Sa Pa 2

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Woke up early and Sa Pa was shrouded in mist as far as the eye could see. Down in the street there was group of Hmong women chattering happily away. After an omlette and sweet bread toast and coffee for breakfast I put on my hiking boots and got ready for my 11km trek to a Hmong village.

We set off around 9am and wound our way down through the streets of Sa Pa until we hit a road out of town going down down down into the mist. We were followed by a gaggle of Hmong women in traditional dress - they are called the Black Hmong because they wear clothes that are black but with colourful embroidery. Apparently when a man wants a wife he 'kidnaps' his woman and locks her up for 3 days. If after 3 days she does not like him she tells him and he lets her go but she must eat some poisonous plant for some reason I could not understand. The Hmong bond for life - no divorces - and have only 2 children by choice. The married women wear elaborate ear rings so the men know not to kidnap them. The Hmong pair up around 15/16 years of age. The women are short - maybe under 5 feet - and really fit and strong from walking up and down the mountains - many with babies on their backs in their baskets. Everyone carries an umbrella.

We walked down for severla hours through rice paddies and huge stands of pine trees - the scenery was spectacular.
We passed many houses by the side of the road selling drinks and snacks for tourists. Apparently the Hmong men wre 'in the mountains working' but who knows what this means. They could ahve all been up in the mountains drinking rice wine and gambling. But if the women found out the men would be in big trouble.

Eventually we got onto a down hill track which was scary in places. I wa sglad I wore my hiking boots and had my walking stick from the Perfumed Garden. We came around a corner and there below us was a valley filled with rice paddies and little villages. It did not look far bit it took us another 2 hours to get there over a track built for goats. A Hmong women was my guide and protector and helped me across the dicey bits. A Hmong women attaches themselves to a trekker and floows you, talking to you, and showing you interesting things. Their English is really good.

At the bootom of the track there was a creek flowing through the bottom of the valley filled with granite raocks and pebbles. Someone is building a little hydro electricity plant on the creek to generate power for the Hmong. They have power now but only for electric lights - no TV. I bought a samll Hmong scarf from my guide and bargained her down to 100,000 vnd, but gave her another 100,000 vnd for helping me down the mountain. The others left me for dead - literally.

We had lunch in a restaurant built overlooking the creek - some kind of noodle and omlette soup which tasted great after walking for mearly 5 hours. After lunch we walked back over a really rocky road through Dao country. I got the feeling the Hmong and Dao are not the best of mates. The Dao were a lot more pushy trying to sell souvenirs with the line 'you bought from the Hmong but now you do not buy from the Dao - it is not fair.' What they fail to mention is that tour buses come to the Dao village and people buy lots of stuff but do not go into Hmong country so it evens out. I really like the Hmong women - they were polite, helpful, and did not do the hard sell.

By the time I got back to the bus I was exhausted. Back at the hotel I had a shower, early dinner, and then off to the train station for the night train back to Ha Noi.

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