Sapa 2

Well having left Sapa and gone back down to the lowlands I can confidently say I had the experience of a lifetime. Just two days before I was sitting in my  room feeling sorry for myself, thinking that I was not making the most of my time. Then the next day I was taking a rest in a square in Sapa when the obligatory local hill tribeswomen came up to me and asked me to buy their wares. "You buy something from me?" They say. Then they start with the questions, "what is your name, where are you from, how old are you, are you married, do you have children"....etc. I decided to turn it around and have a bit of fun so started asking them. It turns out that they were 23, 28 and 35, all married of course, (most are by 16), and one had 4 boys, one had 2 boys and a girl and the other had 2 boys. Two of the women were carrying the newest child on their back as most of the women do, one was 3 months old and the other was only 1 month old. They were so cute! I ended up talking to them for quite a while and both babies woke up, had a feed and I nursed both of them. The three month old was smiling and gurgling at me which was awfully cute!

Eventually I decided that seeing as they had spent an hour with me and therefore unable to bother any other westerners to buy their things I would buy something small from each of them. They grow hemp and indigo, weave the hemp into cloth, dye it blue with the indigo, (a process that can take up to  a year), and then hand weave and embroider patterns onto it before turn those sections of embroidery into purses, cushion covers, wall hangings, mobile covers etc. Whatever they think westerners will buy. It's actually very beautiful and considering they might spend 3 days embroidering something that I then pay $4 for, its quite humbling. Anyway, after we had done our deal I kept talking to them and said I wanted to go on a trek with a group or preferably one on one. One of them said that she would take me to her house and give me lunch if I was interested. So I  jumped at the chance. We negotiated a price, $7.50 for each of the two women coming with me, plus I pay $2 extra to the woman who has to buy the ingredients for our lunch. We arrange for them to pick me up outside my hotel the next morning. 

Sure enough, there they were, patiently sitting on the footpath outside the hotel when i came down after breakfast. One with a basket on her back, the other with the cute 3 month old, wrapped up tightly and fast asleep. We set off back up into town to go to the local market and buy food for lunch. This was a process in itself because they don't buy much food from the markets or the local shops, too expensive for them. I am starting to realise that these people are not just poor, they are only just living. No wonder they try so hard to sell their wares. I feel bad that 98% of the westerners they ask will wave them away and so no thanks, me generally being one of them. So we wander through the wet market, past women sitting under old umbrellas and blue canvas behind huge piles of various green vegetables, herbs, bananas, eggs and other locally grown food. The women who is doing the buying tentatively chooses 5 eggs, they cost her 11,000Dng, each which is 50c. Extremely expensive compared to the cost of other food and things up in northern Vietnam. That is almost westerners pricing. It seems crazy. Then she buys 3 packets of noodles. As we are leaving, the two women have a bit of a conversation and then one says to me, "do you each tofu?" I said yes and so one went off back to the markets to buy a small amount of tofu. I think they were feeling bad about only having noodles, rice and eggs for lunch and wanted to give me something more. This was new to me, I had seen the richer Vietnamese down in Hanoi with loads of food to eat each meal, green vegies, eggs, pork, sometimes chicken, sausage, bread, soup, coffee, beer, lemon ice tea etc. These people were  absolutely third world, they made the vietnamese appear rich! We had our food nestled carefully into the basket and we set off down the road out of town. 

We walked along a road for around 20 minutes and then all of a sudden one of them pointed to a dirt track that led upwards off the main road, "this is our track, we go this way." Yikes, memories of my last trek flooded back, surely it won't be that bad I say, couldn't be that bad. To Bron I say, yes it was...

We followed varying degrees of quality tracks upwards, ever upwards for around an hour, I was getting extremely hot and thinking I might not make this if we don't stop soon. Then we  came to a ridge and I looked down the valley and it was amazing. We were looking way down into the bottom of the valley, on top of the ridge that I walked with Bron last time and far below the road and houses and village where we eventually had to get to. Oh boy, i say to myself, what the heck have i done??

We came to a timber shack and stumbled down a narrow, slippery, non existent track which was the main way of getting to one of the womens houses. She took me inside to show me what her house was like. No windows, just large cracks between the vertical timber planks to let in light, and also the cold in winter when it gets down to 0 degrees. Hard, compressed dirt floor, little tiny timber stools to sit on, I think only one of my butt cheeks would have fitted on the whole stool! They are very tiny people mind you, I'm not suggesting I have a big butt!! This was an absolute eye opener, the building was sort of divided into 3 areas, one for sleeping, one for eating and socialising and one for cooking. There were areas above us under the roof space for storing rice and corn, their two staples. But there were no chairs, no beds as such, no kitchen utensils apart from a couple of pots and a few small bowls and chopsticks. The one concession she was most proud of  was that there was a funny switch in the corner of the main open area and it was power! For two small lightbulbs. But electricity is so expensive they only switch it on sometimes at night just for a short time. It was mind blowing. We sat for a while on the little stools so I could cool down and then off we went for lunch at the other womens house. She told me as we were leaving that her friends house here was much bigger, newer and nicer then hers! I'm thinking to myself, how could hers be any more simple? But it was. We walked another 20 minutes down the side of the mountain, walking through corn fields, mud, slippery tracks, large step downs, it was all rather scary for a slack westerner like me. They of course confidently stepped down with no concern about slipping etc. In fact they held my arm to assist me whilst carrying baskets and babies on their own backs!! Rather embarassing  really.

We got to the second womans house and yes, it was smaller, older and no power. I was inside the house of one of the poorest women in Vietnam. The Hmong tribes are the poorest of the hill tribes and the hill tribes are the poorest of the people living in Vietnam. I made the mistake of calling them Vietnamese. They are not Vietnamese, fiercely independent, have their own language, different clothes, different living styles, different history in fact.

So the very shy husband comes in from working in his corn fields, with a small baby tied to his back and a 3 year old walking beside him. The other two children were at school. We three women sit down and rest while he scurrys aournd for the next half hour preparing the fire and putting on pots for cooking rice, noodles and then frying eggs, tofu and tomatoes. He serves up all the food into bowls in the middle of the table and we turn around and start eating. The men will often cook, particularly if the woman has gone up into Sapa for the day to sell her wares. I told them men in Australia often don't cook, told them that it was a good thing for them! One small good thing amongst a sea of hardship and difficulty. They kept offering me more food, it was good, simple but good. They all ate really quickly, shovelling the food in with chopsticks. The food left over would be served for dinner that night and for the children after school. I was full and now cool. Babies and dogs, chooks, cats, pigs and chooks and chickens all milled around just outside the wooden doors waiting for any leftover scraps, but  only get corn i think. The dogs only get corn as well, so looked pretty skinny and undernourished. In fact all the animals are very skinny and relatively unhealthy looking. Made me feel just the tiniest bit guilty about me trying to decide whether to give Suki turkey, beef or chicken for her two full meals per day.... boy are Australian pets lucky...they have no idea. Speaking of dogs, there were around 3 adult dogs hanging around and a couple of litters of puppies, some around 3 months old and some were just 2-3 weeks old, just starting to open their eyes. Lots of cute puppy noises etc. They told me they don't eat them until they have grown up.....yikes...that was tough to hear. I am looking at these cute puppies thinking that to them they are just food, like chooks or cattle or sheep are to us, (vegetarians not included). They don't eat cats because they are considered pets but dogs are fair game. The benefit to them is that dogs don't need to each much to survive, whereas pigs need to eat twice a day and need a lot of corn. Chooks they keep for eggs and just eat them every now and then. No other meat exists for them. It was very tough to hear that and think about it. They are constantly on the edge of starvation, all of them, people and animals. Talk about counting your blessings.

After lunch we started on our great descent down the mountain to get to the villages at the bottom. Phew that was a trek and a half. Slippery, muddy, difficult, steep, etc etc, very hard work on the thigh muscles and knees. Slowly, slowly, we made our way down and eventually got to a stony track that led to a small suspension bridge across a fast flowing river with rapids, very beautiful. We stopped at a roadside cafe for a drink overlooking the river. The poorest Hmong woman had never had a can of drink! So I bought her a can of Liptons Iced Teaone and showed her how to open it. She liked the flavour but said it was too sweet. It cost the price of 2 eggs, which has more value to her? No choice really, no wonder she has never had a can of drink. By now my muscles are starting to seize up a bit, (bringing back memories Bron?) so I know that I have to keep walking before they give way altogether. We continue along the  rough road and walk through other villages, Dzao people and Tay people, distinguished by their different coloured clothing and headress types. Little kids running around laughing and playing in the dirt. Who needs money when you can still be this happy?

My guide has arranged for two local Hmong guys to meet us at the end of the final village with their motorbikes. I am paying for all of us to get transported the 8km or so back up the mountain to Sapa. I put on a dodgy helmut and climb on. The other two women, one with a baby strapped to her back climb on behind the other guy, 3 on a bike. We slowly bump our way back up to the main road and then meander up the mountain again on a kind of normal semi-bitumen road. The road trip back was lovely, the view down from the road was directly down the valley, no safety barriers here, and the view was amazing. Huge mountain backdrop and rice terraces everywhere. 

Back at the hotel I paid the motorbike guys and then sat down with the women to pay them. I was so exhausted, muddy and sore but absolutely elated and stoked at the experience. I knew that not many people get to experience that, most just get herded along on organised treks like we did last time. I had been given a personal viewing into their lives, I had spent a good part of the day asking them all sorts of questions about how they lived, what they thought about things etc. I had really been able to get inside their heads and understand who they are as a people, an amazing privilege.

I paid one of them $12.50 (extra for lunch) and the other $10 in the end. I imagine thats probably nearly a weeks income for them sometimes, if they don't sell any wares for a few days.
A very cheap price for the experience considering it was going to cost me $15 to join a large group tour that day which i nearly did instead. So glad I ran into these women. 

Wow a long post, but it had to be, had to get it all out and down onto paper. Amazing. Emotionally challenging, but so worth it. Even the sore, stiff legs 3 days later are still worth it.

I am in Hoi An now for a couple of days, 500km south of Hanoi, so will write about it in two days time after I have some more adventures.