Trekking the Countryside
Trip Start
Jun 05, 2008
1
33
38
Trip End
Sep 28, 2008
Sapa,
Vietnam
Sunday, October 19, 2008
The cloudy haze that had settled amidst the mountains was not clouds at all but the massive accumulation of smoke from farmers burning the lefover rice shells after the rice had been extracted from the plan. The golden harvest was over and many families were not taking the time to rest and relax.
The first several kilometers (yes i have now learned to think in kilometers!) were easy and downhill and full of other trekkers like me. We stopped at some roadside stands to test the mettle of our teeth by gnawing at some fresh sugar cane which is suprisingly tasty and not overly sweet. You gnaw and extract the sweet juices from the plant and then spit out the stringy mass left over. Little local kids were walking around with several feet worth of the plant just spitting and chewing, spitting in chewing. The gateway to tobacco and betel juice... i can just see it.
After 6 hours of walking a relatively easy path atop mud barriers spearating rice paddies and through dirt paths in local villages and over rock bridges that cross rushing rivers, we arrive at our homestay. My host, or rather hosts, are two wizened grandparents that look older than day but could very well be in just their fifties or sixties. With few teeth to spare, and hunched nearly parallel to the floor from heavy labor, their movements are slow, calm, deliberate, and peaceful. Their only way to communicate, through gap-toothed smiles, is endearing, somewhat hilarious, and even more laughable as the old man gets drunk at dinner off of his daughter's home made rice wine - "happy water." The food is absolutely delicious and reminds me of home - tofu, stir-fried morning glory, chicken and pork with mushrooms, carrots, and cabbage. Fresh rice (my favorite!!!) and shots of rice wine between about every 10 bites someone in teh family decides to celebrate something - being their next bite or maybe their previous bite.
People live in nucear family systems with grandparents, children, and grandchildren all living under the same roof. And sharing rather close quarters, one outhouse, small gardens, and for the lucky ones pigs, ducks, and chickens. At night time, as I relax in front of the house listening to the rushing river below us, an immense quacking sound suddenly splits the air and a parade of dozens of ducks and ducklings squabble and squawk their way across my path and into their shed.
I sleep little that night as the effects of the rice wine dissipate, my fullness of deliciosu food decreases, and the mouse that torments me in my sleeping area is relentless in his search for something. I had cornered him earlier but aftering a face-off, I realized there was little to do and preferring a living mouse to a dead one in my sleeping area, walked away in submissive defeat and acceptance that this was also his territory, perhaps more than mine!
The day begins early in Ban Ho village. The rooster demands that it be that way. But morning activity is all a blur - the stoking of the fire, feeding of the animals, preparation of breakfast, and the constant sweeping and sweeping and sweeping of the floor.
We set on in the morning after a pancake breakfast with 16 kilometers to go before our next homestay. Resting atop a rock slab overlooking endless of rows of rice paddies, I was amused watching a flock of ducks preening and bathing and tail waggling in a harvested rice paddy now full of water. Suddenly the ducks form a massive huddle and urgently float together and tighten into a squabbling huddle. "Mee" I say, "they're getting ready to go somewhere, where could they be going." Mee points at the sky where above us a soaring eagle glides hungrily eyeing any food below.
I guess they weren't planning for any adventure. The next predator to approach the skittish birds is a water buffalor with absolute disinterest in the happenings of the duck flock only with the location of the next available blade of grass/hay/fruit to devour. Warily eyeing buffalo...one step closer...and the ducks sqauwk into a frenzy waddling as close together as possible, some fleeing to the mud barrier and subsequently toppling over into the paddy below. The buffalor unknowingly takes a few more deadly predatory steps to the ducks and even more of then topple over the embankment to the next paddy and more flutter and squawk their way into a tighter huddle. The ducks that fell overboard are back in the game and waddling back up to their gaggle (right?) to join in protection in numbers even if it entails sprint-waddling past the buffalo.
That event made the trip.
