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Published: November 16th 2010
Tough Life
You wouldn't believe she's only 27It’s quite amazing, we can’t read or speak Vietnamese but within minutes of stepping off of the train at 5am it feels like we have come home. Firstly the taxi driver understood where we wanted to go and we were able to negotiate a price. Hello Hanoi, we’re glad to be back.
All trains seem to arrive in Hanoi at stupid o’clock, luckily the hotels are all used to this and we were two of many when we turned up at 5.30. They were really nice, asked us if we would wait until 7 when they’d serve us breakfast and then they would let us have a room as soon as today’s occupants cleared out and they could clean it. By 9am we were settled in, wouldn’t get that at a Premier Travel Inn.
It was a nice feeling being back in Vietnam, you walk down the street and even if you don’t understand the words you can read and pronounce them (badly). We had a couple of days in Hanoi and all we did was chill, use the numerous street cafes, walk around the lake and soak up the sun. One thing we noticed is that in the
Sweet Sapa
view from the Dragon Jaw mountain 6 months since we left the standard of scooter has definitely improved and a lot more people are driving cars. This economy must be on fire because we see more Beemers, Mercs & even Rollers than in Sutton Poyntz and there is a 120% import tax on them!!!
Very soon it was off to catch our next night train to SaPa. We eventually found our way to the correct side of the platform (flippin Cabbies) and settled in to a couple of bunks on the Orient Express, not quite luxurious as it sounds, it’s just another shoddy Vietnamese copy. We were sharing a cabin with a couple of local tour guides so that was interesting to have someone to chat to about how it is for the average Vietnamese at the moment, they seem pretty happy with the way things are going, so it can’t be bad.
We were met at the station and taken by minibus to our hotel, the ‘Fanispan View’ which was described as a hidden gem on trip advisor and they were spot on. All of those annoying little things were washed away by great customer service. It has usually been pretty high in
Amazing countours
it looks like a 3D map Vietnam but this really was excellent. We checked in, picked up a map and then headed off into the mountains.
Sapa (or Sa Pa) is in the North East of Vietnam, in the Hoang Lien Mountains and only a few Km from China. It was founded around 1900 when the plateau was noticed by the French governors of the region and quickly became a summer retreat and a focal point & administrative centre for the many villages dotted throughout the mountain range. When you first arrive the thing that strikes you is that there is hardly any natural mountain slope left, over the last few hundred years the lower slopes have been turned into millions of beautiful rice terraces, everywhere you look the landscape looks like a 3D contoured map, it’s quite amazing and would be really stunning when the terraces are completely filled with water. It is a monumental effort to not only create but maintain the paddy-fields, the surface area of the terraces is calculated according to the available water flow and the terraces must be perfectly level, a technique the current villagers’ ancestors brought with them when they emigrated from China during the 19th century. Big
Tru Love?
would the next Mrs Emblen please stand up, oh she is. respect.
We trekked of to Cat Cat village, one of the homes to the black H’Mong people, very quickly we were joined by a few women and children uttering ‘where u from’ and ‘u buy from me’. One particular lady who, obviously, took a shine to Chris (and not his wallet) offered to show us her village so we told her that as we were poor backpackers we couldn’t buy anything from her and her children but if she stayed with us until the end we’d donate a couple of bucks. Deciding that we’d only get her and not her children for that price, she packed them off to find some others suckers, sorry ‘most welcome guests’. The village was pretty, in a run down wooden shack type of way, but the surrounding scenery was stunning. Although there was a permanent haze, the sun was beating down and the mountains rose majestically either side of us. Tru, our guide, took us through the village and out to a lovely waterfall in the valley, it was at this point we realised that we had been walking down for the last 90 minutes and now couldn’t go any further down. Oh
Vietnam Mickey D's
with the ingredients waiting patiently to be served. well, this is why we’d carried our walking poles everywhere. Tru led us back up and out of the village, just stopping long enough to whisper a teary farewell and undying love to her future husband (or did we mistranslate ‘give me all your money’) and left us to negotiate the really steep bit back to the town. Every so often a cheerful scooter driver offered to give us a lift back to the top but despite the distances getting shorter with each offer, the price seemed to be getting higher, must be a cost/heart attack correlation somewhere there. After a quick shower and change we headed out to explore the town and then quickly headed back to change into warmer clothes, boy does it get chilly quickly here. As you’d expect in a town dedicated to tourism there are plenty of places to eat but on this cold night there didn’t seem to be many people so we opted for a small local place and decided to try the BBQ’d wild boar, nice.
The next day we had booked a guide to take us on a longer trek to some of the other villages. Duong turned up and
What are we selling Mum
teaching the youngsters the art of marketing spoke great English, turned out to be charming company and was very knowledgeable about all things Sapa related. There are a number of ethnic groups in the area, in fact about 24 in all each with their own language, culture and traditions. There are the main groups, the Hmongs, the Tay & the Dao, along with others and each group is split again into subgroups, for example, the White Hmong, the Hmong Leng, the Hmong Pua and the Hmong Shi and most prevalent in Sapa the Black Hmong. They all have their own way of dressing, immediately you think that’s hammed up for the tourists, but later as we walked out into the countryside you see everyone working in the fields wearing the same lovely colourful garments.
We trekked off through the streets then out into the countryside, he took us through Y Linh Ho, a Black H’Mong village and off over the rice terraces and paddy field. Sharing our trek with pot bellied pigs, munching buffalo and the odd brightly coloured cockerel, was all a bit surreal. The 16Km then meandered down the valley via Lao Chai and finally ending in Ta Van. At each place we were
Hundreds of years
of backbreaking effort to create these terraces invited in to check out the living conditions (not great) and obviously to purchase plenty of souvenirs (politely declined). The ladies are amazing, they will follow you for miles and miles if they think there is a sniff of flogging a penny whistle or headscarf. The location of their husbands? Just hanging in Sapa, drinking coffee and playing the odd game of cards probably. All too soon we reached the end of today’s adventure and, seeing as during the 16Km we had also walked down 500m, we were glad the guide had laid on a lift back up the hill.
Sapa is definitely a place to take your time in and there are plenty of opportunities chillaxing in a café our just wandering through a market. The next day we did just that, with only a brief hike up Ham Rong (or Dragon Jaw) mountain, which sits in the middle of town and offers great views of Mt Fanispan (or Fan Xi Pan) and the surrounding countryside. Another cracking spot for a lunch break. That evening what a surprise we had, we were walking past one of the restaurants along the main street, looked in and would you believe
Us again
& don't we look pale it, inside sat Ali Wald, a friend we met, and last saw, in New Zealand nearly a year ago, sat with a new travelling buddy. Having left the Kat half of the ‘AliKat’ duo back at law school in London she decided, like us, that life was too short to settle just yet. Unfortunately they were just about to leave Sapa so we could only share a few precious moments but what an amazing, tiny little world we inhabit.
Our last day we took off to the North to explore some of the quieter villages, it was a shorter, easier trek but again lovely simply to be walking through a valley, with the sun shining down, the mountains either side of us and only the happy sounds of local children as you pass through the tiny villages. “Hello, Bye Bye” are probably the first words these little darlings learn as they soon realise it may result in sweets being handed out, frowned upon in ‘oh so safe’ England but encouraged here, and good job too. We ended our trek in Ta Phin, home to the Red Dao people. They arrived here a few hundred years ago bringing oriental herbal
Wot no Wii
you have to make your own entertainment here remedies for everything and they now use some of that knowledge to provide herbal baths to weary travellers which, we believe, often leave the bather in a bit of a hazy, dreamlike state. Not sure what herbs those are but we’d better not send any home!
We stopped for lunch in the shop/café/hut in the middle of the village where everyone seems to congregate, well all of the village women anyway. While we were sat there they overcame their coyness and then one or two of them took a shine to Chris, especially an elderly lady, who still had most of her teeth. To try to woo him she convinced him her child bearing days were over and she could dedicate her time to him. Lisa intrigued by this then proceeded to try to sell Chris, and a sort of auction ensued. A much younger lady, with only 2 children and all her own teeth, declared that he could marry her, they would have 18 children then he wouldn’t have to work in the field. After making 18 babies, walking might be a problem let alone working. So when a few more love rivals declared their interest Lisa started
Wife no 4
although she does look a lot like a friend of ours seriously considering her options, especially when it turned out he could marry them all. But the love match was thwarted when one of them mentioned that she would have to donate 10 buffalo to each wife, a price at least 9 ½ buffalo more than she was willing to consider. The course of true love never did run smooth.
Back to Sapa, then off to the night train back to the capital. It may have been the busy days or mountain air but both of us slept like babies on the way back, at least until the train arrived in Hanoi at 4.30am (who invented these stupid timetables). The early arrival did give us the opportunity for a rather bizarre experience. We decided to pop and see the ‘Father of Modern Vietnam’, the much loved Ho Chi Minh or Uncle Ho. Obviously being not of this earth it wasn’t a conversation we were after but it’s a chance to gaze upon the very grey (and a bit scary) body of the leader. He has lain in state in his mausoleum, inspired by Lenin’s tomb in Moscow, since 1975. It’s all very solemn as you are herded very carefully around;
Only 9 more
and you can marry Chris no signs of disrespect are allowed, such as sunglasses or talking and definitely no cameras. As there were as many soldiers as viewers Chris wasn’t going to try to add this to his list of “Great places I have mooneyed”. As you walk around you can’t help thinking he looks like he’s going to wake up any minute and why did the theme to the munsters keep ringing in our head? We switched hotels, because of overcrowding, to the Little Hanoi Hostel 2 and that turned out to be a great move. It’s right on the side of Hoan Kiem Lake, in the centre of the city, great for shopping, eating and handy for the Laos consulate. The weather seems to be relenting a bit in the south so we are heading off to the beach in Mui Ne, so fingers crossed and if we don’t post for a while you know it’s good.
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