Once more, Xin Chao and greetings from the northern hills of Sapa, Vietnam.

So, after making ourselves (even more) beautiful following our return from the Halong Bay trip, we found ourselves boarding the 9pm sleeper train from Hanoi to Lao Cai (which is 40 minutes or so down the hill from Sapa), due to arrive at a little before 6am.

The train itself was actually not too bad at all, with four to a cabin, bunk bed either side. We were sharing with a couple from Holland, Jennifer and Olaff, they were nice enough, and we’ve since ran into them again a couple of times.

We had opted for the ‘soft’ sleeper, which cost a very slight amount more than its not very appealingly named ‘hard’ equivalent. As it turned out though, the ‘soft’ description was not strictly accurate. They were pretty wooden from where I was. We both slept well anyway, not bothering to set an alarm and found ourselves being woken at a little after 6am by the train staff who were making it startlingly obvious with mere hand gestures that they wanted us off the train. Now.

A little dishevled we gathered our belongings and exited the train, out into the slightly cooler mountain morning. Next it was onto the bus and up the hill to the Sapa Global Hotel, which was to be our base to begin with. As with the Halong Bay trip we had been given the option of whether to stay in the hotel, or in this case the village homestay, in one of the hill tribe villages in the valley below Sapa. Again, we chose the experience over the comfort of the hotel, although the girls at the Hanoi Guesthouse did their best to convince us not to, clearly certain that us westerners would not like the homestay with its lack of amenities. Bless their cute little selves.

Sapa is quite a pretty little town, originally built as a station by the French in 1922, nowadays it is highly touristed but still retains a mountain town feel with a well groomed square at the centre and surrounded by a host of bars and cafés. It is a big change to the chaos of Hanoi and a welcome one at that.

Once at the hotel we were served breakfast, which was a buffet and a decent one at that. Banana pancakes and fritters, fresh fruit juice and omelettes made to order. Seconds were had all round. After we had had our fill and sauntered back to reception, our guide for the tour, Chung, was there waiting for us.

Chung was a local from the Mong tribe villages in the valley below. It also turned out that she was 19 years old, recently married, as well as being 6 months pregnant. She had also walked about 12 kilometres up the hill to collect us and was set to walk the 12 kilometres back down for today’s leg of the tour. Not half bad for someone two thirds of the way through pregnancy. Apparently their belief is that you must stay active through the entire pregnancy as this gives the child the best chance of being healthy. She also had the longest hair I’ve ever seen. This was due to the fact that the elders of the tribes believe that, once married, hair should not be cut as it is a symbol of life and therefore if cut, you would be cutting not only your hair but your life also.

As we stepped out of the hotel and into the streets of Sapa, heading out of town and into the valley, we were immediately surrounded by a posse of hill tribe women, clad in dark blue embroided head gear, jackets, matching leggings and wicker baskets strapped to their backs.

They were all extremely friendly, asking us our names, where we were from, how old we were, if we had any siblings et cetera. Immediately I was suspicious. They were after something. A sale. I knew it. It was just a matter of what they were selling.

I waited for the sale. Scanned them all for the item(s) they were clearly about to attempt to lumber me with. Waited some more. Strangely, nothing seemed to be coming as they happily just chatted away, at the same time answering questions on themselves and their own culture. Perhaps they were genuinely just curious and friendly? That’s what I started to believe anyway as I began to like these oddly dressed village folk.

As we walked, the village women recounted to us how, in their culture, they often (in the past at least) are ‘chosen’ by the men of the village, or their parents for marriage. A locally growing poison was also pointed out to us and explained how, on occasions people have been known to commit suicide with it to avoid an unwanted marriage. Nowadays arranged marriage is not so common. The younger women especially seemed grateful for this fact.

The Mong tribe also, as a rule do not eat dog, however, Chung did recall how their family dog, at the ripe old age of 15 and surely nearing the end of its days, was in fact killed and eaten. Presumably because it was going to die anyway and therefore why waste it?

We still found that hard to take.

The Sapa valley is truly amazing, with a free flowing river running through the middle and rice paddies terraced along the sides. Surrounding the villages scattered through the valley is dense vegetation, bamboo forests and waterfalls. The weather unfortunately wasn’t kind to us though as it was a very misty day here in the hills and as such, visibility was slightly limited. A bit of fog couldn’t hide the raw beauty though.

Our first stop on the trek was the Lao Chai village of the Mong people, about 10km from Sapa. The villages are very basic, but at the same time somehow managing to blend in with their rural surroundings. As you walk through though it is hard to believe that people still live as these people do, in virtual huts. Its not too dissimilar from what you would expect to find in a tribal village in Africa. They do seem content and happy though. One school we passed through a little later in the trip seemed to offer a shining example of this as I found myself struck by the sight of a little boy, no older than 7 or 8, playing with the lid from something like a big carton of Nescafe (if you know what I’m referring to). He was just throwing it around like a frysbee and having the time of his life. Now compare that to the kids at home, depressed at not having the latest PS3 game. I’m sure we could learn a few things from the hill tribe villagers here, as well as they can from us (again, that litter problem).

It was also here in the first village of the day that the sweet little tribe women shed their cloaks and revealed their true intentions.

As we entered the village across a bridge, the women that had been happily chatting to us stuck with us even closer than they had been, before physically pulling us to one side, their demeanor changing in an instant.

“Now, you buy from me”, Came the instruction.

Whao. Hang on there a second flower, buy what? We don’t even have the slightest clue what it is your even selling…

It seemed that, due to them bestowing upon us the honour of holding a brief conversation with them, this meant that, in return, we were obliged to purchase their (as yet unknown) goodies at hugely inflated prices.

And then it appeared. Those wicker baskets on their backs were in fact concealing a hippies dream of multi coloured handmade crafts, from bags and bands to tin-pot earrings. Still bitter from our encounter with the monk I politely declined their offers. Aimee on the other hand was negotiating for one of their bags that she had decided she would get before we left.

The price began at 250,000 dong (about 8GBP) and ended up at 60,000 dong (about 2GBP). We seemed to be improving at this haggling lark.

That was one villager happy with her efforts and off to count her bounty. Unfortunately though, the sight of green changing hands was enough to send the other remaining tribal woman into a frenzy. Anyone who had so much as made eye contact with us on the way down the hill was demanding that we must now “buy from them”.

“You buy from her, now you buy from me”. “Otherwise, its not fair”, came the orders.

Apparently, as both women had spoken to us at one stage we simply must buy from them both as it was just not fair otherwise. Next in on the action were the Red Zao villagers (identifiable by their traditional red headgear) who had also waited just beyond the bridge as part of the organised ambush, dutifully informing us that we had already bought from the Mong people so we must now buy from their people.

Makes perfect sense.

Finally came the village children, not at all concerned with fairness but simply demanding that we also “buy from them”.

Perfectly reasonable, obviously.

Trying to explain to them that we didn’t have the money, or the desire, to buy from everyone was a helpless task but eventually we fought our way through and located the rest of our group, who also appeared to be clutching various rainbow coloured fare and no doubt a little lighter in the back pocket.

From this point on, any villager that approached us looking to start conversation were promptly brushed off as simply angling for a sale, which was a shame. I suppose if we were in their position we would no doubt be doing the same though.

Departing the village we headed off further down the valley and across the river to the Ta Van village which was also to be our home for the night. The homestay was about half way into the village, amongst the various locals, including free roaming pigs, chickens, ducks and dogs.

It was nice enough but it was pretty obvious that this place wasn’t a ‘homestay’, as we were expecting anyway. We had expected a ‘home’ stay to mean exactly that. A nights stay in the ‘home’ of a local family. Our homestay was in fact a purpose built accomodation, although basic and largely in line with the genuine local places, was still edging more towards hostel than homestay. The fact that there was no family actually living there either and the place was instead full of ten or so tourists just added to the slight sense of disappointment.

However, even on the back of that, overall it was a good experience and certainly worth doing ahead of the hotel but you just couldn’t help but think that the village people seem to have the wrong impression of what it is that brings visitors here.

There were more homestays being built as we walked through the village, by which time it will look more like a purpose built homestay resort as opposed to a genuine hill tribe village experience.

Our guides did stay at the homestay with us and after cooking our buffet dinner, did eventually join us whilst at the same time inviting us all to try the local “happy juice”.
There’s definitely nothing ‘happy’ about it, I can tell you! It reminded me of Ouzo or something like that - but worse. Why is it that every country seems intent on developing their own toxic spirit? What’s wrong with making a local drink that actually tastes nice?

After dinner (and a few beers) we headed off to our four poster bed (it definitely was not luxurious though so don’t get the wrong impression) and a good nights sleep after the days trek. The bed was actually even harder than the sleeper train and the cover was more like a heavy, musty smelling rug. Still, was nice enough and we would have been more disappointed if it was luxury in there. Strangely, one of the beds appeared to have had its legs stolen and was resting on bricks in all four corners. I couldn’t help but wonder if any scousers had stayed here recently…

The next morning we were actually up at around 6:30 and sat watching the village preparing to start a new day whilst the guides prepared our breakfast of banana pancakes. Just to point out that the pancakes were top notch. Chocolate sauce. Fresh honey. Pancakes. Lots of them. Need I say more.

After more than a few too many banana pancakes Chung let us know that we were heading off for the days trek, which would be taking us further up the side of the valley, through a bamboo forest to the waterfall and then back down to the foot of the valley to Giang Ta Chai, which is a Red Zao village.

The climb up the side of the valley wasn’t too strenuous, although at times you were shuffling along extremely narrow rough tracks through the bush with nothing to your left but practically vertical drop down into the valley. Chung seemed unfazed by it all, whilst at the back of our trio I came dangerously close to nose-diving into the bush a couple of times whilst taking photo’s.

After passing through the forest we approached the waterfall from the side, about two thirds up the height of it. The view out across the valley from here was pretty spectacular (if a little misty). The waterfall was nice as well, although the water flow was pretty low due to the lack of rainfall at the time. I could imagine the crossing of the waterfall being a bit dodgy to say the least after some heavy rain when the fall was in full flow. For the record, there are no safety rails or bridges up here, as you come to expect in Vietnam. You simply hop between rocks across the water as you try not to glance to your left at the huge drop down the rocks into the valley.
Just as we were about to cross we were told about a Dutch fellow who happened to slip and fall down here last year:

“…Its ok though, he didn’t die, just broke a few things…”.

Well, thanks a lot for that. Put my mind right at ease.

At the other side of the fall we began our descent down the hillside towards the river below, of which, to one side a little further up ahead, sat the Red Zao village which was to be our next stop.

As we approached the village we again crossed the waterfall, this time at the foot, over a bamboo bridge. Looking up at the waterfall and the people at the spot we had just come down from, I couldn’t help imagining the poor Dutchman careering downwards. Definitely would have stung a bit, that.

At the village we were greeted ‘hill tribe’ style.

“You buy from me?” echoed through the misty hills.

This time, in spite of the villagers dogged persistence, we held firm.

Lunch was had here at the village as we sat overlooking the river flowing through slightly below, flanked either side by palm trees which were rustling in the breeze blowing through the valley. A very welcome breeze at that as it was, although not particularly bright, a very humid day.
Meanwhile in a not too distant spot across the pathway, the local village women huddled together mischievously grinning between themselves, eyeballing their next potential target…

Well, that was pretty much it for our tour of Sapa, all that was left to do following lunch was a brief walk back up the other side of the valley, via another small Red Zao village, to our pickup point for the minibus that was to run us back up the hill to Sapa.

We arrived a few minutes early and sat at a café with Chung, once again attempting to explain to a local how differently we view dogs and what we could call ‘domestic’ animals in comparison with them. Once again though, im not sure she fully understood our viewpoint.

After the brief ride up the hill to the Sapa Global hotel we said our goodbyes to Chung, collected our bags and set off for our night train back to Hanoi for one more night before heading off down the coast to Hue.

For the record, the night train back was, erm, pretty crap (to put it politely). We ended up in the end carriage - next to the join between carriages - and therefore were forced to listen to every single movement in the tracks. As an added bonus the main carriage door was situated just outside our cabin door and with every single person that happened to pass through we were subjected to it slamming back into place. Oh, and the couple that we were sharing the cabin with also had a young daughter. Young children and tired ‘us’ do not mix well. The thought of punching said child in the face did cross my mind at least a couple of times as she jumped around on the bed and fiddled with the volume and channels on the small flat screen TV. On the plus side however, said childs father also happened to be a local taxi driver from Hanoi (whose name I don’t think we even asked) and thus, using our initiative and foresight, immediately set about negotiating a lift to the airport for the next night. After some intense haggling transport was secured for $10 ($5 less than the hotel taxi). I know what your thinking, it doesn’t sound a lot I know. Here though, $5 will pretty much buy the two of us dinner for the evening. To emphasize the point, If your partial to a drop of the amber nectar, that same $5 will buy you 7 or 8 (500ml) bottles of local brew. Not looking too shabby now eh?

Anyhow, next stop (following the brief stopover in Hanoi in which we did nothing besides a trip to KFC to appease our growing desire for anything not served with rice) was a short 1 hour flight to Hue, with its many tombs and famous Citadel…