You buy from me?
Trip Start
Aug 24, 2008
1
30
129
Trip End
Jul 07, 2009
Sapa,
Vietnam
Sunday, December 14, 2008
We started walking and were joined by a group of women and girls from the Hmong tribe who live in the mountains here. They said that they were walking back to their village which was on the same route as we were taking so could they walk with us. While we walked they talked to us. They spoke some English which they had learned from talking to the tourists. They told me they couldn't read or write though. I spoke to a girl who was 12 years old and told me about her family who live in the hills. They were all wearing their traditional dress which consisted of indigo skirts and cross stitch on the hem and around their sleeves and very bright colors. They had black leather bands up their legs. If you look at the photos you will get a better idea. They asked all sorts of questions about us and told us about their huge families. The girl I spoke to had 11 brothers and sisters.
The walk took us through beautiful mountains and rice paddies with little wooden villages dotted in between them . David and I had not seen any pictures of Sapa before deciding to come so we were very surprised at how beautiful it was. We followed dirt tracks and climbed over rocks and past rivers, and we stopped for lunch on the way. It was there that the reason for the friendliness of the Hmong people became apparent as they all started to get out crafts and bags they had made and try to sell them to us, each one saying "You buy from me?" over and over. It was not nice being pressured, so despite thinking their crafts were quite pretty, I did not buy any. In the afternoon we walked further to a little village where we were to spend the night in a homestay. Unfortunately they didn't speak much English so we couldn't really talk to them but we had a nice room and there was a veranda overlooking the rice fields.
David and I went for a wander down to the river and sat on a rock and watched it flow for a bit. We then walked back up to the village where two tiny children were sitting in the dirt eating rice, with a girl feeding it to the boy, who was smaller. Two other children also came over to look at us. We had 4 bananas left from lunch in my bag so I gave them to the children, who took them eagerly but then didn't seem to know what to do with them. The girl sat on hers! I showed one boy how to peel it and he ate it, and David peeled one for another boy who then stood there open-mouthed while David put bits of banana in his mouth, like a bird. We thought this must be how his mother feeds him! In the evening we had some dinner and played some cards before bed.
The next day we were given chocolate and banana pancakes for breakfast, which were yummy! Then we walked back through the fields again, which were quite slippery and muddy, and then had lunch by the river. From here we took the bus back to Sapa. We walked around the town in the afternoon. Dinner at the hotel was terrible so we went for a second dinner at a delicious French place called Baguette and Chocolate, where we had baguettes and chocolate, surprisingly!
The following day we took the bus to Bac Ha, which took 3 hours. There we went to the market. It was full of the local hill tribe, the Flower Hmong, who were there to buy their buffalo and chickens, as well as their clothes and food. There were loads of animals for sale including squealing pigs and horses. The flower Hmong wear really brightly coloured hand-sewn clothes and hats and I bought some of the cloth they use as a souvenir. The women were all buying new outfits, even though the new outfits looked exactly the same as the ones they were wearing. It was very interesting to watch them. After lunch we went to a house belonging to the Flower Hmong, to nose about. It was pretty basic, made of mud with no electricity, and their multicoloured skirts hanging on the washing line. Everything was dirty and dusty. The family had recently had bad luck so there was a soothsayer there to tell their fortune. They paid him 3 chickens! After the house we went to see the local King's palace, which is now a local government building. We then went back to Lao Cai and saw the Chinese border. We had some food before catching the overnight sleeper train back to Hanoi.
