Wandering through Rice Paddies in Sapa

Sapa is Amazing. I still don't think I've fully processed the beauty and incredible experiences I've encountered in the 3 days that I've spent there. Even the hundreds of photos I took - of shimmering rice paddies, towering mountains drenched in fog, and women dressed in their ethnic indigo garb - can not do the place justice (I don't mean to gush about everything I've seen, but Sapa really is amazing and the train ride back to Hanoi made up for it). After the DisOrganized Halong Bay trip, I opted against signing up for an overpriced "Trekking Tour" of Sapa and the surrounding villages, and took the overnight train up to Lao Cai on my own. From there I made my way to Sapa, checked into a freezing cold room at the "Friendly Hotel" (read: miserable, scammy, un-helpful, and did I mention cold? Hotel), and tried my best to warm up in my many layers of clothes, curled up in my sleeping bag next to the heater. I found that the air outside was much warmer, and spent the rest of my first day there walking through the local markets and being followed around by Hmong women trying hard to sell me their handicrafts.

One woman, whose name is pronounced something like "Meh," wasn't quite as pushy as the rest and was keen to start up a conversation about her village in Lao Chai. Meh is about 4'0, aged 25 and has "three babies." She tried to teach me a bit of her native language, especially how to say "No, I do not want to buy" to all the other girls who were following me around. I asked her if she wanted to be my guide and show me around the villages the following day for a small fee, and she eagerly agreed to take me to both her mother's village and to her own home close to Lao Chai. I was pretty excited to have found a way to see the villages without the help of arranged treks that the Hotels and Tour agencies put on for most visitors to the area. I knew that if I went with Meh, the entire $10 for food, a ride home and her "guiding" expertise would go directly to her family instead of to an outside operator. I went about finding some warm clothes later that day - and settled for a knock-off North face Fleece in a men's size medium, the smallest I could find - and visited little restaurants with fireplaces for tea in a pitiful attempt to warm up. I nearly froze to death at night after trying to take a "Hot" shower that turned out to be freezing cold and finding no possible way to keep warm, even in my sleeping bag, with a heater cranked 2 feet away from the bed. I got up extra early the next morning to check out and find a new place to stay. An extra $5 per night got me a lovely double room in the Pumpkin hotel, complete with steaming hot water and an extra space heater.

Soon after dumping my stuff off there, I met with Meh (and her 1 year old son, strapped to her back) and headed to the local food market to buy some provisions for the day. We bought onions, potatoes, tofu, cabbage, and a few other vegetables for less than $2 and her husband took them back to their home on his motorcycle so that we didn't have to haul them all the way there. We walked about 8km in three hours down to her mother's home along a dirt road, where we stopped to see her brother's two children - a naughty little seven year old boy and a 5 month old baby boy with no pants. Meh's mother's home was made of wooden planks and had one large room with a small room closed off for sleeping. To one side, the family gathered around a smoky fire, where meat hung from a rack above to cure. Meh's sister-in-law handed me the 5 month old baby boy and I held him up so he could kick and jump around on the dirt floor. He then, of course, proceeded to pee all over himself and the dirt floor, and the family laughed at my luck - he just missed me. I felt bad, cause the baby felt cold, and nobody cleaned him up afterwards. He was so tiny (maybe half the size) compared to 7-month-old Emma, who I'm so used to holding and bouncing around in the same way. Meh showed me some of the spices they were drying for cooking and spoke to her family for a while before we carried onwards. Meh's mother and her nephew decided to join us for the rest of the walk to her house. The little boy was typical of any 7 year old boy, and enjoyed stomping in mud puddles, chasing pigs along the way and running way faster than he should have down the hills. He fell hard a couple times and ended up in tears. Along the way Meh asked about Canada and tried to explain a few things about life in the village. She owns pigs, buffalo, ducks, chickens, a dog, and cats, and I explained that we generally have the same farm animals at home. Some of the Vietnamese eat dog in that area, but she personally does not, which was reassuring to hear. The mountains in the area were huge and the hills were terraced with rice paddies in many areas. Some were flooded with water, while others were dry, but the landscape all around was incredible. I'm feeling particularly inarticulate in trying to describe the scenery, so you'll just have to wait for photos.

Once we arrived at her home, I played with Meh's two tiny daughters (A five year old and Three year old) and her son, who was thrilled to be out of his backpack-like contraption. She and her mother prepared a HUGE meal with the ingredients that we purchased that morning. There was a ton of rice and noodles along with all the stir fried veggies, boiled potatoes, tofu and chili sauce. She offered me tons of tea, and of course, finished off the meal with some homemade rice wine. We hung around the home for a little while and I took photos of Meh's gorgeous view from her front door and the kids playing outside. Meh thought it would be really funny to dress me up in her (TINY) traditional clothes, so she got me to put on the indigo shirt, vest and hat and took a photo that she told me I should take home to show my mother. From what I gathered, Meh has taken in other visitors over the years, and she showed me a few treasured photos of her family or herself that other tourists had given her. I asked if she would like more photos, newer ones, and she agreed excitedly. She got her 2 little girls all dressed up and even washed their faces for a photo. I took a few snapshots and promised to print them for her that night. Together we looked at some of Meh's handicrafts and I bought a few things to take home as souvenirs and gifts before we started the walk down to the heart of the village. The main road through Lao Chai was packed with kids, still on holidays for Tet, and showing off their new shiny clothes. We hung around the village for a few minutes before her husband drove me back to Sapa town on his motorbike.

No description of that day will ever fully describe how cool it was to receive such warm hospitality from Meh and her family, nor can I ever describe how hard it was to see all the village kids with runny noses, bad coughs, dirty faces and a lack of warm clothing. I've seen poverty before, but Sapa town and the tourism industry there seems to exploit the poverty in the villages through "Trekking" tours run by outside companies. I watched many tourists climb out of Jeeps or mini-vans to walk through the villages, and I really wonder if the locals there will ever see any of the money the tourists spent for their organized tour? Meh said that she goes into Sapa town every day to try to sell not only her own handicrafts, but also those of her mother, who doesn't speak English, and her husband (who makes jewelry) who must stay at home to care for the children and run the farm. I asked how many things she sells in an average day and she said that some days she sells nothing, and on other days, she sells one "cushion" or pillowcase, for about 80,000 dong, or $4. Sometimes she can sell a bracelet or earrings for a dollar or two. In the past 5 years she said she has made "Maybe 10 friends" from other countries who she has brought to her home and shown around the villages. I don't know how accurate all her stories were, but in any case, she leads a difficult life and struggles to bring home any kind of income.

Meh and I had agreed to meet the next morning, and I said I would have the photos from that day printed for her, but she didn't show up when we agreed to meet. I wandered around town for quite some time, and hung around the market for a while in hopes of finding her, but to no avail. I was pretty surprised, because I knew she really wanted those photos. I guess I'll never know what happened. I was feeling rather sick - probably from the cold weather and all the sick little kids I played with the day before, so I took it easy for the rest of the morning, and even tried to order some western food for comfort (The waitress screwed up "Chicken burger" and I ended up with steamed rice and chicken... Oh well). In the afternoon I walked down to Cat Cat village and took a ton of photos, stopping every so often to just sit and gawk at the massive mountains and scenery, which I still can't justly describe. I didn't meet or talk to very many people that day, but took a lot of time to write, read (Life of Pi by Yann Martel) and reflect. It was kinda nice to just sit on a rock and watch the fog roll through the mountains and the local kids walk home to their villages from town. I got some exercise by skipping the motorcycles on offer and walking the 3km uphill from Cat Cat Village. Later that evening, I then caved, and ordered Pizza for dinner. The first western meal - or maybe just a meal without rice or rice noodles - that I've had in over 2 weeks. I thoroughly enjoyed my warm hotel room and a hot shower for a whopping $13 a night as well before waking up at the crack of dawn for a brutal train ride back to Hanoi.

To sum up the Local Train experience: My bus to the Train station was an hour late. When I got to the station they were sold out of tickets. I wanted out desperately. I (illegally?) bought a ticket from a scalper for nearly twice as much as it was worth, but that turned out to be a blessing in disguise cause it ended up being a "soft" seat instead of wooden bench seating. The "8-9 hour" journey ended up being 12.5 painstaking hours and I did not bring enough food for the trip. And of course, being Tet, everyone was returning home from their holidays and the train was PACKED. The seats were full and there were probably just as many people standing or sitting on the floor as there were in seats. I was repeatedly elbowed in the head, hit in the face with backpacks, bumped into, grabbed, pushed, shoved or slept on throughout the journey. I have a much greater sense of appreciation for my Ipod, which lasted an amazing 8 hours before dying at 6pm at night. Screaming babies, Unruly kids, long stops for no apparent reason... and I'm not even going to talk about the toilet facilities. I guess I can't say it is the worst transit ride I have ever had - there were no chickens on board, I had a seat instead of a bag of rice, no rude Tanzanian men tried to hit on me and we didn't suffer from any mechanical problems. But, I was EXTREMELY happy to get off the train and hop on a motorcycle back to my hotel in Hanoi at 10pm after a very long day.