A very great and fortunate thing occurred on the morning of our trek; or failed to happen.
There was no rain.
There was fog as we met our local guide Suan, turned right, and walked out of Sapa, along a road for the first two kilometres and then onto a wide dirt track with motorcycle ruts carved in and regular ‘land mines’ planted by the local water buffaloes.
Along the way Hmong girls in Indigo dyed clothes, aged from 6 to 66, baskets on their backs full of bracelets, wallets, wall hangings and whatnot, walk with you and play the ‘You buy from me’, game.
‘You like a bracelet? You buy from me.’
‘I’ve got one, see here on my wrist. So no thank you.’
‘This one nicer. You buy from me.’
‘Maybe later.’
‘Yes maybe later, you remember me, you buy from me. What’s your name, where you from?’
And so on like that.
It must be that I look like I don’t need any help walking, but soon enough Alice had four or more girls, none older than 12 or 13, the youngest being 8, following along and talking about how they learned all their English from following tourists, and making delicate little sculptures by interlocking flower heads into curled up fern leaves, and bending fern fronds around to make laurel wreaths. Their English is frightfully good, and with a laurel wreath set on my head more than a few people suggested a resemblance to Julius Caesar, and advised me not to go to Rome next March, or if I had to, to particularly not go to the Senate.
Dry paths, for relatively dry they were, were a luxury we could not afford to forego by even so much as uttering or contemplating the words ‘Thank God we’re not getting rained on.’ We kept waiting for the hard part to start, but so long as due attention was paid to the clay patches and one’s feet went in the footholds, both up and down slopes were negotiated quite safely. On the walking path we came down and around the edge of a valley, where a concrete water channel followed the hill-curve, and then walked up and over the valley edge, into one of the most beautiful places we’ve been on this Earth. The valley is home to the local Hmong people’s village (and their rice terraces).
I’ll say no more about the valley, and hope that our pictures can do justice.
Before lunch we visited a traditional Hmong household, with a dirt floor and animals running around, and we sat with the old man in charge and learned about the local wedding customs, how many goats and so forth you have to provide as dowry, and other amusing technicalities. The ‘wife’ is bought to the house of the ‘husband’, locked in a room for three days, and if she doesn’t want to eat anything they cook for her, there will be no marriage.
Down past the river we came to a bridge, next to which were some large huts where we stopped for lunch. A group of elderly Japanese men sat at another table with their cameras, passing them around so each could have a look. Were they pros? Or were they not? Lunch was two salad and cheese buns (Alice’s had fried chicken in it), bananas, and oranges (which I put in my backpack), and then we took off through the buzzing field of Indigo girls, capitulating on the way to the extent of 10,000 VND for two thin coloured ribbon bracelets. Up the other side of the valley we walked on wider paths, chatting to another tour group of Australians and listening to Suan talk about how there are three events for these tribespeople; getting married (and paying for the wedding), buying a buffalo, and buying a house. Buffaloes, however, are not cheap: USD 800-900 for a good one.
At about 3pm we were amazed to see signs saying Ta Van village, which was were we going. We had made it, with very little mudsliding, life-risking, or getting hilariously filthy involved. It was a let-down, and a relief. Our homestay house actually looked kind of like how you would picture a village schoolhouse, and Suan, who also teaches in a school as well as being a guide, explained that Dzai houses always have the kitchen on the right. Upstairs in the attic we found rows of beds around the banister rail, over which you looked down into the lounge room/dining room/family room/entrace room, etc. You get the point; it’s the multi-purpose room with the altar for ancestor worship.
It’s considered bad luck (and improper) to sit with your back to the altar, or to take photos of said.
Alice: After we arrived at the homestead Tuan procured a large bag of fresh Guava’s from some of the local people he knew. I have never tried fresh Guava before – but I love Guava juice. They are small roundish fruit. that turn from green to yellow-ish when ripe. The yellow ones were beautiful. There was a hard rim of flesh near the skin which was quite tart, and then much more softer flesh absolutely filled with little hard seeds which tasted like the guava I knew and loved from drinking the juice. Can you even get fresh Guava in New South Wales? I hope so – it was lovely.
Greg: After floating about upstairs for a little while, we walked across the road to a ‘bar’ and played two extremely lengthy games of pool, delayed by how badly we were all playing and by how many separate dints and warps there were in the table. Also we couldn’t turn around without one particular old lady trying to ell Alice a blanket, handbag, or wall hanging, or something. No excuse would sate her, although to be honest she was having a bit of a giggle as well. If I said the shirt wasn’t my colour, she’d pull out a bluer one. If Alice said something was too heavy to carry, and her bag was too heavy already, she pointed at me and said I had muscles and could carry it. So then Alice said I was too lazy to carry it, and I made the mistake of saying I wasn’t lazy. And so on, and so forth. By 6pm (dinner time) we had only just finished the second game, and we sat around the outside table at our homestay and played cards while dinner cooked inside. A long day’s walk needs a big cold beer I mean a filling dinner, which is what we got: rice, a plate of steamed greens, another of cabbage, spring rolls, tofu in a tomato sauce, several fried eggs, as well as pork and chicken fried with vegetables, not to mention a few small glasses of rice wine to toast with the owner of the house: a dignified 50-something man, who smiled a lot, and had many certificates on the wall from the Government, apparently commemorating his various forms of service.
We ate like KINGS.
And then we played cards; Suan learns quickly, and once he knew the rules he proved to be just as fiendish as he was joyful. If someone could not beat a jack, and picked up a pile of cards, next time around he would play the king, having paid attention to what was in the pile, and motion for you to pick up this pile as well, knowing there was no other way. Tuan, as an Intrepid leader and frequent customer of overnight trains, knows every card game in the book, and I for one would like to see a death-match game of poker between himself and Ann. In a steel cage, with no food or water.
At 10pm we retired, slipped under our mosquito nets, and went to sleep quickly on our thin but comfortable beds in the warm attic.
Greg and Alice
