Blazing Trails with Buffalos in Sapa

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I’m going to start with an apology for this blog on Sapa being extra long...so much to share!

The train trip to Lao Cai was fantastic and went exactly to plan, however the Hanoi station experience was less painless. Firstly we weren’t entirely sure we were waiting in the right ‘ticket office’ for our boarding passes as everything was shut even though the train was supposed to leave in 15 minutes; secondly, we were the only non-locals in the room and Andrew was attracting a lot of attention - to a point where one man’s fascination with blond arm hair drove him to walk over and stroke Andrew’s arm in disbelief...very uncomfortable for Andrew, but very amusing for me; thirdly we were not prepared for the severe pushing and shoving that suddenly ensued when the ticket counter eventually opened - luckily I had prior ‘large crowd’ experience from living in Hong Kong that came in handy to keep our spot in the queue and also ensure some degree of personal space was maintained.

We had booked soft sleeper cabins on the overnight train to Lao Cai. Although very small, the cabins were comfortable enough and we were glad there were only four bunks in the cabin rather than the six bunks in the hard sleeper cabins. We were sharing with two Vietnamese boys - a student who spoke English and was going to Sapa for a relative’s funeral, and the other was a pest controller (we gathered as such from the logo on his shirt and the bulky equipment he had). The pest controller spoke no English but was very friendly and eager to communicate with hand gestures and pictionary! We invited him to play Gin Rummy with us and even though he declined, he participated by sitting behind me and eagerly clapping and laughing whenever I had a good hand - trying to communicate that you had to keep a poker face about the cards in your hand was completely lost in translation. 😊

After the train pulled out of the station, the air conditioning was turned on - comfortably cool at first but arctic cold later on. We were able to sleep most of the way, except for the student’s phone that rang and beeped all night. We arrived at the Lao Cai station at 6am and were faced with what felt like 50 taxi drivers blocking the entrance to the station, all jostling to get customers. We were so glad that we had pre-arranged a minibus pick up to Sapa as we were really not in the mood for haggling at that time of the morning. The trip to Sapa was driven at great speeds through thick fog on a winding and scary mountain road…like a roller coaster ride but without the seat belts and safety rails! 😞

When we reached Sapa, our hotel room wasn’t ready yet, so the first order of the day was to hunt for coffee and pastries. I have been remiss in not mentioning the Vietnamese coffee until now. A Ca Phe Sua is equal parts coffee and condensed milk, and is strong enough to make a sloth sprint. This heart starter comes piping hot (Andrew’s choice) or icy cold (Ren’s choice). With strong coffees and chocolate croissants in hand, we silently watched a town come to life from an upstairs café window… children walking to school; women hurrying to the morning market; groups of colourful hill tribe women walking into town with their wares; and tourist touts settling into their spots on street corners in readiness to pounce on unsuspecting tourists should they dare make eye contact.

With our sugar and caffeine fixes out of the way, we walked back to Chau Long Hotel and checked into a very cute wooden and red silk room with a brilliant view of the valleys and misty mountains. After a most refreshing nap, we set off to explore the town.

On the eastern extremity of the Himalayas sits Vietnam's highest mountain, Fan Si Pan (3142m) which carries Sapa on its side (about 1600m). Sapa is a small town near the Chinese border, 350km north-west of Hanoi. The weather is much milder in Sapa and I can see why this hill station was a summer retreat for the French colonial masters. It was clear and sunny for periods of our stay but we had been warned that it has its share of moody drizzly days. Sapa is culturally very rich and sits in a spectacularly beautiful setting. There are many minority hill tribes living in the hills, predominantly the Black H'mong (who wear blue black plant dyed clothes) and Red Zao people (the women wear scarlet turbans and shave their eyebrows). The local market was a sight to behold and our cameras just couldn’t do the animation justice.

Sapa demonstrates the adage that ‘tourism can be a curse as much as a blessing’ more than any other place I’ve been to - the hill tribes have taken to tourism very aggressively and you have to wonder at the loss of dignity and social impact of it all. On the flip side, the government wouldn’t spend money on roads and electricity for the area if not for tourism and some of the tribes have become relatively wealthy as a result of the tourist trade. I am all for free enterprise; however we quickly got tired of the physical thrusting of wares in our faces while we were walking around. The hill tribe women gather in small throngs along the street waiting for tourists to arrive from the station or step out of their hotels. The women have a routine - they descend en masse, and it starts very jovially with a “Hello, where you from? You are very beautiful. How old are you? You are married? Have you children?”. The negative answers to the last two questions usually meant a further two minutes of “Ohhh why not?” Or an accusatory question thrown Andrew’s way - “why you not marry her?”. We learnt fast, and for the rest of our time in Sapa we were married and we had three children who were being looked after by their grandmother while we were away (kind of true, except our babies have fur and four legs each). The pleasantries done with, the barrage starts. “You buy from me? You buy from me? I am your friend. You buy from me ok? You buy! I have many beautiful things”. They are friendly but tenacious. They have to be, we are how they make a living. Defeated in our efforts to walk around the town in peace, we retired to the sanctuary of one of the many bars and cafés lining the main street to watch the action from afar...

We left for our trek the next day, and the trekking was absolutely fabulous. We had a young local Black H’mong guide named Long who was very knowledgeable about not just the geography and culture of the area, but she also had some interesting insights into how westernisation was affecting the culture of the tribes. We walked from Sapa into the villages and out past the rice fields into mountainous country, and then through more villages. It is quite breathtaking to walk towards, and then into, a striking picture postcard image - majestic Mt Fan Si Pan surrounded by blue tinged Tokenise Alps in the background, and a foreground of beautiful rich green cascading rice terraces which have been cultivated for centuries. We walked for hours along ancient walking paths between farms, followed worn buffalo trails that led up muddy hills and down steep embankments, and balanced (sometimes unsuccessfully) on the narrow and slippery ridges of the terraced rice fields...and finally stopped for a picnic lunch at a riverside camp. Unfortunately I was nursing a slightly dodgy tummy from dinner the night before and couldn't have the yummy looking lunch Long made us - Andrew got a double serve of fresh baguettes with Vietnamese omelette and salad. I would have enjoyed this experience so much more if I was feeling well enough to carry my own day pack, and if my lungs were not weighed down from a cough I developed after sleeping in the sub-zero temperatures of the upper bunk on the overnight train from Hanoi. But I struggled through it and there was no one happier to finally reach Ta Van Village where we were staying the night with a Giay/Zay family.

We had expected a small traditional family home, but instead it turned out to be a 16 bed guesthouse that we shared with three other travelling couples and their local guides. Even though not strictly traditional, this actually turned out to be a fun way to do a home stay. Dinner that night was just delicious - spring rolls we had helped to make, as well as various meat and vegetable stir fries cooked by the family and the local guides. It was so lovely to sit down to eat with this family and the other travellers, with the local guides acting as translators. The lodgings were simple but clean and very comfortable, although Andrew’s long Australian frame found the Asian beds a tad too short! We also loved the fact that the house had a resident kitty and two doggies, one who took us on a guided tour of the village - sooo cute. The local dogs look like a cross between the Australian Dingo and the Japanese Akita. 😊

I have to make special mention of the home made rice wine our hosts freely passed around with dinner, it’s like grappa but slightly more throat catching, and had enough alcohol to floor a small donkey. A Belgian lad, a Swiss guy now living in Sapa and Andrew stayed up and finished the rather large bottle - apparently it would have been rude not to. Andrew still managed to wake up early the next morning and walk around the village, watching a farming community start its day. I stayed in bed until I could smell breakfast, which turned out to be delicious pancakes served with honey and lime - made by nana!

That day we trekked to Su Pan Village; I was feeling much better today and really enjoyed the trek even though it was much steeper and more difficult than the day before. Our favourite bit of the trek was walking through bamboo forests that reminded us of scenes from The House of Flying Daggers - just gorgeous. I was also very happy to have sat on a buffalo. Yes, I sat on a buffalo. Realising that I had a ‘thing’ for animals, Long encouraged me to walk up to a herd of water buffalos enjoying their morning nap in the sun and sit on the big papa buffalo. Mind you I was holding Long’s hand and only sat long enough for Andrew to take a quick pic! 😊

After many more hills and much more muddiness, we stopped at another riverside camp to have lunch. Long whipped up a salad and beef noodle soup while we collapsed on small plastic stools in a thatched hut that overhung the river. There we were, sitting quietly, catching our breath and taking in all that peaceful rural scenery when I thought a bomb exploded behind me. I turned in time to see a rather large American guy and his little plastic stool starting to disappear through the thatched floor! All the local guides rushed to his side and managed to save him from hurting himself, but I’m rather ashamed to say that neither Andrew nor I lent a hand...it really took us by surprise and by the time we recovered, we were laughing so hard that it was a bit hard to move. Now before you go judging us, his much smaller partner was also laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes - so you just have to believe us that it was really really hilarious. We had met this couple while walking around Ta Van village the previous night and he had commented that they should have brought sleeping bags as he could not fit on the small home stay bed...he should have brought his own ‘sturdy stool’ too. Those tiny plastic stools are ubiquitous in Vietnam and you just have to learn to sit/balance on them if you wish to frequent local establishments. 😄

This was the end of our trekking adventure and we returned to Sapa for a few last hours before another hell raising minibus trip to Lao Cai to board our overnight train back to Hanoi.

We had always talked about doing a village home stay on a trek but neither of us are sure if we would do it again... as fun as it was, and as gorgeous as our hosts and local guide were, I think we would have both preferred a private room where we could have had a nice long shower in our private bathroom and settled into bed to rest up for the next day. Although I have a feeling we may feel differently about this with time...

(postscript: we have already decided that we would love to do another village home stay!)

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Photos

homestay in ta van village
Long our Black H'mong guide