Ta Van and Lao Chai villages, outside Sapa

Since we had several hours to spend, we hired a driver to take us out to a couple of villages in the hills beyond Sapa. Our original thought was that the driver would take us to Lao Chai, we'd walk around for an hour, then he'd take us to Ta Van where we'd walk for an hour, then he'd take us back. Instead, he drove us near Lao Chai and dropped us off, planning to pick us up a couple hours later, after we'd walked from one village to the next (3km, he said.....everything here is 3km from everywhere else, we've noticed!). OK. Walking through the valley, past rice fields, wonderful!

The moment we got out of the car, we were set upon by three Hmong women and one 9-year old Hmong child. And I mean set upon. We weren't even quite out of the car when they were grabbing us. (This is one striking thing about Vietnamese women, and I like it a lot: they constantly touch us. It's a little unsettling, as is their relatively small personal space and their willingness to get into mine, but I like it after I get used to it.) So anyway, at first we thought we could talk to them and get away, and enjoy the afternoon's walk in peace and quiet, as our morning walk to Cat Cat had been. After a few minutes it became clear that the only way to enjoy ourselves was to relax and give in, and spend the hours walking with them.

They were beautiful, and had easy laughter. They asked us the now-standard questions: What is your true name? Do you have brothers and sisters, how many? How old are you? Where you from? Do you have children? They'd ask these questions over and over, which made me laugh. I'm still 52 (oh, so young!). We asked them the same questions back. Eventually, we kind of split into groups: I walked with a Hmong woman from Ta Van and a young girl (Hmong, I think) from Lao Chai, and Marc walked with a couple of Dao women. My two guides wore the indigo Hmong clothing and the black(ish) hat, and Marc's wore these bright pink and green plaid headscarves. Marc got different information than I got; he learned that the tribes are not friends. I learned about the schools and how to say different things in Hmong -- it's a tonal language, and while I tried very hard I suspect my charming guides were laughing at me as much as with me.

The main deal, of course, was to buy something from them -- which I wanted to do. The young girl said "you buy from me, I likey you you likey me." She said that a few times and it made me laugh. The women with me told me to buy from them, not from the women with Marc. At the end, we bought something from all of them. Their company alone was worth much more than we spent, and we got handmade Hmong textiles which -- they assured me -- took a long time to make. And don't I know that.

i love this photo -- a bridge somewhere between Lao Chai and Ta Van

we stopped along the way for another shot of the valley -- wordlessly beautiful

these are the various small villages -- including Lao Chai and Ta Van

harvesting the rice; it's a family task -- enlarge the photo and see a woman harvesting rice with a baby on her back

preparing the harvested rice

the woman holding my hand, helping me cross, is 42 years old. i loved her smile. from her, i bought a small bag.

here we are at the Lao Chai school; that's my guide, smiling at the camera

the 9-year old girl walking with me ran into some friends of hers and they held hands and laughed and chattered.

another sort of surreal day for me, like the day Marc and I were in the little boat going up some unnamed (to us) Lao river, to the waterfalls:  here, we're just walking through the Sapa valley with a group of Hmong women. My mind just tilts, and my heart feels like it's going to burst.

buffalo are a big help; my young girl guide told me that her family has one buffalo

home building in Ta Van village

someone's home, with rice fields and vegetable gardens all around. plus, that view.

this smiling woman greeted us as we walked past.

After our walk, we had a late lunch in Sapa and then waited for our bus. When the bus dropped us off at our hotel the day before, the driver told us he'd be back to get us at 4:30 to take us back to Lao Cai, to the train station. Well, we didn't exactly know who he was or how he knew us, but everyone seemed to know everything without us telling them. So we were waiting in our hotel lobby at 4:30, when a guy walked into the lobby, walked over to Marc, and handed him his cell phone -- 'call for you.' Someone was talking to Marc about the trip back to Lao Cai, but he didn't know who it was. No one ever verified who they were talking to, not the guy on the phone or the guy who handed Marc the phone. So the bus came by but the women at the hotel desk seemed confused, and walked out with us. She spoke to the driver, and told Marc that the driver was bitter, and that we should let the hotel take us to Lao Cai. NO PROBLEM. We knew we'd need help at the train station, and a bitter guy didn't seem like the one to help.

A half hour later, another mini-bus came by and the hotel woman walked us out to it and said goodbye. Who was the driver? THE BITTER GUY. And the hotel woman was smiling and chatting with him. We were so confused. We drove through town, picking up people here and there -- including on the street, and at a school -- and then stopped to get gas. Finally with an overly-full load of people, we headed off to Lao Cai. Marc sat next to a young woman from Hong Kong who was desperately flirting with a young Vietnamese guy, and I sat next to the window hoping the smell of mildew wasn't going to give me a migraine. Eventually, we got there and got on the train and everything worked out.

waiting at the train station

We got into Hanoi at 4:10am, to find that it had been raining a lot. I guess the next tropical storm had come through. The hotel gave us a room to shower and crash in, while we waited for our room to be ready. It's raining pretty steadily today, not quite sure what we're going to do, but I do know that we're going back to Madame Hien's for dinner tonight and I can't wait.

Outside Sapa -- Cat Cat village

The closest tribal village -- well, kinda, it's really set up for tourists in a big way -- is Cat Cat, which is just a 3km walk from our hotel. After breakfast this morning, wearing our pebbly-bottomed trekking shoes, we set out for a hike. Today is much warmer than yesterday, thankfully, which made the walk even more enjoyable. Cat Cat is a Hmong village, and we passed many stalls filled with scarves and jewelry on the way to the beautiful countryside. The Hmong dye their cloth with indigo, so there were dark blue strips of cloth hanging to dry, fresh from the dye bath. It was a mostly downhill walk, and we passed gorgeous rice fields, a stunning waterfall, busy people, various livestock (a couple cows, some chickens, a few pigs), and motorcycle guys ready to drive exhausted Westerners like us back up the hill.

this waterfall was powerful and stunningly beautiful

little bridges made of bamboo, which is thick and tall and EVERYWHERE

Hmong women carrying wood

me at the Cat Cat waterfall, even happier than I look. i kept laughing and feeling overcome with gratitude for having the luxury to see this place

a moment's pause at the waterfall, checking our location

I love this photo of Marc, pointing at the waterfall

the famous Vietnamese potbelly pig, in situ

beautiful Sapa valley

we don't know what that building is -- a hotel vacated? who knows. but what a view.

We have to check out of our room at noon, and the bus picks us up at 4:30 to drive us back to Lao Cai, to the train station where we'll bounce along all night back to Hanoi. We're going to hire somebody to drive us around during the interim, to nearby villages. My next post will be from Hanoi. So very glad we got to see Sapa.

Sapa. It's COLD, man.

Sapa is located in the mountains in the north of Vietnam, near the Chinese border. The French built a hill station here when this was theirs -- Indochine -- and it's easy to see the attraction of the place. The mountains are really beautiful, and the views are gorgeous. It's also populated by hill tribes, eight ethnic groups who inhabit Lao Cai province: Hmong, Dao, White Thai, Giay, Tay, Muong, Hao and Xa Pho. The most prominent in town are the Red Dao, easily identified by the coin-dangling red headdresses and intricately embroidered waistcoats worn by the women, and the Hmong, distinguished by their somewhat less elaborately embroidered royal blue attire. Groups of ethnic Hmong youngsters and women can be seen hauling impossibly heavy, awkward baskets of wood, stakes, bamboo, bricks, mud and produce. Deep in the valleys surrounding Sapa, the Muong Hoa River runs a wild, jagged course among Giay, Red Dao and White Thai settlements.

the trees are filled with little cages with birds. i wonder who feeds and cares for them?

it's always a moment of startle for me, seeing the hammer and sickle flag

a Hmong woman preparing flax or raffia, can't tell

so distinctive, i love their garments

lots of Hmong women in Sapa this morning

standard view through the foliage, of the valley

the center of Sapa -- look at the mountains in the background!

friendly Uncle Ho, he's everywhere

the panorama view off our balcony

We were thoroughly exhausted when we got to our hotel, but of course our room wasn't available since it was so early. So we had breakfast, changed clothes, and walked a bit but we were immediately set upon by a bunch of Hmong women who were beautiful and smiling, and oh-so-eager to sell me some jewelry. Well, what do you know: I was in the market for a pair of earrings, so I bought them from this young woman, whose name sounded like Zay.

she was very insistent. i liked her a lot.

We returned to the hotel and hung around until our room was ready, then we crashed a bit and decided to take a car tour to the nearby waterfall. Our guide was the adorable Hmong woman whose name sounded like Che. She showed me how they prepare the bamboo they eat, and her fingers were purple -- because of handling bamboo, she said. Her English was pretty good (better than my Vietnamese, obviously), and she was funny, with a very easy laugh. I liked her a lot.

our adorable guide; we stopped here for the gorgeous view

we're FREEZING!

that's us on the bridge. again: FREEZING. but the waterfall was really beautiful. we can't figure out where the water comes from, though.

marc -- to the left is our driver, and our guide, plus a couple random Hmong women who were standing there.

more scenic splendor

i never EVER get tired of mountains

again, the waterfall

But yeah, it's very cold here. Like, very cold. We weren't really prepared; we'd brought overnight backpacks and left our suitcases back in Hanoi, and the clothing we brought was not nearly warm enough. I have on a number of layers, including pieces that weren't meant to be worn together, and I'm still freezing. My feet are ice cubes. So we're relaxing, and we'll have a bit of an early dinner, then get in bed and try to get warm. Tomorrow we're going on a trek down to a nearby tribal village, and we'll leave Sapa at 4:30 for the return trip to Lao Cai, to ride the overnight train back to Sapa. It's cold, but it's gorgeous and I'm so very glad to be here.

why we want to see Sapa

Because the people in the hill tribes, including the Black Hmong and the Red Dao, gather in Sapa for market day. They look something like the photo above, though the faces are a wee bit different. (We photoshopped that photo for our last blog, back in 2005, and it still cracks me up. The incorrect scale of the faces, the grin on my face, it's so funny to me.)