What We Saw

Although it wasn't the most beautiful time of year because the rice paddies won't be planted for a month or so, the scenery was still spectacular when we trekked with our Hmong friends in Sappa. Since there were only four of us and three of them we learned alot during our walk. We walked up and down the sides of mountains on narrow paths with valleys below us terraced with gardens waiting to be planted.
The scale of it all was overwhelming and the ladies were so generous and loving toward us. Although only one of them could speak english very well the other two could speak enough to point out flora and fauna and to teach us a few words in their language.
We saw kids playing on a huge bamboo swing and little girls in traditional dress competing with each other in long jump. We saw amazing fenced in veggie gardens, one with a big black pig eating everything in sight and no owner handy to stop him. I wondered how they tell their animals apart, I thought maybe they marked them or something but she said no, no we can tell, maybe my pig has a spot on him or my chicken is fatter......
It was really hard to get good pictures because of the mist that kept lifting and settling but I think you can get the idea.
At the end of the trek the ladies asked us to walk back by road so they wouldn't have to come. We started off and my feet were killing me because I had a cheap pair of ill fitting sneakers on. It was hard for us to find footwear large enough for us in Vietnam. Out of nowhere came one of the ladies with the others husband and they put me between them on the motorbike and drove me back to town! Although they had been bugging us to buy stuff fronm them at the end of the trek they absolutely refused to take any money for the ride! I was a little scared but also really relieved I didn't have to make the walk with sore feet and in the fog that was making me cold again.

Our Treking Guides

Philip and I arrived in Ha Noi to very cold weather. It felt much colder than it really was because it had been so warm just hours earlier in Hoi An. After checking the weather online we decided to travel to Sapa, one of the most northern points of Vietnam and an area full of ethnic tribes.

Arriving in Sapa freezing cold and hungry we decided to eat with some friends we made on the train before setting out to get a room. Big, big mistake! We didn't find a room till about 10pm at which time we had to settle for less than we wanted because everything was closing and it was so foggy we couldn't see!

Next morning we got a room also not great, you could see your breath in the room and it was really damp from the fog. We met these women on the street and took a walk with them to a nearby village and arranged to have a trek with them the next day along with our new friends. After agreeing on a price we picked a meeting place the next day.

When morning came it was much too cold for a shower so we piled more layers of clothes over the clothes we had slept in and met 'the ladies' as we came to calling them. In the pictures I'm wearing a brand new handmade hat, pretty sharp I thought! I have on a pair of polar fleece tights, an under shirt, a long sleeve tshirt, a short sleeve tshirt, two polar fleeces and a rain jacket! On the trek I only got warm enough to unzip the two top layers.....

These charming women are Black Hmong. There are a number of types of Hmong in the north of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam. This was the area that we have seen the most people in their ethnic dress, especially the children and men. It seems that the men are the first to adopt western dress anywhere we go.

Over the course of the day the ladies told us lots about their culture. The lady with the baby, who was seven months old, carried him up and down mountains all day with no sign of getting tired and not a peep out of him except when he got hungry. She calmly took him off of her back to nurse him, held him straight out for a pee and then settled a scrap of cloth around his clean bottom and hoisted him onto her back again. He is the youngest of three sons and his name is Su.

When Hmong women marry they go to live in their husbands family home unless there are no boys in her family. This would mean that there is no younger man to help her parents as they age so her inlaws might consent to their son going to her family home.

They grow hemp to make material for their clothing. They also grow lots of indigo to dye the fabric with. As a result of this every man, woman and child had blue dye on any exposed area of skin unless their clothes were really, really old. Some parts of their clothing are really shiny. Its like a fashion statement and probably also repels water nicely. They make it like this by rubbing the fabric with smooth stones.

The women wear huge hoop earrings, the more the better. They also wear a silver neckpiece that wraps from the left collar bone around to the right collar bone and is connected by varying numbers of chains. The first time one of the ladies let me lift one I was shocked at the weight! Seemed like it would be quite uncomfortable. I also noticed some of the men wearing the same neck gear. The men's clothes reminded me a little of old fashioned sailor suits. They turned the beautiful embroidered collars up at the back with flair. It turns out because it was the end of Tet and still like a holiday, a lot of courting was going on....lots of young women and men out walking together in their best gear!

Unless a woman is carrying a baby she also wears a basket pack. They told me their rubber boots last 3-4 months unless they are working hard then it's only 2-3.

Ha Noi Vietnam

This is a post with no pictures because we are in a hotel with a computer in the room but we don't want to download our pictures onto this computer because we don't want a virus.
We took an overnight sleeper bus from Hoi An to Hanoi yesterday. It was a bus ride from hell. The sleeper buses are supposed to be straight through to your destination with maybe one stop.This one was like a milk run and made many stops. The driver smoked so he not only had the air con on full blast, he had the window open too. It was so cold we couldn't sleep. The last sleeper bus we took was really warm so we didn't take any extra clothing except a fleece each. We got on the bus in hot weather wearing shorts and tshirts and when we got off in Ha Noi it was about 9 degrees! Oh, yeah the driver also talked very loudly to his assistant as he drove like a maniac. Bus and truck traffic at night is very heavy and they pass multiple things at a time with no passing lanes and sometimes roads with hairpin bends..... another experience!

Luckily we bought wind breakers before we got here but I'm still cold and will have to buy leggings or something to wear under my pants before we go further north. We are going to the far north of Vietnam tomorrow to a place called Sapa. The weather forecast for Sapa this week is sleet and as low as 4 degrees because of a cold front coming down from China, but by next week daytime temperatures will be about 20-28 degrees.

Because of Tet or Vietnamese New Years hardly anything in Ha Noi is open and everything including food and hotels is more expensive. Last night we went out for supper and had a wild and crazy experience. There were hardly any inside restaurants open so we ate at a restaurant set up on the sidewalk.We found the busiest one, we do this because they turn over the food and its fresher but in this case it was maybe too busy because once they get you committed they more or less ignore you unless you get right in their faces and demand what ever it is you need. I think being a westerner may factor into this. I kept thinking of all the times I worked at Newman's when it got really busy and how you had to pick what you could and couldn't do for customers and hope for the best.

We managed to get the only empty table and squeeze in between everyone else. We were at a low plastic table and Philip sat on a low plastic stool and I got a kid's size chair with a back. Here's the picture, we were totering on the curb with manic motorcycle traffic competing with pedestrians on the narrow street. The street beside us was littered with garbage and food and chopsticks and loaves of french bread that the waiters had dropped and the level of noise was off the map.

We indicated that we wanted the same food as the table beside us and hoped for the best. Everyone had small burners on their tables and were cooking their own food. We were given a burner, two loaves of french bread and a platter of marinated meat and veggies to cook along with cooking oil and a bowl of pepper, chilis, sugar and limes to make our own dipping sauce. This was all jammed onto a 2 by 2.5 foot table. We thought you made the sauce and dipped before cooking but a woman who was eating beside us tried to show us what to do and we were meant to use it to dip after cooking. I also noticed that some people had another soysauce type dipping sauce so I asked for that. It's very awkward because you are pointing to other peoples food to show what you want.

We started cooking and it was really delicious but about every five minutes they would come and yell at us to get up and move while a door behind us opened and a motorcycle came through the tables. This went on throughout the whole meal. Then our burner ran out of fuel and we had to run back and forth several times to get someone to bring more fuel. As we were nearing the end of cooking I got up to remind the waitress we still wanted the beer. As soon as the beer was opened a woman came up to me and yelled that I should move off my chair to another place. I put my foot down and refused and gestured that we were still eating. I thought that because we were nearly through they were trying to free up the table but what was really happening was that I was using a chair from the restaurant that was next door which was indistinguishable from the one we were sitting in and that owner had a customer who needed a chair and she was very angry with me for using her chair. When I realized this I changed for a stool..... the food was really good but it was exhausting to eat there! It was like eating a meal with a toddler when you are constantly getting up to wipe spills or get things or take potty breaks all the while talking on the phone and planning your husband's birthday party!

When we got back to our hotel three of the male staff were having the last party of Tet and invited us to join. I had a beer, some freshly roasted peanuts and some cucumber sticks with salt for dipping. There was a toast every minute or so! I decided to go to the room because in Vietnam the women don't really drink and I thought it would be better if I left Philip with the men. They were really nice and two could speak English fairly well. Philip stayed for a few more hours and bought them some more beer and they produced some platters of cooked food and a good time was had by all.

The very best thing about the hotel we are staying in is the staff. Very, very nice. We have two beds ( a double and a single), satelite tv, a good bathroom, a platter of fresh fruit, breakfast included, a heater, good warm bedding and it's really clean. The downdside is that you have to run the water for ten minutes, I repeat ten minutes for it to get hot and we're only on the second floor. The breakfast is an attempt to make Vietnamese and western food and as a result it does neither well. We were in a hotel that had breakfast included in the Mekong Delta. It was coffee or tea with sweetened condensed milk and french bread with butter and jam, or french bread with cheese or a hot dog. A young man we were sitting with ordered the hotdog and he got a loaf of french bread with a cold weiner in the plastic wrap and that was it! We always ask for two beds because the rooms with more beds are much bigger. We had one room that had two double beds and one twin bed and it was the same price as a double bed room. It's really common that people bunk up in rooms together to make it cheaper and that's why there are rooms with so many beds.

Tomorrow we are heading out and the options for travel are a sleeper bus going through mountains and fog or a daytime train with wooden seats for 12 hours or a public bus with all kinds of craziness happening on it. Debating which one to do.....

Well I'm going to take a deep breath and venture out in the steets again.........

A Day On An Island

Right now we are in a Unesco World Heritage town about halfway up the coast of Vietnam. The other day we were on the waterfront and noticed what looked like a local 'ferry', which was just a larger, flatter wooden boat full of motorcycles and people. In Vietnam it seems difficult to get to small places by yourself if you don't rent a motorbike and also places are restricted by the government. We decided to rent bicycles and go on the ferry to see where it went.
First of all because it was for locals it was dead cheap. We loaded on and off we went. The ferry took us to an amazing island. It may be a group of islands joined by bridges, we couldn't really tell. We had one of our best days in Vietnam!
The island was full of small villages and little lanes and emerald rice paddies. Everywhere we went people called out to us, waving and smiling. We got lost and found ourselves a million times.
Our first stop was to cool our feet in a flowing irrigation canal. An hour or so later we thought we should get out of the sun for a while so we stopped at a small pool hall refreshment place. The whole neighbourhood came to see us while we drank our warm coke and beer. I had some coconut candy in my bag which we shared with them all and I even got to hold the fat baby!
After awhile it was time to head on. We wandered down lanes and along the shore and through the gardens on small paths. I was sure I would fall off the bike on the small paths right into the canal.
The next time we stopped was for a bite to eat at a noodle shop. It was traditionall 'Pho' which is a broth with rice noodles and the rest you add yourself. Fresh basil, coriander, bean sprouts and parsley. Lime, chillis and pickled ginger. Soup never tasted so good! A woman and her daughter ran the place and they loved it when we took their picture.
Next we went down some small lanes and where we were swarmed by some laughing children who were absolutely delighted when we took their pictures while they monkied around. The three little girls were irresistable!
We then rode to the other side of the island and were thrilled to find the bamboo bridge and lots of the boats made like baskets. We only saw one in the water but we saw lots leaning against fences to dry. We even found a home where they were being made. All of the houses had vegetable gardens taking up much of their yards and all the plants were in a million shades of green. All the homes had a frame made about my height which they grew their vine veggies on. I took a lot of pictures of those including pumpkins, squash, zucchinis and several kinks of cukes.
We wound our way back to the ferry just before sunset, happy, tired and exhilirated at the same time. Maybe a little sunburned too.
I included the picture of the sign because every now and then you see something that reminds you that you are in a communist country. This sign was the first thing we saw when we got off the boat at the island. I don't have a clue what it says.