Day 26 - Hill Tribe Trek in Sapa

I am wiped out.  T spent his childhood growing up doing stuff like this - trekking up hill sides, crossing streams, following narrow water buffalo paths along ravines.  Or almost stuff like this. He is cut from a more hardy cloth than I.  And he's wiped out too.

That is because we've just taken the night train from Hanoi to Lo Cai, another hour transfer by car after our 6 am arrival, and then hiked through 4 different villages over the course of the past 5 hours. 

I don't think I've ever walked 5 hours anywhere.  Seriously.  I am thinking about it right now.....mmm.  Nope, don't think so.  But this has been fantastic, rewarding and maybe the highlight of the trip thus far.

But first lets say a couple words about the night train.  I can hardly leave you to think that this was hard core in any sense.  They pulled out a red little mat before you boarded the train, had lots of liveried gents to help you with your bags, we had gotten a private cabin for us two, and it was trimmed out in dark wood and fluffy blankets.  

Somehow this was not what T was expecting though.  Included in his vision was a sitting room and at least a mini-fridge from which you could mix yourself a respectable martini.  No matter, because we were cosy enough.  And we were tired enough.  And as we pulled out of the station, we had the luxury of falling asleep to an older form of entertainment - the cityscape turning to countryside outside our train car window.  The train rocked back and forth.  It took a while to fall asleep.  We tossed and turned.  And before we knew it, we pulled into our stop.  

Finally, it was cool!  And it got cooler and foggier the closer we got to Sapa, which was only 35 km away but took over an hour to drive.  We cut back and forth across a large mountain, part of the Tonkanese Alps.  

From what I can tell thus far, Sapa is a backpackers' town.  For some reason, tourists began coming here 15 years ago.  Now there is a bit of an infrastructure to support it.  A nice hotel, with a hot tea to greet you on arrival, a lovely big breakfast, handsome fireplaces, free wifi in your hotel room.  Most restaurants advertise things like "Western-Style!" "Hot Coffee!" "Ice Cream!" in the windows.  

And yet it still feels real too.  Its still a very small town (only 3000 people).  The people still wear their native dress as part of their everyday custom.  Some of the Hill Tribe people speak English, which they've learned from tourists, but it's not to harangue you all day long to buy postcards or visit their shop.   And after spending the day hiking with four women from the Black Hmong tribe, I can honestly say that they are kind, funny, garrulous - wonderful people to be around.

So, our itinerary was described thus: 

You first sneak through the Sapa market and leave the busy town behind. After a couple of minutes, you follow a road going downhill to Cat Cat village. You will stop by a waterfall and a hydroelectric station for a while before continuing the trek on a dirt trail through rice paddy terraces. You also will enjoy spectacular scenery while walking along a narrow river. You eventually arrive in Y Linh Ho village of Black Hmong minority, where you can take a rest while you are served lunch nearby the river. After lunch, you head toward Muong Hoa valley. You will pass through Lao Chai village of Black Hmong minority and then Tavan village of Giay minority by following a very popular trekking route.

I envision maybe a couple towns, a bucolic little stroll through a rice paddy-- that's about it. But before long, we set off from the cobblestone steps in Cat Cat Village and started a proper trek.  It was breathtaking.  It is a world a way from any place I have ever been, and probably any place I will ever be.

Within the first half an hour, three women joined us from the Black Hmong Minority.  These three women where friends, the eldest one of which was Ye.  Our guide Cho told us that some time in the past 3 or 4 years, women from the tribes left their villages and started following tourists as a way of hopefully selling them some of their goods.

Now I don't know about you, but being jaded, this didn't sound very promising.  Thus far, having people follow you around trying to sell you stuff has proved to be a bit miserable.  Now, consider what Cho told us next.  These women will follow us on our trek today.  They know that tourists wont by anything from them at the beginning of their trek, because they won't want to carry it.  On the other hand, if they wait too long, someone else will come and start to follow you.  So it's bound to happen - if you walk around here, you'll always be followed by a small group.  And if other Hill Tribe women notice that you are "taken," they won't attempt to join the group, or to sell you anything.  They figure that if you won't buy from women who have followed you for 4 hours, you certainly won't by from them.

The women will follow us all day?? My skepticism faded quickly as we got along.  They talked among themselves.  Our guide, who spoke the language of the Black Hmong, translated certain things for us.  We met one of their son's in a village we walked though.  And as the terrain got more difficult and slippery, they were quick to help me out - even to help T out.

And we needed help indeed.  T was the first man down, but only because I had the help of three women clucking over me, holding my hand as we walked down a steep, sandy incline to the river bank.  We arrived at the river basin.  It being not yet rainy season, there was a promising enough looking path we could make, hopping from stone to stone.  Suffice to say, T slipped off one stone into the water and managed to wade several feet with water up to his ankles, swamping his shoes, his socks, his pants and all! Here comes Ye to the rescue!

We are all laughing.  T is making comments about being the only man and yet being the only one to end up in the drink.  But I think that was preferable to what happened next to me.  Just 15 minutes later, we are walking along the border of a rice paddy when I manage to plunge most of one foot into a very muddy mess.  Another one of our friends to the rescue, making some sort of comment about me being muddy like the water buffalo. 

Over the course of the next 4 hours, the road gets steep, gets narrow, follows along paddy embankments, through stands of bamboo, over little bridges.  We see water buffalo, we see lots of pigs, piglets, pregnant pigs, ducks, chickens, chicks, dogs, puppies.  Little cats sitting on the occasional roof.  

We see people weeding the paddies, sowing the rice seeds, building up the paddy embankment, creating bamboo fences to protect the rice shoots from the free ranging buffalo and pigs. Paddies! Terrace after terrace, steep and narrow on land that hardly looks like its worth the time to cultivate, and wide and sloping, down closer to the river bank.  For these families, none of the rice will be sold.  It is their one crop of the year and will all be used to feed their families.

And at the end, I was very happy indeed to buy some of the things these women had made.  It was the exact opposite of all the disappointing tourist trap floating markets, walking markets, night markets we had yet seen.  Unlike the undistinguished faff at those places, these women had made the little things they had carried all along in their bamboo baskets.  All day long today, they would prepare the hemp, stripping the fiber with their nails, splitting the fiber, twisting it with another strand, and wrapping the growing ball of hemp in their hand.  They did this all as we walked.  They would then boil for 3 days, make soft and pliable with wax, weave and dye.  So it was personal - these women had prepared the hemp, woven the fabric, made the indigo dye, embroidered their designs.  I was only too thankful for their company.  And to have something to remember them by.