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Published: November 23rd 2008
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When we arrived in Sa Pa it was foggy, wet and pretty cold, so I was glad I had stuffed all my warm clothing in my small bag at the last minute along with an extra scarf. After a nice warm shower we felt a little better and were ready for our first visit to the towns of Lao Chai and Ta Van. As we walked outside we were immediately approached by the first of the local minorities, the Black H'Mong women, dressed in interesting looking outfits, with little black hats and black leather "legwarmers". Some spoke good English (the better the English, the more likely they'll be successful in selling their wares I'm sure ..) and all first conversations pretty much went like this: "Where you from?" (Holland) "Oh yeah, I know this, what's your name?" (Floor) "Oh nice to meet you, I'm Thi/Phom/Mai etc etc"- (not sure if these were their names but that's what they sounded like.) "You have husban?" (No) "You have boyfren?" (Yes) "How old are you?" (26) "Ooooh I am 25! I have two babies, girl/boy" "Look your face so young, my face so old (they had dark skin and all looked pretty old for
their age. Weathered skin and not surprising with their hard working lifestyle)
With some of them we tried to ask other questions and sometimes we learnt more about their lifestyle, that they lived in Lao Chai but that they walked to Sa Pa every day (a 1 and a half hour walk or more, up the mountain) - and this several times as we would see them back in town in the afternoon. They joined us for the entire walk to Lao Chai and as we figured this is when they opened their baskets and pulled out their handmade bags, bracelets, pillowcases. As it had been quite entertaining to (attempt to) speak with them, we had decided to give them something anyway. I bought a pillowcase (not the prettiest I saw but I think everyone felt obliged to get something from their "assigned" friend 😊 and Krista bought a small bag.
The walk itself was really nice, it was a shame it was so foggy, this mean the first hour we didn't have great valley views. As we got further down however it was beautiful, all the green and the layered rice fields. There was also the occasional
water buffalo family crossing our path and along the way there were plenty of other local people attempting to sell their wares. One succeeded with Krista who bought some earrings from a local granny. But they had obviously not put as much effort into their sales as our favourite H'mong ladies!
When we went for lunch and bought our goods we said goodbye to our H'mong ladies and had a noodle soup along the river in Lao Chai. As we got out of the restaurant (which was basically a family hut) the next group was already waiting for us, this was the Red Dzao minority group. They had hats similar to Santa Hats 😊 We had one girl in our group whose family was originally from Vietnam but had never visited. As she spoke Vietnamese she could speak with a lot of the people (although some of the minorities we met didn't speak Vietnamese, only their own language) and she explained that this minority group often travelled to the 'tourist towns' because no tourists visited their villages. They are also not allowed to have stalls in town, so the only way they can sell is by approaching the tourists
on their treks.
We were done walking by about 3pm and had a minivan waiting to take us back to our hotel. Our driver was a bit of a crazy driver who in the first turn already had a back wheel hanging off the cliff edge (part had fallen down). We all pretty much peed our pants at this point but luckily we made it forward and drove on. He didn't seem to change his driving style though and we all held our breath and were relieved to be back at the hotel! We had a nice ginger & honey tea at Baguette et Chocolat cafe with some delicious chocolate cake to reward us for our hiking in the rain 😊 We then met up with Paul and Ellen again who happened to be here as well and were leaving that night.
The next day we had slightly sore calf muscles and hips from the day before but ready to head for the towns CatCat and Sin Csai (?). It was slightly less foggy than the day before so we had a few nice valley views. We again had really nice people in our group, a mixture of
Western and Vietnamese so it was interesting to hear everyone's stories. We saw a lovely waterfall at Cat Cat and had some local barbeque food with our group at a small roadside stand: sticky rice in bamboo with peanut (which our guide called spinach but I think he was confused) as well as roast pork (I passed) and some interesting local rice and herbal wines. We continued to a restaurant which served us (surprise surprise...) noodle soup! I also decided to try a new fruit drink with winter melon tea which was next to tamarind juice the grossest thing I have ever drunk.
We then went off to a tiny village Sin Csai (I'm not sure if this was the name) where we visited a local family. It's funny that even in these remote and poor places, everyone seems to have a TV, electricity and Internet (you will always see kids playing online games). So in this farmhouse there were about 10 local kids watching TV and a few Black H'mong women doing some of their sewing. They were fascinated with our digital cameras and all the kids posed and naturally wanted to see the results. We made a
small 'donation' and this time walked back up the mountain to Sa Pa. We again stopped at Baguette&Chocolat - had another warm shower and got ready for another trip with the night train. We were really glad we had opted for the hotel instead of the homestay in town, we heard from one of the other travelers that she had woken up during the night with a large rat crawling on her head!! she didn't even dare to scream because she was sharing the room with 7 others...Eek..I was really happy to have had my bed!
Our trainride was again bumpy but I enjoyed several hours of semi-sleep and we arrived back in Hanoi at 6ish...we took a cab to our hotel and woke up the staff to let us in....well they had told us before this wouldn't be a problem....We quietly re-packed our bags and freshened up and headed for the airport again, this time for our flight to Hue. We had decided this would save us lots of time..unfortunately our flight was delayed for 3.5 hours (we then heard this was standard with Vietnam Airlines.) Still, we were in Hue by afternoon and I was glad not
to have slept in the night train again!! Our hotel (Thang long) was great and cheap and centrally located. More about Hue and our next stop Hoi An in the next one!
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An interesting experience
Your experience was so fantastic. Thanks for your sharing. Hope you have more good contribution. I am wondering if I could post this entry on our blogs with your permission. Also, the more people read, the more they desire to experience like you. I am looking forward to hearing from your positive reply!