Sapa, Chapter 3: In Which I Discover Things About Life and Stuff

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Life, the Universe, and Everything (and also Roasted Sweet Potatoes)

Eventually, travel glitches mostly ironed out and free to roam around, I began to explore the tiny mountain town in which I found myself. My travel book said it had been a sort of vacation getaway for the French, who built many beautiful villas that are now being restored. The houses really were unbelievably beautiful. I've never been to Europe, but you know those pictures of tall houses with ornate balconies and broad, multi-paned stained-wood windows, close together on steep, narrow roads? It was like that. Only in rural Asia, so those houses were all hotels and those steep, narrow roads were dotted with women under big umbrellas with tourist trinkets or fruits and vegetables spread out in front of them on blankets or low tables. One road was entirely lined by women on short stools behind wide grills over wood coals, selling roasted nuts and eggs and sweet potatoes. I have rarely smelled anything as enticing as those roasted sweet potatoes on that clear morning, and they made as delectable a breakfast as anyone could ask for. Women from isolated mountain tribes like the Hmong and the Red Zao roamed around the town plaza in their elaborate and colorful traditional dress with their babies strapped to their backs, selling beautiful embroidery and handmade silver jewelry, constantly bombarding you with wide smiles and a barrage of conversation: "What is your name? Where you from? How old are you? You very young! You married? You buy this from me? Pillowcase? Earring? Necklace? You buy this from me, yes? Jolie, jolie!"

Although to tell you the truth, after we arrived at 6am and I got my lodgings squared away by about 7 (this is where I would insert a picture of the UNBELIEVABLE view from my $8/night hotel window...if i had the camera cord!), I didn't go right down to where I knew the town center lay. Instead, drawn by the slightly chill mountain wind and the empty road that quickly ceased to be paved, I went up, further into the mountains and the farmland above and behind the town proper. It was here, sitting on a solitary rock after wandering for about 40 minutes, with the whole of an unspoiled and densely forested valley spread below me, an expanse of the vast and unknowable karstic peaks of Northern Vietnam above me, in the middle of wind-and-birdsong-filled nowhere (insert another picture here...), that something became clear to me about my purpose in traveling, and maybe even my purpose in life.

On the hour-long bus ride up the mountain from the train station to Sapa, I felt sick inside, and not just from the vicious switchbacks of the mountain road. The mountainside looked to me like a war veteran, disfigured by a mess of scars old and new (in fact it probably was a war veteran, but that's not what I mean). A whole mountain that should have been densely covered in trees and vegetation was stripped nearly bare, slashed-and-burned and cleared and even dynamited to permit a little bit of agriculture, a little bit of development, a little bit of growth. The whole mountain a wreck, just for a few acres of rice paddies and some ramshackle houses and shops along the road! What senseless destruction! It twisted my insides into a sickening knot, the way it would hurt to see a loved one marred by a grisly injury.

Later, perched on my mini-crag high above a different and more heartening mountain vista, my inner narrative (you must realize that the stuff I write in these emails is constantly running through my head as I'm living it) had dwindled to one word:
THIS.

A few statements vied for position after that. "...is why I came here." "...is why I'm going to owe the government money for the rest of my life so I can go to Yale." "...is like religion." But mosty it was just....This.

When I thought of the last statement, I was reminded of Eat Pray Love (again...I think about it frequently, haha, because I can relate so closely to a lot of the author's experiences), specifically the part where she's describing Hinduism, in which the Sanskrit word for god is simply "That." It occurred me that This and That aren't actually different, are they? It just depends on where you're standing.

I think that slightly muddled idea is a significant part of what "religion" is for me. The feeling behind it is a significant part of why I'm probably going to spend my life making no money but hopefully feeling at least useful. And also a significant part of why I travel. Because I realized I don't really care about tourist destinations. Museums are nice but not essential to me, historical points of significance I really couldn't care less about (I'm sorry, but it's true), cities have good food but I don't care about nightlife and they're too crowded and dirty to really be the point of my visiting a country or state, and I'm too perpetually poor to be shopping the way other tourists do. This is what really makes me happy: wandering around by myself on deserted roads or paths, looking at views that make my life worth living, identifying plant families by the side of the road (OOO!! Old World Melastomes! They really do look just like New World ones! COOL!!) (insert picture), attempting to express to lone old women in kerchiefs with hoes that their gardens are lovely and healthy and look like they will produce luscious vegetables (obviously as close as I got to expressing these sentiments was to repeat the words for - I think - Beautiful! Very beautiful! But Vietnamese is crazy and I could have said something else entirely, who knows?).

Also, I travel to have meals and/or coffe/tea by myself in cafes. That makes me happy too 😊 So, I guess the whole point of my globetrotting is just to be outside and to eat in cafes. This realization gave me a better idea of how to plan my trip in May, haha. I actually wonder what it would be like to travel with someone else. It would be cool to have someone to talk to sometimes, and I do miss people, but I'm happy being by myself, and I'm never actually sad to be alone (probably because I've never experienced anything else). If I had company I would be constrained by what they wanted to do, and what they want to do is probably not wandering around down dirt roads and up cow paths, or sitting for hours in cafes to linger and read over breakfast and tea. But who knows. Maybe I'll find out someday.

In any case, that concludes my Thoughts On Life, and I will continue with one more chapter, a summation of the people whose lives touched mine, sometimes briefly but always significantly, on my trip and after.

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