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In the northwest highlands
Entry 38 of 69 | show all | print this entry |
Wow, what a cool experience--I just had a great meal after being invited into the home of some incredibly nice local Bac Ha-ians here in NW Vietnam. This is what the old hospitality code in most countries hundreds of years ago must have been like--see a solo traveller walking around in the rain, invite them in for a chat, keep them there for a yummy pork and lemongrass dinner, then send them off with a full stomach and tired smiling & laughing muscles, and don't accept anything in return but thanks and another smile. And add in one free moto ride back to their hotel (well, that one probably wasn't on the original hospitality code). What nice people!
That being said, here's the highlands story in a nutshell:
Sapa Met up with Marcello and Simon, the Italianos, again after hopping on a night train up to this beautiful hilly area filled with rice paddy terraces. The main aims were to do some trekking (light trekking, mind you!) and to get a sense of some of the country's 'ethinic minorities' (seems to be one of Vietnamese tourism's favourite phrases--brings in the gawkers like me!). It was great to be back in the mountains (well, hills) with pine trees and cooler weather (and a bit less beeping).
I spent quite a bit of time in the big Saturday market, taking photos of the very colorful people and clothes and fending off the constant attempts of H'mong, Dtay, Zao, etc. women to sell me blankets, earrings, and every type of textile imaginable. I lost the battle with one really sweet woman, Xiu, who like many other women was walking around all day with her baby slung on her back. After several conversations throughout the day, she finally convinced me I needed a beautiful silver bracelet she was wearing that her sister had given her. I tried to convince her she needed to keep such a special family gift, but she was the more powerful and I parted with my $4 fairly willingly enough. Such a sucker. One of the 2 bead bracelets from Boulder that I've been wearing continuously for the past 3 and a half years finally broke when we were putting on my new bracelet--symbolic, maybe?
I also finally got a photo of a pig strapped to a motorbike, a shot I'd been trying to get since Lao--although it was really only a half of a pig (or so), fairly flayed open (and extra parts hanging off the handlebars...)--eeeewwwwwwwww...
The 3 of us did a very nice hike into the Cat Cat valley that afternoon, and cause we were gluttons for punishment, did another very loooong hike down, down, down to a couple of villages in the valley below Sapa the next day. We saw some incredible landscapes of terraced paddies and the current rice harvest in action, and met some very nice young H'mong kids who tagged along for the company as impromptu guides and for some free English practice (and probably to get out of the harvest work!).
Bac Ha and Coc Ly--I left the Italianos for a little side trip to 2 other villages in the area so I could visit some other markets and work on my people pics. Didn't get so many in the market, though I was invited to join a table full of fairly drunk guys for a bowl of pork noodle soup and some very nasty homebrew firewater. Bulgarian rakia tastes like a smooth chardonnay compared to that stuff. It took me at least 10 minutes to uncross my eyes...Another day spent double up on a motorbike--aren't there any TALL motorbike designers who understand the needs of long-legged passengers? Tonight, it's back on the train to Hanoi once again...
Soooo, after a couple of days back in the capital, I'll be heading back to Chiang Mai to do 3 weeks of Thai massage courses (any volunteers for my practice sessions? :)) and catch up with email and some of this travelogue, and photos organizing (i have about 12,000 pictures from this trip so far, oi...). After that, I was planning to head to Nepal/Tibet/India, but the political situation in Nepal is getting worse and worse every week (the Peace Corps even just pulled out...), so I'm going to have to seriously rethink. Maybe straight to India, maybe down to Oz/NZ. Any suggestions? :)
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