We arrived in Hanoi and started our pre-bought 9 day adventure of hiking the local villages of Sapa, relaxing on a junk boat in Ha Long Bay, and exploring the Capital of Vietnam. After leaving our backpacks in the lobby of a hotel, we had 5 hours to explore Hanoi’s Old Quarter - historic for its French Colonial architecture, shopping, and temples. The city also celebrated its 1000 history in 2010.
Since a lot, and I mean a lot, of clothing is made in Vietnam, (they have clothing stores all over selling the rejects - missing a button, crook stitches, zipper misplaced, etc. for pennies on the dollar) we went shopping. Most of the stuff is North Face, or North Fakes, as the backpackers call it, but who am I to argue with a $18 nano puffy coat that keeps me warm and would cost $250 in the US?
With a new, warm, snuggly coat in hand, we boarded a night train to Sapa - a north Vietnam mountain village known for its rice fields and the local tribes that farm the land. We shared a tiny traincabin with a very tall German who was nice, but didn’t quite understand the concept of “shared space”. Since he had the top bunk on his side of the room, he needed a place to drink his coffee in the morning, so he just moved the sleeping guy’s feet on the bottom bunk and sat down. He also drank 2 of the 4 free water bottles in the car, thinking they were all up for grabs, but really one per person.
At 5:30am we zombie walked to a waiting taxi-van for an hour drive into the mountains. I passed out against the window and apparently missed the harrowing ride racing up the narrow, windy road to Sapa. We had just enough time to store our bags and grab some breakfast before the tribes women of the Black H’moung came to take us on a trek through the woods to visit their village. Since it was a rainy day, we borrowed muck boots from the hotel, even though they were huge, and were extremely grateful since we ended up slipping and sliding down the muddy hillside for the better part of 6 hours.
We choose the “hard way” trek, which meant we became part billy goat and went up and down the hills, through the woods, and not to grandmother’s house because she was actually helping us try not to fall on our asses in the mud, all the while watching the mist sweep down from the mountains and over the rice fields. Even though it is winter now, rainy and cold, the rice terraces hold green and brown tones. The eerie quality of the fog helped make the valley look like a magically place.
The tour took a bit of a bad turn at lunch. Apparently we had one tribeswoman guide, but the other 10 tribes women who helped us transverse the mud come to “help you” with the purpose of forcing you to buy a purse or bag from them at the end of the hike. We had just sat down for lunch when 15 of them surrounded us and shovel trinkets and purses in our faces. They said they helped us and we must buy. I picked up a purse to look at it and our guide told me, “she is not our tribe, you need to buy from our tribe”. So I put the purse down and bought one from one of the women who helped me, but the other three women who helped me as well started to get angry I wouldn’t buy anything from them. Essentially I got claustrophobic with them all pressing in and shoving products in my face that I yelled at one of the women that I wasn’t happy and they needed to get away from me. They sort of left, but we got evil stares in return.
Going into the hike, I knew that the tribeswomen helped you on the trail and that you should tip them for the help, but forcing people to buy overpriced handcrafts they don’t want is wrong and makes me not want to tip at all. After that, I was a bit angry and unable to appreciate the scenery for the next hour or so. It didn’t help that we separated from our whole tour group, save one guy, when we went to our Homestay and they went back to town. A Homestay is where you stay in a local’s home and they tell you about their culture, you get to help them cook or watch them in the rice fields. It’s an immersion experience of you learning about them and them learning about you. Our Homestay in Sapa was not this.
Walking to the Homestay, we passed by many cute Homestays that had gardens or a little bar or people laughing inside. We left all that behind and kept walking out of the little town. We started to hear very loud music blasting over the valley and my first thought was, “oh crap, that’s where we’re going.” I hate being right. Out of all the cute places, we got a “Homestay” run by a family that spoke no English, wasn’t interested in talking to their guests, or being helpful in anyway.
The music stopped when we arrived long enough for the proprietor to show us mattresses on the floor upstairs and tell us dinner was at 6pm; it was 2pm when we arrived. Robby, and Eddie, the guy that came with us, attempted to sleep, but it was freezing and the proprietor decided he would sing his own terrible karaoke, so it was futile. We donned our raincoats and gum boots and headed back into town just to do something, anything than die of boredom or bad karaoke.
We met some nice Belgium girls, found egg coffee - a raw egg blended with condensed milk and sugar and poured over strong coffee, and talked about our lives. It was actually nice. When we got back to the Homestay, a bunch of people had shown up and were eating dinner. There was an irate Frenchman who was wet and cold and asked for the standing heater to be turned on, but there wasn’t petroleum for it (we’d asked earlier), so one of the guys that worked in the Homestay built him a mini mortar with hot coals and stuck it at his feet. It was pretty funny. The Frenchman also told us at 8:30pm we were talking too loud and “people” were trying to sleep.
So, Sapa Homestay was a bust, but Eddie was fun to hang out with and the hiking was pretty. The following morning we went to see a waterfall and then explored the actually town of Sapa. Most of the stores sold more North Fakes, but it was still fun to browse the arrangement of colors, textures, and styles. We also found a lit up lake that had a giant pink lotus statue floating in the middle, outlined by green and blue lights.
Our last day of Sapa was spent visiting Cat Cat Village. What once used to be a working H’moung village has been turned into a tourist trap where visitors can dress in the local water tribe clothing and take Instagram selfies to their heart’s content in predesigned photogenic stops. There’s a large statue of a water jug and flute that represents the tribe, a waterfall, water wheels with hammocks, flower garden, and shops. Even though it was touristy, the photo sites were very beautiful and we lucked out with a bright blue sky and the ability to see rice field for miles.
Our second adventure on the night train was better, we had a nice Belgium couple sharing our cabin who told us of their incredible Homestay in a house way up in the mountains with a small local family they lived with for two days where they helped around the house and learned about each other’s lives. We now know there are true homestays available, we just have to book the right one next time we come back to Sapa.
To be continued...
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