Among the Hmong

The main reason tourists go to Sapa is to trek into the hills and visit the local villages of the ethnic minorities. The area around Sapa is populated mostly by Black Hmong and Red Dzao.

Homestays are a popular excursion. In theory this involves hiking to a village, staying with a local family and seeing their traditional way of life. In actuality it's usually a staged event, almost like a museum exhibit.

One couple I met was aghast to spend a night at a "traditional" homestay not with the family, but in a separate building nicer than their hotel back in town, complete with satellite TV and a refrigerator full of beer. They were led to believe they'd be roughing it, not basking in luxury.

It's possible to arrange the real thing. There are so many women wandering the streets of Sapa selling souvenirs that all you have to do is find one willing to work as a guide. It's not hard to find someone willing to guide you for around $10 per day. It beats carrying around a basket of pillowcases and shoulder bags and getting rejected by tourists all day.

I ended up not doing a trek to the hills because it rained every day I was there. But I did do one short hike to a village called Cat Cat, just outside Sapa. I did it on the one sunny day I had. The scenery was beautiful, but the village itself had the feel of a theme park attraction. Hiking the main path was as "authentic" as an exhibit at Epcot.

The first sign of trouble was the ticket booth. It didn't get me anything except the privilege of walking through the village. It was less than a dollar to get in, which would have been OK had I thought that the money went to the village. The ticket says Lao Cai Tourism Company so I would guess that somewhere in the neighborhood of zero-point-zero percent of the proceeds goes to the village.

A wide, evenly-paved path wound down the hill from the ticket booth, a path built solely for tourists. Because the valley is so steep I could clearly see dirt tracks going up and down the hills, but aside from the one I was on I couldn't see any other paved paths.

Which is not to say it isn't a working village. The path went past rice terraces where children played in the muddy water...


... and others that were being tilled by water buffalo.


In the foreground you can see a young girl working with an infant strapped to her back. Women work from sunup to sundown with babies on their backs. I never heard one of the children cry.

All along the path are huts selling the same souvenirs you can find in town, except that you can buy them straight from the source. I bought a small stone carving from this Hmong woman, working here as her cute little daughter watches. She didn't speak a word of English so I couldn't even manage to find out what her name is. But she does have a celphone.


At the bottom of the hill the path crossed a bridge where I passed a boy, perhaps eight years old, going off to work with his tools.


As I passed him I followed what I think is a good rule when traveling: Always smile at someone carrying an axe and a machete.

Just beneath the bridge was a waterfall where you can plainly see how much rain the area had been receiving in the muddy torrent.


Then it got a bit absurd. There were a couple brick buildings with concrete walkways. Inside one was a traditional arts center with a PA system blasting music into the hillside. It cost extra to go in. Again, I'm happy to contribute to the local economy -- I bought quite a few souvenirs -- but sorry, no, I'm not going to go along with the charade.

From there I decided to wander off the paved walkway and wander some of the dirt paths into the hills. This is the view looking back up at Sapa, with the paved walkway visible in the foreground.

Everywhere I looked were rice terraces built into the mountainside, the reflection off the water making them look like giant marble steps.



For tourists these hills provide a challenging day or two of hiking. The people here walk up and down these hills every day and farm these on these steep slopes. It may be a hard life, but I doubt they ever tire of the view.

A van down by the river

My visit to the Sunday market at Bac Ha was part of a day trip that included a couple other stops. After the market we drove just outside of town to visit a Flower Hmong village. It looked the way it might have 100 years ago, except for the modern school, the power lines, the paved path built for tourists ... okay, so it didn't look this way 100 years ago.

It was still interesting to see the difference in lifestyle between the town of Bac Ha and the village just a mile or two away. Here's the school, completely surrounded by patches of crops.


Walking through the village took about 30 minutes for all but one of us. We had to wait for one passenger who managed to get lost. The area we walked was about the size of a high school football stadium but this guy managed to get lost for 45 minutes.

It gave us plenty of time to watch the locals returning to their homes from the market. Notice anything missing from this pic?


Men!

We saw a few men walking but none of them carried anything. The women carry the gear home while the men ride their motos. It's nice to see a community where men and women understand their roles.

I'm joking. Really, I am. I would never make my wife walk home alone with a basket on her back. I would ride my moto nice and slow right beside her so I could tell her what to cook me for dinner.

Moving right along...

This hill is cultivated from top to bottom with people walking on a footpath about halfway up.


As we were walking back towards the van two little girls walked briskly past, each with a basket strapped to her back and a long, curved knife in her hand. We said hello and waved but they just kept walking. They had work to do.


They were cutting basil leaves from bushes along the path and tossing them into the baskets. At least that's what they were trying to do when tourists weren't jamming cameras in their faces. They absolutely did not want their picture taken. Ah, who cares what a little girl wants when there are people back home waiting to be dazzled by your photography skills.

I was secretly rooting for one of the girls to poke one of the intrusive tourists with a knife, but thankfully they're more civilized than I am.

We stopped on the way back to Sapa to drop some folks off at the train station in Lao Cai. I knew Sapa was close to the Chinese border but I didn't realize how close. Lao Cai is on the border. We stopped briefly at the river so we could see the border crossing.


The monument in the foreground is in Vietnam. The building in the background is in Hekou, China. In between is the Song Hong (Red River), one of the rare place names that sounds equally musical when translated! To the left is a bridge connecting the banks. These two countries have, shall we say, a complicated past, so I was a bit surprised that tourist vans can just roll right up to the border.

Sapa

Instead of flying to Bali I took the sleeper train to Lao Cai, on the Vietnam-China border. From there I took a mini-bus to the mountain town of Sapa. It's usually spelled this way even though it should actually be Sa Pa, since in Vietnamese, as in Chinese, each syllable is a word.

The train arrived in the wee hours of the morning, as all trains in Vietnam seem to do. (There are four daily trains from Sapa to Hanoi. They all arrive between 4:30 and 5:30 am. Seriously, what the hell?)

I arrived in Sapa just after daybreak in fog so thick I couldn't see the other side of the street. I was trying to get my bearings using the tiny map in my guidebook, but I couldn't find the church or even the town square, which is about the size of a squared city block. I couldn't see this:



I was wondering if going to Sapa was a mistake after I found a room in what turned out to a fairly bizarre hotel and saw the early morning 'view' from my balcony.


The hotel owner allowed me to switch rooms after I convinced him that 'hot shower' implied the presence of a shower head, and not just a stream of hot water running down the wall. I took a nap and awoke to see the fingers of God massaging the scalp of the earth.


It was as if someone had hung a giant Thomas Cole painting on my balcony. I was officially glad to be in Sapa. In better light you can see villages and rice terraces clinging to the steep mountain slopes.


The only time it was clearer than this, of course, was the afternoon I took the shuttle from Sapa to Lao Cai to catch the train back to Hanoi.

There's nothing particularly Vietnamese about the town itself. The view from my balcony looks like any mountain town you might find in the Rockies or Alps.


The people in this area are, for the most part, not ethnic Vietnamese. They are members of various ethnic minorities, primarily Black Hmong and Red Dzao. The streets are full of women in traditional garb selling handstitched blankets, tapestries, etc. You know the stuff is authentic because you can see them sewing. The women's hands are blue from winding hemp fibers into twine.

These women, working on the sidewalk in front of a tourist steakhouse, are Red Dzao. The red headgear that looks like a pillow is an easy giveaway.


Obviously a lot of this is for show. Women dress like this in part because that's what tourists want to see. I was having a bowl of noodles in the market when I saw this woman in Flower Hmong garb engaging in a timeless local ritual, which translates roughly into English as "talking on a celphone".

I enjoyed a few days there despite really lousy weather. I wanted to climb Fansipan, the highest mountain in Indochina, but slogging through the rain and mud for three days didn't appeal to me much. And I must admit I just wanted an excuse to say 'Fansipan' in conversation. That's the Anglicized version of the Vietnamese name, Phan Xi Pang. No matter how you spell it, though, it still rhymes with 'fancypants', and who wouldn't want to say he climbed that.

The countryside around Sapa is a spectacular. It reminded me, strangely enough, of Peru. In both places farmers raise crops on terraces built on impossibly steep mountainsides, all the way to the summit. Both places are inhabited by people who are short in stature but incredibly tough. The altitude here isn't nearly as high, though. Fansipan, the highest point in Indochina, is 3,143 meters, which is lower than the city of Cuzco, Peru.

Tourism has not necessarily been a good influence on Sapa. When I arrived after daybreak there were already Hmong women wandering around selling local handicrafts. They know when tourists from the trains arrive and they're ready and waiting when we arrive. The stuff is beautiful and cheap, but there's far too many people selling far too much similar stuff.

I am sitting in the the H'mong Sisters Bar & Restaurant as I write this. The only other people here are young Hmong girls in traditional garb, none of whom is over five feet tall. I just finished reading "Gulliver's Travels" so I'm wondering if this is a weird Lilliputian dream induced by the awful local wine. (The label says it's "fruit wine", but I can't imagine what kind of fruit could produce the flavor, unless dirty gym socks grow on trees around here.)

Even though it's dark and rainy, there are still women in the street peddling to tourists. The truly sad part is they're the same women I saw at the crack of dawn. The come up from the villages in the early morning, wander the main street all day and all night, then return to the home. Or not.

Sitting at next to me are my two new best friends. My best stab at the spelling of their names is Mai (12, front, in Black Hmong clothing) and Ha (15, back, Flower Hmong).

After peddling souvenirs all day they come to the bar to play games and talk to tourists. Their English is fantastic, which is incredible since they learned it all talking to tourists. When it comes time for them to go to bed they walk to a friend's house in town. Their village is a two-hour walk or 30-minute moto ride.

They're both exceptionally bright but Ha strikes me as something as a prodigy. She was visibly enjoying herself as she made me squirm, using her ruthless intelligence to demolish every argument I put forth as to why I wouldn't buy anything from her. Her potential would be limitless in the US, but I fear there's only so far a girl can go in Sapa.

I did stump her. I wanted to buy some of the gorgeous blankets. She said she had a cousin who had them so I told her to bring some to me at the hotel.

She brought four. I had found out what a fair price would be for one. I told her I'd buy all four at that price. By this time of course a huge crowd of women had gathered, shoving blankets in my face, saying "You buy one from me".

Ha was speechless for once. It may have been the biggest deal she had ever done. She talked in Hmong with the women for about a minute before she finally realized this was a deal she definitely wanted to make. I'm sure I paid a little too much. I don't care.

As much as I love the beauty of the town, and (mostly) enjoy my interactions with the locals, it makes me terribly, inexpressibly sad. These women spend virtually every waking hour chasing tourists through the streets. If you stop to talk to one or, heaven forbid, start looking at what they're selling, they turn into sharks with blood in the water.


Perhaps that metaphor is a bit harsh, because I am humbled by how genuinely friendly and cheerful they are. Don't get me wrong, they are persistent, and it is frustrating smiling and saying "No thank you" a thousand times a day, but if I spent every day being continually rebuffed by tourists, often rudely, I would lose my sense of humor in approximately eight seconds.

The poor tourist trapped against the wall here laughed, threw up his hands and jokingly yelled "Help!" as I walked past. Sorry, pal, I paid my dues...

Bull market

Or water buffalo, to be more precise. One of the main attractions in northern Vietnam is the weekly market in Bac Ha. Travel guides always list the local markets as must-see sites, but I'm usually disapppointed. They're good places to get cheap food but they tend to look alike: knockoffs of brand-name clothes, Yankee caps, beer tshirts, and so on.

Bac Ha is a real market where real Vietnamese people really shop. There are stalls geared toward tourists but the number of times I was asked "Mistah you buy from me?" was blessedly low. Most of the time I felt I was intruding. It's held on Sunday and people from the local hill tribes travel, often on foot, to by and sell.

It was cold and rainy the day I went. Muddy streams ran through the stalls.

The miserable weather made the place look like a refugee shantytown, but the mood was festive. People were enjoying themselves, except for these adorable little girls, standing arm in arm under an umbrella, looking like they'd be just about anywhere else.


This is clearly a big social occasion. I'm told that young folks there is a 'Secret Market', which isn't really a secret. It's the best and perhaps only way for young folks from the hill villages to meet and court. I could see for myself groups of women talking and joking in their elaborately stitched clothing.

The people in Sapa are primarily Black Hmong and Red Dzao. In Bac Ha they're primarily Flower Hmong. Unlike the understated (but quite lovely) garb of the Black Hmong women the Flower Hmong wear brightly colored clothing, with orange being the primary color.


I'm eternally mortified by the way tourists stick their cameras in the faces of local people without permission. Imagine being in your yard or office or in the aisle at the supermarket and having a foreigner stick a foot-long camera lens in your face at point-blank range.

I try to be more discreet. I don't feel bad about taking candid long-distance shots but if I want a close-up I'll ask permission. I wanted to get some pictures of the young girls in their Sunday best, but most of them really, really did not want their photos taken.

Four girls were standing together selling selling herbs. I asked if I could take their picture. The two on the ends both took a step to the side. One of the girls in the middle shook her head and put her hands in front of her face. This girl gave me a big smile. I showed them the camera so they'd know I only took her photo.


There were people selling the usual fruits and vegetables, herbs, meats, rice and other foodstuffs. But there were also blacksmiths making shovel blades.


And barbers.


If you're looking to buy or sell livestock this is the place to be: water buffalo, pigs, horses and dogs. Someone asked if the dogs were meant to be eaten. Our guide answered a bit too emphatically that they were not. My guess is his answer takes into account the western attitude toward dogs, that they are companions and not food.

Here is the area where the buffalo are tethered.


You can see the dramatic setting of the town, nestled in the hills, as well as the swampy conditions. I especially like the three women socializing on the right, seemingly oblivious to their dreary surroundings, except for the one on the left who is standing on a rock in a hopeless attempt to keep her feet from getting muddy.

After we gathered to wait for the minivan to take us to the next stop I noticed a motorbike packed up and ready to go. There are a couple of geese strapped to the side, some bulk goods tied to the back, and a dog, wrapped in plastic and tied to the seat!

The only part not wrapped in the plastic bag is his head. He seemed perfectly content and even closed his eyes and went to sleep as he waited for his master to take him home maybe he realized that being strapped to the back of a motorcycle is better than stewing in a pot, like the horse who went into this stew at the market.