nose and stomach would allow us. Proudly displayed were animal intestines, liver and feet. From here we had to elbow our way thru a bottle neck staircase to escape the madness. Don't worry it wasn't us being rude, we just realized after a few minutes of being push and tossed around, this was our only choice to make it out alive.
After lunch, we went to a village nearby where they still make houses out of sand, water and sugarcane honey. Then headed back into the bus and made a quick stop at the border crossing into China. We waved to China and promised to see it again in about 2 months. After a few Kong Fu moves with our tour guide - Nam, we made our way back to the train station in Lao Chai. Unfortunately, for us it was 6 PM and our train didn't leave till 9 PM. We got a quick bite with a quite strange Canadian - Dan, then wondered the dimly lit streets trying to entertain ourselves and make the time go by faster. Naturally, we busted out the "Fresh Prince of Bel Air" theme song, did the robot and chicken dance, tried to make up our own original rap song. After about an hour of that we resorted to playing cards in a restaurant till 8:30 rolled around and we lined up for the train.
The overnight sleeper train was again filled with more sleepless hours then the advertisement of actual sleep. Arriving back in Hanoi with it still being dark, we got into a taxi and got quite ripped off and ending up paying $4 instead of $2. Too tired to care, we stumbled into the hostel, snuck in a shower (we weren't actual guest of the hostel at this point), watch TV and caught up on some sleep. now we are off on an overnight bus to Hue. I'm sure we'll have tons to gripe about in our next blog about this grueling 16 hour bus ride.
Till then - lots of love
xxx
S & G
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JJ
non-member comment
Sapa-a-long-trekk
Hey girls!! I love this latest blog as well. Genny I hope your ankle is OK. pls take care of it. Stephanie you must be achy from all the extra hiking you did. The food looked delicious at the host family's house you stayed at. Post some pics of the both of you so we can all see how you are fairing through your journey! Be Well. Be Safe. Have fun. God Bless. <3 JJ