After our Halong cruise we had in mind the performance of that other backpacker approved activity, trekking in Sapa. This time, though, we were not to fall prey to any soulless dong-grabbing tour. We were going to go there, find a guide, and spend two days trekking through the mountains. After an afternoon spent lazying around at Kangaroo Cafe in Hanoi for another Western food craving treatment (the cure was a huge Aussie beetroot egg and bacon cheeseburger, plus sesame crusted chips) we boarded the night train to the far north. After the train and a minibus transfer from Lao Cai station to Sapa, we were filled with hope for the trek. The mountains were absolutely stunning, amongst the most beautiful scenery we’d witnessed after 10 months on the road. The morning air was crisp and refreshing, a welcome change after 40 degrees heat and 90 per cent humidity. We were lucky enough to have Our Woman In Sapa; we’d been given a contact by a couple in Saigon. They suggested we’d go for a hike with Ker, a young Hmong guide who leads treks through the mountains surrounding Sapa. We’d contacted Ker and had a date with her; in the meanwhile, we set off to explore Sapa.
It was easy to see why the French were so keen on Sapa. The town is set in a picturesque valley, surrounded by those mountains that, out of memories or homesickness, were dubbed Tonkinese Alps. And they do bear a resemblance with the Alps. Sapa is a haven for minority-tribes women wishing to sell their handicrafts, as thousands of tourists ascend daily to experience that ‘hill station experience’. Black Hmong are the most popular by far; they are absolutely tiny ladies (around 1.2-1.3 meters) and wear dark-indigo embroidered petticoats over jackets, tunics and legwarmers, whilst Flower Hmong wear beautifully coloured tops. Red Dzao ladies are very peculiar-looking, with their shaved brows and red turbans. The legend goes that a Red Dzao lady poisoned her husband by letting a lock of her hair fall into his meal as she was cooking. From that day onwards, all Red Dzao women shave their eyebrows and their hair for approximately two inches back from the hairline.
As we were waiting for our date with Ker, we thought to visit a travel agency to have an idea of the price for the trek we were planning, to help us negotiate. We chose a random agency which quoted $30 for two days, inclusive of bed and board. Not really intending to join, we left quickly. Not even 30 seconds down the road, we heard a massive crash. We turned around to see a bus crashed into the travel agents’ shopfront. Our first thought was for the agent we were just talking to, as he was sitting on the desk closest to the front. We dashed back to find him shaken up but unscathed, save a cut on his hand. His desk and the chairs we were sitting on were shattered. Apparently, after talking to us, he left his desk; he was just returning as the bus crashed, and was hit on the hand with a shard of glass from the front window. We spent the rest of the afternoon in a mixture of shock and relief for having escaped the crash. Had we stayed into the shop another 30 seconds and we’d be dead.
We arranged to start the trek with Ker on the following day. I quickly developed a soft spot for Hmong people; the ladies populating the square were there for selling, but they adopted a friendly technique, a little persistent but never aggressive, on the other hand they appeared curious and very tactile, a bit childish. This may have bothered some but endeared them to me. Ker was no exception; she greeted me with a hug (although she only reached to my waist) and was instantly kind and friendly. We learned she is 20 years old and pregnant with her second child, and has 5 years experience working as a guide. As we set off the following day, it was clear she knew the terrain very well. Her knowledge of English was also excellent. We set off on foot from Sapa, bound for her village where we were going to meet her family and lunch at her house. The day was ideal for trekking; sunny and dry, with temperatures in the low 20s, and excellent visibility, which is a rarity in Sapa. We soon entered the forest on the mountainside, and after a short walk through it we emerged at a stunning viewpoint over the Tonkinese Alps. On that side, mountains were still covered in forests. We kept going towards Ker’s village, a small Black Hmong community called Si Sai. As most Southeast Asian hilltribes, Hmong practice agriculture, mostly rice and hemp which is used for making their traditional petticoats, and indigo for dyeing. Most Hmong families also possess a buffalo, which is used for help in ploughing, and pigs which are killed for celebrations. Ker told us that in occasion of the birth of her son she killed a pig, a celebration followed attended by the whole village in which the local shaman named her son Pein. Unfortunately, Ker’s parents, who leave in a neighbouring village, could not make it. So she had to kill another pig when they finally came to visit!
We had a delicious lunch of tofu and tomatoes, water spinach and my favourite, bamboo shoots. I love their crunchy texture and their saltiness, with a garlic sauce they were indeed palatable. I had asked Ker to serve us what they would normally eat, the meal was light but filling and delicious, and it was nice to share the meal at the family’s table. During our other trek in Laos there was a clear separation tourists-villagers, whilst with Ker it felt more real. We set off after lunch, bound for the mountain pass which would’ve led us back into the Sapa Valley. As we crossed the pass... what a view. We had climbed 500 meters, and we could see rice paddies below us, built on the mountainside as far as the eye can see. Ker explained that most Hmong have their paddies in that valley, and leave other areas uncultivated for hunting and foraging, whilst small areas around the villages are used for planting hemp and indigo. The paddies were criss-crossed with ploughing buffaloes and men and women sowing; a beehive of activity from our privileged viewpoint.
We started descending towards Lao Chai, the largest Hmong village in the Sapa area, where Ker grew up. Lao Chai was larger, nearly a small town, with roads, shops and motorcycles. We stopped off briefly at Ker’s mother’s house where we were explained their traditional form of clothesmaking and dyeing. All clothes are dyed with indigo, and the colour takes a while to settle on the fabric, explaining why most Hmong women have blue hands. We continued through Lao Chai; it was indeed a busy little town, with people at work in the fields and carrying produce up and down the steep roads. A very steep contrast with the Khmu villages in Lao, where life went on as slowly as ever. A sleepy village in sleepy Laos, a busy one in Vietnam-on-the-move.
At sunset we reached our homestay in the Dzay village of Ta Van. Once again, the wonderful Vietnamese standards pleasantly surprised us; no thin mat on a plank of wood, this time we had a four-poster bed, flush toilet and hot shower, no communal latrine and bath in the river. What was even nicer, we even had roommates for the night, two Dutch guys! We were longing for the company of others, as it’s been only Nick and I since the south of Cambodia, save a few chats at Bia Hoi around Vietnam. After a cold beer, dinner was served; a huge spread of rice, stir-fries and curries, vegetables and meats. We were all stuffed, and decided to while away the rest of the evening playing cards. Until those naughty Hmong women intervened and turned our game of cards into a drinking version of Spoons; the loser had to drink a shot of ‘happy water’ (rice moonshine). So much for your usual trekking-early night combo, we went on until way past midnight, going through three bottles of ‘happy water’. Mercifully I only lost a couple of hands, it was the Dutches who took the hit.
And mercifully again, we did not have an early start, we had breakfast around 9. The second day was not as spectacular as the first. We kept following the valley, away from Sapa, down from Lao Chai. The area was rather more touristy, being a common destination for day walks from Sapa. The valley was still beautiful, though. We cut across the rice paddies, walking on their edges (a rather difficult task for Nick). The beauty of the valley unfolded before us, with children running through the paddies while their parents toiled away. We went through a Red Dzao village where we had lunch, but saw not a soul; perhaps all the women were in Sapa’s main square selling handicrafts. As we returned to Sapa on the back of a motorbike, with me wedged between the driver and Ker’s 5 months belly, I couldn’t stop thinking back to the experience and how I loved it. It was just like taking a walk with a friend through her home country, the only aim Ker had was to show us the way Hmong people live, with no attempts at selling handicrafts or else. Indeed, when we went at her Mum’s house I was the one to ask her if she had any jackets! But the scenery was what did it. That, and the friendliness of the Hmong people, both at Sapa and during the trek.
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