After returning last night from the Halong/Bai Tu Long Bay trip, I stopped in at the Hanoi Serenity Hotel, rearranged my luggage, changed my clothes, and grabbed a bite to eat at a restaurant called The Blue Butterfly. I had the special for the evening, Beef La Lot or Grilled Beef wrapped in betel leaves (thic bo nuong La Lot) which was tasty. This was a small restaurant, and I chatted in French with a Vietnamese travel agent who seems to have been running her business in the restaurant.

When time came to depart for the train station for the overnight train to Lao Cai, the hotel staff, as usual, was so nice, that they sent one of the young men with me to be sure I got on the right train. Although he spoke no English, I was so glad he was there. I couldn't find a word of English in the station. Apparently I had to go some where to turn in a voucher which he took care of. Many trains were departing at my departure time, but, in reality, it was one train and each train was a different set of cars. I had a soft sleeper (mattress, pillow, and blanket) and was in a four berth cabinet. My cabinmates were a couple - he was French and she was Vietnamese, but living in Paris, and a man from Norway. I traded with the young Frenchman and had the lower berth. That was good since I did have to get up, unfortunately, once during the night to use the facilities (which I wish I hadn't had to do). However, I did get some sleep.

At Lao Cai, I was to be met with transportation arranged by the hotel where I would be staying the next night. Sure enough, there was a man in the midst of these hundreds of people and many taxi drivers vying for business holding as sign with my name on it. I shared the shuttle with some other people going to the same hotel of hotels nearby. I ended up speaking with a Frenchman who was traveling with his aunt and uncle. They spoke no English (so I exchanged a few words in French), but he was fluent in English. He has been in the French army for 10 years and prior to his deployment to Afghanistan he worked in IT. He had a lot to say about the differences between the French army and the Americans with whom he worked, saying that in the villages the French approach was to ally themselves with the villager, but the Americans came in with more of a "might makes right" attitude and it took them about a month of working together to get the Americans to come around. On the other hand, he was impressed by the support the American military has from the American people; conversely, he felt there is no support by the French people for the French military.

When we arrived at the hotel, my guide Pham was waiting for me. I was supposed to meet her in the center of town, but as we (and the train) were late, she came to the hotel which was nice. After meeting her, I and the French people went down the road for breakfast to Baguette and Chocolat (which I had heard of in Hanoi as is supports disadvantaged youth.) We walked back up the street and I said good-bye to them and took off with Pham for the day's trek. Our destination was to be Ta Phin.

We first passed through a small village of the Black Hmong, Matra. There the women dye fabric for their clothes with indigo and the fabric was hanging and drying. I saw rice drying and the women operating a machine by hand that separates the rice from its husk. I was able to look in on an elementary school. The weather was cool (that is, not hot) and hazy. the landscape was of terraced hillslides, mostly planted with rice. As we walked I saw people harvesting rice and people of all ages carrying large sacks (which I would guess are about 50 lbs) of rice on their backs. We passed many homes and I was surprised to see so many baby animals - large litters of puppies (not sure if they were pets or being raised for dinner), and many baby chickens and ducks and even some pigs. As we got closer to Ta Phin, an elderly woman approached us on the path who was obviously drunk. The primary alcoholic beverage of choice in this area is homemade rice wine.

While walking I really enjoyed talking with Pham. She is in her mid 20's and works independently as a guide abd supports her family. I found her on the internet - a woman for whom she guided on a trek came back and set her up with her own website. Pham does not have a computer. She lives at some distance (40 km, I think) from Sapa and comes into Sapa every couple of weeks to check her e-mail. She is of the Red Dzao ethnic minority, the primary ethnic group in Ta Phin. (there are 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam.) She is married and has a 3 year old daughter. Her husband is Vietnamese (the Viets are the largest ethnic group in Vietnam, about 80% of the people). Pham lost both of her parents when she was younger and now lives with her mother-in-law which is very probematic for her. In her mother-in-law's she can do nothing right. Pham's husband doesn't really work and the mother-in-law thinks this is fine; the husband is her youngest and she really dotes on him. Pham tried to leave once, but her husband found her. She said divorce does occur, but if there is a child it is almost impossible. We talked about a lot of things in addition to marriage and divorce: domestic violence, child abuse, alcoholism - all of these are big problems but there are no laws in place at all to protect the victims and no law enforcement that can be trusted.

We arrived at Ta Phin and had lunch there. On the way into the village, we were met by Pham's sister who is married with five children and lives there. The three of us ate lunch together in a small shop. All of the women in the village wear traditional clothes; the woman traditionally shave off the hair on the front of their heads and remove their eyebrows.

Here is some information about the Red Dzao

Red Dzao are a subgroup of the Dao, one of the 54 ethnic minorities in Vietnam. There are about 470,000 of them living in northern Vietnam, close to the chinese border (a lot can also be found in China and Laos). They originally migrated from China during the 19th century. Hence Dao have long used Chinese writings (but pronounced in the Dao way) called Nom Dao.
The Dao worship their ancestors called Ban Ho. Dao religion has elements of Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism. They worship the ancestors of the family together with the legendary holy man Ban Vuong, who is considered the earliest ancestor of the Dao people.

Dao people build their houses either on stilts, level with the ground, or half on stilts and half on beaten earth.
Dao wear traditional clothes. The men typically wear a short shirt with long trousers, and a head-scarf. Both men and women have a square piece of fabric on the back of their shirts which represents that they are children of God. Dao women are famous for only cutting their twice in their life, first at the age of 18 and then 38. They respect this custom as it is considered a sign of beauty for them. They do their hair by putting it back up on their head and sometimes by adding hair that has already been cut and that they inherited from their mother or grandmothers. Men and women cover their heads with a black or red scarves. Some women substitute this scarf by a turban that can adopt different forms. The traditional suit of the women is of bright colors. They also decorate their shirts with decorations made out of silver.
The Dao mainly live of rice cultivation and by growing subsidiary crops. Yet their economy is also based on weaving, carpentry, blacksmithing, papermaking and vegetable oil production.

The woman are fairly aggressive with tourists trying to sell their textiles. When I arrived, I was the only foreigner there, but later a small van of tourists arrived and the woman descended on them with a fervor. Even with me, several who were friends of Pham and her sister were very insistent that I buy something. I did buy some things from Pham's sister (and as I am writing this now back at home) it is too bad I visited there so early in the trip because I should have bought more.

After lunch and my wandering around the village, Pham told me there was a wedding in the village and wanted to know if I would like to go (OF COURSE!). So we went to a building, possibly a community center or very large house. There were many people there, adults and some children. Typically the men dress in Western clothes, but at this event, some of the men were wearing traditional clothes. Many of the women were dressed really nicely and had beautiful silver jewelry. There was much cooking and eating at various tables in various rooms. One man was playing a type of horn every so often. I just walked around and took pictures and no one seemed to mind at all. At one point a couple of other tourists with their guide came in briefly and left.

The story with the wedding is that it goes on for several days. There is some order to the ceremony in which the ancestors are notified and the actual wedding cannot occur until this has been completed and the ancestors are ready. The groom to be was at this feast. However, the bride was kept in something that looked like a large closet outside. As this, like all, marriage was arranged, the bride and groom had not met. Once the ancestors accepted the bride she would be dressed head to toe in red and then meet her husband. Pham told me we could stay for this, but it would probably occur around 3 AM; I wasn't too keen on that.

We finally left in the late afternoon. While walking back to the village we met another drunk woman and also saw some women with beautiful jewelry on the path who let me photograph them. The people were firendly, We walked past the new hospital so I went in and walked around. Nothing really going on their, not clear if nurses only work there or if a doctor comes (I doubt it). There wasn't much in it, other than a gynecology exam room and some health education posters.

When we got back into the center of the village, Pham's borther-in-law met us with his motor bike to take us to the home stay. We rode just out of town, got dropped off, and then sort of climbed up a mountain. The home was wood with dirt floor. I never saw the father, but did meet the mother and her two children (very shy) and interacted very little with them. Pham's husband came and he was helping to prepare the food (wash, peel, etc) for dinner. This was all done in an area with a cement floor where he sat and just dumped the trash on the floor which was later hosed down. We had mostly stir fried dinner, rice, small taste of rice wine. The cooking area was in the middle of the floor with open fires to put the pots on. There was another area with a large tub on it to heat water, apparently for bathing.

Interestingly all of the homes in this area have some electricity and have small satellite TV dishes. After dinner, I went in the adjoining room which had the shrine to the ancestors in one corner (not to photograph) and the TV. So I joined the children and Pham's husband and watched football (soccer).

This home, becasuse it is a home stay, had a toilet and a sink with running water. All homes in which foreigners stay must be registered with the government. In Vietnam, apparently, one cannot just meet a foreigner and invite him/her to stay in one's home. I got ready for bed. The bedroom was a large room with four beds in it, hard wood, covered by a very thin padding with a large blanket and mosquito netting (although I really didn't see any mosquitoes at this time of year.) I put my earplugs in and was out for the night (except when I had to get up).