Misty Mountain Top

Saturday 11th March

After a dreadful night’s sleep on the train, we were woken by a knock on the door at around 5.30am.  Having been told that we’d be woken an hour before we arrived a Lao Cai, I was rather amazed to discover that we were already there.  We had a mad scramble to get our things together and when the train staff thought we’d taken long enough, they turned off the lights so the last bit of checking was done by torchlight.

We made our way over to the café that assists with the Kangaroo Café tours to wait for our bus pickup …  and then began the hair-raising part of our adventure.  We were the last two passengers to be picked up, so fortunately we got the front seats.  The road from Lao Cai to Sa Pa is very hilly and windy and we were driving in dense fog.  The driver thought nothing of overtaking other vehicles on blind corners in the fog and we counted down the kilometres until we made it in to Sa Pa.  I’d read at the Kangaroo Café that in Vietnam there were 10,800 vehicles accidents reported up to November of last year, 10,161 of which resulted in deaths.  23% of the accidents involved buses.   We weren’t remotely surprised and hope that we can finish our holiday without being added to the statistics.

When we got to Sa Pa the driver asked us which hotel we were staying at.  We had no idea as we were led to believe that the bus driver knew where to go.  We later discovered that he was new on the scene and wasn’t up to speed with the Kangaroo Café run.  Anyway, he must have dredged up the information from the depths of his mind and dropped us at the Cat Cat View Hotel, where we were met by a lady who came out and said “Kangaroo Café?”  Music to our ears!

 We are led to believe that there is an amazing view somewhere
 beyond this plant pot!  Apparently it was clear and sunny a few days ago! 

We checked into our room and then went to claim our breakfast that was included in the cost.  A very nice and very welcome breakfast it was!  Although we were reluctant to waste our limited time here, after breakfast we tried to catch up on our missed sleep.  As usual, I couldn’t sleep a wink, so I had a shower and we went to the restaurant for a beautiful Vietnamese lunch and then had a stroll around the local markets.  I loved seeing the piles of big bundles of fresh green herbs and vegetables, noodles and other ingredients that the Vietnamese put together so well to make their delicious fresh food.  Many of the women had baskets on their backs with straps like thin back-pack straps for carrying them.  In the baskets they kept their umbrellas and collected their purchases as they went around the markets.

At the Sa Pa markets

Here come the "You buy from me?" ladies

After lunch we met our H’mong guide – a lovely young lady called Ker (I'm sure that's not the correct spelling!) who took us for a walk down to Cat Cat Village.  I asked her about the baskets that the women were using in the markets and she said that the men make the baskets.  The women take care of the weaving, dying and sewing of cloth, but basket-making is done by the men.  The walk was quite steep and windy and unfortunately the fog prevented us from having the view we had hoped for, but it turned out to be very worthwhile.

Our guide, Ker.  She is wearing a H'mong tunic and leg wrappings,
 locally woven head scarf, and Dolce and Gabanna parka
(lots of 'designer label' items here in Vietnam!) 

At the beginning of the walk we were joined by some girls and ladies trying to sell us bangles, bags and other craft items.  Although we refused them, they followed us for quite a distance down the hill.  Once they left us, we had to go through a run of stalls selling similar things.  The cry “Looking? You buy something from me?” became very familiar to us.  Ker said “they’re Vietnamese shops”.  The H’mong do not consider themselves to be Vietnamese.  They do look quite different and live in their own villages with their own languages and customs.

Down at the bottom of the hill, there were more stalls, this time selling H’mong crafts.  We saw a couple of young boys having a great time playing with a couple of plastic bottle caps and some young girls with babies strapped on their backs.  Ker said that the girls look after the babies and the boys look after the buffalo.  Ker asked if we would like to go into a H’mong home which we did.  The house was made of planks with quite large gaps between them so must be freezing cold in the winter.  The family was just about to have lunch. They were sitting next to the cooking area which had the biggest wok I’ve ever seen in my life.  The house also had a mezzanine where the family stored their grain above another small fireplace.  The fire in this area helps to dry the grain.

At the front of the house was a weaving loom, where the women weave hemp fibre into cloth.  We had seen a number of women around the town twisting pieces of stringy-looking strands together as they walked around.   Ker explained that this was how they make the hemp fibre and she showed us how it is done.  Nearby was a huge vat of blue liquid which was the indigo used for dyeing the cloth, and many indigo coloured items were hanging on lines around the house.  The plants to produce the indigo dye are grown in the village.  It was a very interesting visit.

Weaving hemp into cloth

Vat of home made indigo dye

Our next stop was near a waterfall where we  bumped into Stefi, one of our Ha Long Bay boat tour travelling companions.  We had a chat with her for a while and then went into a nearby building to watch a traditional dance performance.  The dancers wore the traditional H’mong costumes and it was a lovely experience.  The final dance involved a number of people tapping bamboo poles together close to the ground and others deftly stepping between them without getting their ankles squashed.  A girl came around asking if any of us would like to try it, but she didn’t get any takers.

H'mong dancers

We then began the ascent back up the hill.  It was quite a hard slog for a couple of old geezers, but we plodded on bravely.  We had the opportunity to take a motorcycle taxi back up to the top but opted to walk all the way.  Tomorrow’s trek will be much longer so we’ll take advantage of the ‘return by car’ option this time.

Everyone in the village shares the work

When we arrived back in town, we got a bit of a surprise and a lesson in not making assumptions.  Ker asked us if we could read an email for her.  She speaks very good English, which she said she learned from tourists, but has never learned to read or write in English.  She has a Hotmail account which she opened up on the hotel’s public access computer and then got John to read the messages and to open a photo attachment.  I then stepped in and typed replies for her.  She had met a couple of western women while escorting them on treks and had kept in touch with them.  I guess we had the ‘primitive villager’ view of her and didn’t pick her for someone with a Hotmail account, but despite her people maintaining many of their customs, time does move on.

We filled in the time before dinner with a stroll around the streets including another look at the markets and then went back for dinner. 

Plenty of vitamins here!

You buy from me?  Not this little black duck!

It was getting very cold by then, so in the restaurant we sat at a table near the wood fire.  Soon after, a young Canadian woman came in.  We met her this morning in the café in Lao Cai where we waited for the bus to bring us up to Sa Pa.  She was also waiting for a bus to take her somewhere else and she told us tonight that she’d had to wait for 3 hours to be picked up!  She’d then had a long bus ride to the town where she was heading, then another long bus ride from there to Sa Pa.  Her driver dropped her at the wrong hotel and drove off leaving her to fend for herself.  She was cold, hungry and tired, but holding up quite well under the circumstances.  We bade her ‘bon soir’ and went back to our room to put on the electric blanket and light the fire before hitting the sack early in preparation for a long slog tomorrow.