Sapa - We walk with you !?

Sapa was to be my last stop in Vietnam I took a comfortable overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Chi arriving at 6.30 am and making my way to the town of sapa an hours hilly drive away. Sapa is a picturesque village that lies on the Hoang Lien Son mountain range near the Chinese border in NW Vietnam. It is called as "the Tonkinese Alps" Many of the mountain guest houses and hotels do have a feel of being in Austria.

The Hill tribe woman from the Hmong and Red Zhao tribes surrounding Sapa dominate the town as they visit the market to sell blankets, wall hangings, earrings and bracelets. As you begin trekking groups of the tribe woman join you and walk to their village along side you. According to our guide they do this when its to wet to work in the fields.The woman's hands are stained indigo permanently from the natural dyes they use. The Hmong woman wear different styles of ea rings to indicate the different status of the woman, girls as young as 8 years old wear earrings to indicate they are to be married most marry at 13-14 and have at least one child by 15-16. Life expectancy is 60 years old so it was great when I met the oldest woman in the village at 97 ! Babies are literally thrown on the back and tied onto their mothers for the trek and seem happy and hypnotised by the familiar rocking as mum climbs the hills between town and home daily. Apart from the odd pair of wellies all the woman were in full tribal dress not for the benefit of tourists but they still genuinely dress this way and weave and dye all their own clothing.

The town of Sapa was cold at times and I wished i had brought a coat, a first since i arrived in Asia ! I managed with my scarf and 'pac a mac' and set off with a group of 6 people and a local guide on a 6 hour trek to Ban Ho village where the Hmong tribe people live. We passed misty outcrops and hills through perfect tiered rice fields and gushing mountain streams, through landslide debris, up mountains and down hills through water falls and arrived at the tribe village for lunch.

As you walk the tribe woman entertain you asking many questions "how old are you?" "do you have babies?" "are you married?" "how long are you here"?...I ask them back in the same quick fire style they are taken a back but quickly respond. I was keen to know how they learn English...there is a village school but the children only attend "sometimes' their attendance depends on the number of tourists in the area that week and if its harvest time as the children are then required to work with their families on the fields. An's little niece Su responded that "we use the tourists to learn English" she had a wicked sense of humour and would joke about charging tourist millions of dollars for various things from her home made flower and grass tiaras to animals made from weeds... a real little entrepreneur.

There is a distinct lack of baby boys and men around. An has 5 girls and at the age of 40 with a 9 month old baby she hopes that she will still have a baby boy. Hill tribe men are distinctly absent from the sapa town and the villages as we pass through. I asked our guide and the woman about this, perhaps they are busy working? I was told that it is the role of the man in Vietnam to "think and drink" today its to wet to work on the rice fields so the woman trek back and forth with visitors to the village and the men smoke opium and drink in the huts as i discovered on being invited into An's home.

An her baby Mu and two nieces adopt me during the first day trek... and then I bought 2 cushion covers from her village home...me thinks that was the plan but they were nice covers so that's ok !

The second day of trekking was towards CatCat village we were not joined by any tribe woman today as the sun was out so perhaps they were in the fields ? The village of CatCat has had heavy government investment to ensure that key infrastructures exist such as a clinic, school and decent huts pathways and fields however without access to clinic or school staff this gesture seems to be slightly lost on most of the village people although we did witness a school lesson in one of the schools 10 or so class rooms (all the others were empty).

I loved sapa the people and the landscape...I left feeling that the balance between tourism and the life of the villages in the area was a happy balance between tradition and the new industry of tourism I hope it stays that way.