Sapa & bac ha

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"crowded bus"

HAPPY NEW YEAR

I left Hanoi a few days ago and I am currently in Hue, Vietnam (near the old DMZ). Christmas saw the continuation of a seemingly never ending "technical" meltdown when my external Hard drive "failed" and then to top it off I accidentally deleted some original photos off my Laptop. I have been trying to rebuild my lightroom photo database and make back-up copies on DVDs. I had many DVDs that would not burn (i guess they were bad) and now I just discovered that some of the DVDs that I thought burned properly and worked for a while are no longer any good. Luckily, I do have multiple copies of the DVDs on different brands of DVDs.

click here to for more photos from sapa


click here to for more photos from Bac Ha


Sometimes it gets frustrating outside the western world when it comes to "technical" things. First, It isn't like you can run over to a "bestbuy" and find everything you need. Second, having to haggle to get a "correct" price (even in stores in malls) sometimes gets tiring. Third, if you do find a store, you never know if you are buying pirated or genuine products, from Sony DVDs to Canon cameras (again i am talking about tech products, we all know that the northface, lowe pro ... are fakes). By Store i don't mean a little shady shop but a regular looking camera store or a store in a modern shopping mall. For example, in hanoi there are quite a few camera stores, small and big. most of these are selling grey market product which come with no warranties (though the shop owner will tell you there is a warranty) To protect yourself you have to go to canon's website and find a list of authorized dealers which i did and bought a new canon 40D 😊. Anyway, after spending a few days indoors working on my photos I am hitting the road tomorrow and heading to Hoi An, Vietnam for a few days.


To get caught up on my vietnam blogs, this blog will focus on Sapa. Sapa is a great place to escape the crowds of hanoi or the heat of the south. It is located in the "northwest" of Vietnam near China. It is a very touristy town with many restaurants and hotels. With this said it doesn't feel too over run by tourists. If the weather is clear you will have million dollar views from your $6 hotel room. There is a daily market and on Saturday there is a market "for" the Red Dzao and on Sunday a market "for" the Black H'mong. On any given day the streets will have many Black H'mong and Red Dzao women selling "handmade" items. Along with them occasionally there will be a few Black Dzao women who along with the older H'mong are probably the most persistent saleswomen. You can do day trips to visit local minority villages (where you will be bombarded with sales offers from smiling women and children) or even take multi day trips to villages farther away. A lot of tourists will go to Bac ha for the Sunday market dominated by flower H'mong. I went to the Bac ha market and spent the night. there was probably only a handful of westerners that spent the night versus a hundred or so that came earlier in the day for a few hours.

I took the train back to Hanoi and while on the train I thought - I should have visited some of the more remote villages. Inspired by Anders (a Swedish photographer I met (sorry Anders didn't mean to label you)) i decided to head back to sapa, rent a motorcycle and head out to some of the smaller villages which will be the subject of my next blog.

HAPPY NEW YEAR WISHES TO ALL OF YOU - David


oh by the way there is a video in this blog which is taken on the bus ride from laos to vietnam

F O T O S B Y D AV I D C O M

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Comments

[Jim B]

Great
Dave, I enjoyed your blog and pictures once again, keep it up. Have a Very Happy and Safe New Year. Looking forward to seeing you when you make it back to the states. Take care.