A Walk in the Clouds

  Sapa, Vietnam
Wednesday, October 29, 2008

OK... so upon arriving in Hanoi, we went straight to find a few our companies that might take us to visit Sapa, a famous town in northern Vietnam where you can go for hikes and visit hill tribes... And that's just what we did...

Ready to leave on our tour, Tom and I sat in a cafe near the pick-up point and ordered a nice meal... at which point I remembered... "AH! My document wallet!" Once again, I put it in a safe place and forgot about it... It's so unlike me to leave things behind, but this is the third time this trip... When we had arrived at our hostel, I had put the document wallet under the mattress so that should anyone go in our room they wouldn't even see it... Tom offered to go for me, but I ran, it wasn't his fault after all! Unfortunately, after frantically running around for half an hour, I couldn't find it, so I went back because time was running out to get on our bus... Tom had eaten, so I sat and gulped mine down while he ran back, got the wallet from a pretty annoyed hostel manager (fortunately there was no-one in the room) and got a motor-cycle ride back... for which he was royally ripped off, but under the circumstances, we didn't care! My hero!! I seriously have got to run out of luck soon - we have a check list now, so hopefully it won't happen again!!

Sapa - the view from our hotel balcony

Anyway, that little panic over with, we got on a mini-bus and then onto a night train to Lao Cai, where we were picked up at 5am and taken up hill to the town of Sapa... It is an old French Colonial town that has been flattened and rebuilt more than once...

On our first day we had some free time in the morning, followed by a guided walk to Cat Cat, a tribal village, home to some of the Black H'Mong people... It wasn't a long walk, but it took us through misty hills, past lots of crafts women selling their wares at incredibly varying prices, and weaving around farm land and rice fields.

Waterfall in Cat Cat Valley, Sapa

This lead us to a beautiful waterfall in the Cat Cat valley, where we were able to see some traditional dancing, though only from a distance... We also saw a gorgeous butterfly and a tiny, tiny hummingbird, which made my day!! I tried to take some pictures of the hummingbird, but as you can imagine, it was pretty fast and came out very blurry... darn it!!

We made our way back up (and up and up) to Sapa after that and had a nice shower and dinner at the hotel, followed by a walk around the night market in the town square... again we didn't buy anything, but it was good to have a look around.

Buffalo resting from work in the rice paddies

The next day we got up pretty early, had some vegetable noodle soup for breakfast and set off for the main trek of the trip... The moment we stepped out the door we had a group of Black H'Mong ladies following us down the hill... they chatted a little, asking us how old we were, our names, our ages and whether we were married... We had already been told about this little addition to the trip, so it was no surprise and didn't worry us at all... they were all really friendly and kept us company...

H'Mong lady at the top of a hill

We were literally walking in the clouds, because Sapa is really high up... the day started a little drizzly, but it soon cleared up, and the further down we walked, the more we could see. Again, we made our way through farm land and fields and came to our lunch spot pretty quickly. We had a little picnic of bread, cheese and pear and when we came out, our H'mong ladies were waiting to show us some of their handy crafts...

My favourite H'mong lady - beautiful smile!

We had read a little about the hill tribes before we let Hanoi and apparently they were close to being wiped out and incredibly poor before tourists started visiting, so buying crafts from them is a nice way to help them to keep going... Tom and I bought a pair of cushion covers, one from each lady in my photos... we over payed, though not massively, and we knew it, but sometimes haggling just seems wrong...

Man and Mae, from the Zao hill tribe

As we left the lunch spot, we said goodbye to the H'mong women, who gave us bracelets to say thank you for our purchases, and were then joined by Man and Mae from the Zao Tribe... Man was much more talkative than the other ladies had been, and a bit of a pushy sales person, but she really had heart... She told me about her husband and baby and walked with us until our next stop. At the end I bought a bag from her and was almost out of money, but felt bad that Mae hadn't sold anything, so gave her most of what I had left for a purse... Tom bought a wall hanging from the lady he had been talking to...

We said goodbye to the Zao girls, and went to check out our "home stay"... I use the quote marks because what I was lead to believe from the term HOME STAY was that you STAY in someone's HOME and see how people live... Some say that could be awkward, and perhaps, but I was really looking forward to it... what we had was pretty much a hostel - a big wooden house with a pool table and table service, and a sleeping area upstairs... OK, so the family slept there too, but the only inkling that you weren't in a hostel was a crying baby... Don't get me wrong, it was a good place to stay and we sat up drinking shots of local vodka and playing cards and Jenga... but home stay it was not...!!

Rice Terraces

The next day we got up early and met our new walking companions, ladies from the Zay tribe... The start of the day was, again, a bit rainy, and the night had been too, so the path was very, VERY muddy... We had to walk a large portion of the way along the solid edge of rice terraces... A rice terrace is where a hill has had steps carved into it, in order to provide flat bits of land to grow rice... so most of the step is flooded with rice plants growing beneath the surface of the muddy water... the edge is a path, which is less than a foot wide and very slippery!!

The ladies of the Zay tribe were very helpful, offering a hand when we needed it to get through the mud... but Tom and I were mostly OK on our own... I got a bamboo walking stick to help balance myself... Tom didn't and ended up on his arse, much to my amusement :D

Zay lady washing her boots in the waterfall

We followed this treacherous path until we came to a waterfall where we all dipped our feet in to try and get rid of some of the mud... and then we carried on through more mud until we got to our lunch spot :) Again, at the end of the walk the Zay ladies wanted to sell us their wares, but by this time I really didn't have any more money and had to say sorry, but no... Tom did buy a musical instrument from one lady though, which we have seen in London being called a Jewish Harp, but I have no idea what they call it...!!

Zay lady with "Jewish Harp"

We spent a bit of time washing the mud off our shoes after lunch, and then caught a lift back to Sapa... That evening we didn't do too much, due to a lack of funds, but we did try to run a hot bath, which turned out to be a luke warm puddle... haha... We also washed the mud off our trousers - we brought one pair each - then got into bed and read for the evening...

Tom's house of cards

Our last day in Sapa was pretty uneventful... the ATM wouldn't let us change any money, so I changed up the last $US6 I had in my purse to buy some water, and we holed ourselves up in the hotel, playing cards and chatting... fortunately for us it was sunny, so we were able to sit and dry out our trousers before getting on a bus back to Lao Cai, where we got on a night train back to Hanoi...

And that brings us to today... We're inn Hanoi in a new hostel, and very excited about meeting Tom Mills tomorrow, as he is flying in from Indonesia... hoorah! So watch this space for more exciting stories and uplifting anecdotes :D

As always, more photos are available here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/discozo/sets/72157608462686210/