Read on to the end for pics:
Last time we spoke, I was in Hanoi.
Upon arrival to Hanoi, I was greeted to a pleasant temperature and a throbbing mob of vicious taxi drivers. I had learned how to play hardball, Vietnam style, and knew what I was getting into when it came to cabs. I decided a minibus might be cheaper, and after bargaining for a minute, managed to settle on $5 to the train station (about 30k). The driver was a particularly vindictive man and I played the dumb tourist part; he kept pushing me into the van and shutting the door (lest his $5 escape...) and trying to strategically hide my bag in difficult to reach parts of the bus. I would have tolerated this if we were leaving soon, but the minutes kept on ticket and a nice, juicy line of cabs had started to line up behind the bus, just waiting to zip off and go... I started to talk with a couple Vietnamese women who were also in the van, and they said "This man is being so rude, he won't let us get out but we want to get a cab." I proposed that using my manly muscles and mighty power that I bust them out of this situation and we share a cab together. This turned out to be a brilliant maneuver; I got all our crap out (they had like boxes and huge bags of rice) and wheeled it over to the taxi stand, all the while the irate van driver shouting things in Vietnamese at us. The last he saw of me was lightning and daggers coming out of my eyes, as if to say, "You do bad business you end up with results like this."
The ladies, who worked in NGO work I later found out, hailed a cab and managed to get a discounted, local rate, a whopping $3.25 per person! Amazing. They were local Hanoi-ians, and spoke to me about various things to see in the city. Sadly, I wouldn't be spending much time in Hanoi; I was Sapa bound after all. The helpful ladies saw me straight to my hotel where I would be picking up my train ticket that had been arranged by my guide in Sapa. I bid them a fond farewell and promised I would keep in touch.
The hotel was right across from the train station, and after scoping the area out, I decided to take a wander of the streets of a city whose reputation proceeded it in not the nicest of ways. Whatever part of Hanoi I was in, however, turned out not to be Hannoying at all; people on the street, shouting, "Hello!" and smiles all around, I had a beer in a small house/restaurant with some older ladies who were working there and hilariously tried to learn to count in Vietnamese. This is actually worth talking about, I kept saying "English: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5... Vietnam? Vietnamese? Vietnam.. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, what is it in Vietnamese?" And they kept looking at me really confused, "... Yes. One, two, three, four, five-"
"No no, but in VIETNAMESE, one two three, vietnam? What is it in VIETNAMESE?"
"... Yes, one two three four five"
This went on for a while until FINALLY they started showing me how to count in Vietnamese.
I've said it before, I'll say it again, train travel, next to boat travel, is one of my favorite ways to get around. The sleeper train was very similar to the Thai sleeper train, nice beds, lights, amenities, too short for Westerners, etc. Seeing that it was dark, there was nothing to see or do except walk around on board and peer into peoples cabins, like a contemporary, traveling peeping Tom. Just kidding.
I had not slept since leaving Hue, and the train, although comfortable, did not provide much rest, and we arrived at some 5AM in the morning, such a terrible time to be roused awake and realizing that you gatta get your game face on and your wits about you... My guide said he would be waiting for me at the station in Lo Cai, which is about 30k from Sapa, and surely enough, there was the man I'd been corresponding with months ahead of my journey in Asia even started, with a sign reading "Welcome Mr. Eric USA". So sweet.
Uoc was/is an energetic man, passionate about the place he comes from and full of life and stories. I was so tired though, I must have seemed a very boring person to be driving with at that hour. The first thing that struck me about being in Northwestern Vietnam was the temperature; very cool. Much cooler then any other place I'd been to that point. I had not anticipated hot weather, nor been willing to pack warm weather clothes (lightweight, baby!) so I began to layer up with everything at my disposal. We found ourselves driving through a rainstorm, a proper downpour amidst stunning mountains and valleys, rice paddies cascading down hillsides to the rivers below. When we finally reached the outskirts of Sapa, Uoc pulled off to a local breakfast place and ordered pig stomach noodle soup for breakfast. "Cam you eat pig?" Was this a typical query or did I look Jewish to him (and to all the Jewish girls who think I'd be a good catch to bring home to mamma). Strange eating dinner food for breakfast, but it was warm all around and was just what I needed in that condition. The rain finally started to let off, and we set off to arrange first nights accommodation (I so hoped I would be able to sleep a bit before touring around the mountains.) What amused me most was hot Uoc avoided rain like the plague, waiting for minutes on end in the car for an "opportune" moment to jump out, get slightly wet and then get back under cover. This was most unlike my Pacific Northwest upbringing, where rain was as normal as air. If not, more necessary then air. We then proceeded to Uoc's house to pick up a few necessities, and there I met the two cutest kids I'd ever meet in Vietnam; a 5 year old girl and a 2.5 year old boy. We had loads of fun, and on seeing they had a foreign visitor, the family (and children) brought out their best, and especially the kids, showed off for me, running around in a most cooperative way, singing school songs of the coming spring and showing me trinkets while running around expecting to be chased. It was hilarious and fun. We sipped on tea and listened to Uocs daughter sing little songs. The power was out so there was no TV or stereo to entertain, thus, reversion to more primitive, analogue ways was necessary. For all the trials, tribulations. tests and hurtles Vietnam gave me at first, she was sure showing her more loving side at this point. I was dying for some sort of sleep and dreaded the fact that we might go out guiding and touring as soon as we god into town. Luckily, I was delivered to a small hotel where an electric blanket and a mega hot heater thing provided me the comfort to fall fast asleep for a few hours until we were to go out exploring.
That afternoon we set out for the nearby hills. One thing that struck me about Sapa was the endless rice paddies; rice paddies for DAYS, which made the hillside look more like a digital waveform rather then the more natural analogue waveform:
(jagged, truncated line is the rice paddies, curvy line is the pure sine wave, aka the natural mountain slope.)
The air was cool, almost crisp and as we moved through the landscape on a high speed motorbike over small bridges and narrow mountain passes, I couldn't help but get the feeling that we were almost flying through the landscape, high above the rest of the world, in the clouds; darkened and mysterious. Sapa is a Western photographers dream come true; ethnic minority people, charming town, atmospheric landscape, everything one would want for fascinating stock photography.
PS Pictures: https://www.me.com/gallery/#100203 It was time to head out into the wilds, and the first day of Sapa moto-tour consisted of us wandering the countryside that Uoc knew so well, and that I had to drink in through huge gulps through the firehouse of travel. The mountains and valleys are consistently shrouded in fog in Sapa which lends an air of mystery and solitude to the place; even though the town isn't amazingly high up, the fact that it wrapped in mist and cloud makes it seem you're perched on top of a mountain somewhere off in the far wilds of the world. Which you are. Pigs, chickens, ducks, cows and all mannor of farm animals were raising their young and hurrying to show them the ways of the world. At one point, upon seeing a flock of baby ducks being raised by a hen, Uoc exclaimed, "Chicken! Very smart, good mother! Duck; very stupid! Bad mother!" Thus, my theories of duck intelligence (or lack thereof) has been proven internationally. The countryside has no end in that part of the world, and the fresh, crisp air was quite a change from the heavy, humid and hot weather everywhere else I'd been. It almost made me pine for my home in the Pacific Northwest, but it was only for a brief moment. The roads there could only be called piles of rock that only the most hardy of motobikes and vehicles could travel on, as they were bumpy and hilly, a true challenge for a novice petrol-head like myself. Uoc commented on various things along the way and I tried to keep up. Along the sides of the rode were oxen plowing rice fields, wary and curious locals, and a perponderance of rural life and vistas, the likes of which I had never seen before. Seemed like a bit of heaven high up in the mountain tops. Everywhere we stopped I was berated with "Xin chào!" and "HELLO!" from little children and curious adults alike, smiles all around and friendly excanges of broken English and my non-existant Vietnamese. For however terrible my time in Vietnam started, the pendulum had swung completely the other way. Uoc pulled off to s house and we walked around a Hmong village before being ushered in to have tea with a local family. Seeing how they lived simply, making traditional clothing and raising animals, tending crops... it's the way humans have lived for so long and I began to wonder about life back home. (Another thing, Asian kids are WAY cuter then Western kids. I have just have point that out.) All the family lives together under one roof, usually sleeping on mats that can be rolled up and stowed away. Fires smolder in the center of the house where cooking operations occur, and the upstairs is usually reserved for farm storage and supplies. Uoc said you can tell the ethnicity of the family based on how their roof and house is constructed, which I found pretty interesting. After visiting for a while and sipping tea with the head of the house, we went to a curious little place; a place where herbs and teas were harvested and made into herbal baths. It was so far off in the corner of the countryside, there were no foreigners around, and I'd be surprised if most locals could find the place. Basically you could rent a pine soak tub for a certain amount of time and sit in bath of hot tea and herbs, the most amazing smelling bath you can ever imagine; hits of venilla, camomile, citrus, menthol, black tea and a hundred other scents created the most amazing, lung-clenasing, nose clearing aromatic experience I've ever smelled. After warming the bones for a while, we set off on the bikes once again through the chilly countryside and headed back in the direction of Sapa as night fell. This was the night I Skyped found the Wifi, Skyped with people back home (Waking most of them up, I think) and, when the search for dinner came, I found balut. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg) Balut, for those who have not had the privilage of knowing, is "... a fertilized duck embryo that is boiled and eaten in the shell." This is the kind of food featured on fear factor Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations". Here is a video of me eating it: It tasted much better then it looked. Head, feet, everything goes in. As I was sitting at this street food stall, a Xao woman came up trying to sell some handy craft wares. Being seller-wary, I declined as I usually do to walking-ATM-requests but the two travelers from Ho Chi Mihn City who kindly offered to video me eating the balut bought a couple hand knitted pillowy things. After the woman left, they said "Here, take these" I asked (perhaps naively), "Why did you buy these if you didn't want them?" Their response was, "We buy them only to help, because they are very poor people". It struck me then how generous so many people were in Southeast Asia; giving food for the stray cats and dogs, giving to the monks, to beggars on the street, to ethnic minority peoples, giving to foreign guests. For however poor these people were, in many cases, they would give you the shirt off their back given the opportunity. Made me realize how these smaller countried felt more like a large community then a country full of unconnected people; something we miss out on in typical USA situations. If I were to see a begging person or street seller back home, I would probably do my best to avoid them, as giving to them would be encouraging dependency on others and there would be no reciprocal value for the act, apart from a self-assured sense of morality. But over there, it's almost as if karma is much closer to home. I saw that in Iceland as well; the population is so small, if you slight someone, it's likely to come back and bite you in the ass. If you yell at someone on the street in an American city, odds are it won't be thought of ever again. I was constantly being impressed with the resourcefulness, inventiveness, aggression and kindness the Vietnamese people. I was starting to learn their game, the way they operate in life. The superstitions were constantly charming me things like: "Dog is very warm food. Eat it when you are cold. But never at the end of the month; bad luck if you do." "The sun can make you have headache, better to keep the sun off you." (actually, I think not drunking enougn water in the sunlight will do that...) "Bad luck to not have any sons." Etc. The next day would prove to be a long one, where we traveled to the far corners of the land, in between Sapa and Lo Cai. Uoc picked me up ("Good morning Mr. Eric!") and we set off. I must have taken 1,000,000 photographs that day. The views never sopped, and sometimes sunlight would pierce the clounds and send light streaming down from the heavens. We went far off into rural area, places where tourists never go. People would stare and children would wave and run after us on the motorbike... we stopped at many places and saw how various families lived. That day I did a couple short treks, wandering through the countryside. Uocs vague description of the route to take made for a bit of a challenge. I wandered in an absolutely beautiful temperature next to a beautiful river, with butterflies flitting about all around, walking through rice paddys and parting bamboo to find where the trail lead to. It was about this moment when I heard something in the distance calling my hane... it was Uoc, way up the side of the mountain, gesturing and waving, and mouthing something I couldn't make out. Now mind you, I am TERRIBLE at reading lips and interpreting gestures. Especially Asian gestures with distance and river noise as a factor in tryind to decifer his message. "What?" I motioned. His response "Eh-... v-... ah... r..." Was he pointing to backtrack or to go foward? Or to head closer to the river? Or farther away? Was it a "come closer" gesture or a Western "go away"? In the end I just shrugged and picked a direction. It must have been the right one because eventually he headed on. Now I was feeling very self conscious; my guide was watching me trek. I suppose in one way it was helpful to have someone watching but what if I wanted to take a pee or hang out for a bit? Who wants to watch that? Eventally, I made it to a foot bridge where Uoc was collecting some seed samples. His assiciations with botanists had made him a plant lover, and he was constantly commenting on various kinds of flowers, trees and other foliage that we encountered. We ventured ever higher and higher and higher, until we I thought we'd end up in China. Riding on a motorbike is fairly tiring after a while... poor Uoc, having to drive all day with me on the back, he must have been really tough or just not complained at all. As night fell we descended and headed to a small town where we had a homestay arranged. When we arrived we were greeted by a toothless woman and an old man, most likely the parents of the husband, and we sat down to an elaborate, multi-course meal that was delicious and hardy: and extremely local. The proprietor of the house/homestay business made his own rice wine, as most people did. He brought out two large bottles of it, and proceeded to pour the men (only the men...) shots of rice wine. I should say, "wine" is misleading; rice hardcore-booze is more like it; it was STRONG. But good, very clean, very pure. Everything we should shoot the booze, they all let out a hardy "YO!", which translates to cheers, in Vietnamese. But, what I didn't realize, was an empty glass, as well as an empty plate, is an open invitation for refilling said glass or plate. Throughout the meals, I proceeded to get off-my-ass drunk with this family, which was hilarious to me as everything seemed to become funnier and funnier. I would be regretting this in the morning. As things wound up we switched from booze to tea, and the ladies of the house as well as a gaggle of children huddled around an old TV watching some terrible Chinese movie. Bed was perfect; sleeping on bamboo floor with a mat below me and a large blanket on top, I crashed at once. I woke the nexet morning to the loudest birds on EARTH... small mimic birds with a set of pipes on the to rival any soprano opera singer. Wonderfully enough, I had no sign of hangover or headache, which proved how pure the stuff really was. As this was the last day of my time with Uoc, I did a bit more trekking in the mountains. The beauty of the place can only be attemped in pictures, as it's the experience of being there that is the most beautiful part. We finally made it back to Sapa. We arrived at Uocs house to drop off a few things, and there was a curious program on the TV: English for childre. But the words they were teaching were so inane, I was just stunned: Hooter (for horn), Return, Advance, Revice, what the hell kinds of words were these for kids? I cleaned up at my hotel and headed out. It was time for more noodle soup; Pho! Another seller woman sat down next to me and after a short conversation, tried to sell me something, but instead I bought her and the ethnic minority women dinner. Even got a better deal on four meals then I would have if I had just paid for my own... Making people happy, that's what I do best, Dear Reader ;) I had met some Danish people at my hotel, and said I'd meet them at a local bar for an evening of drinking and frivolity. Here is a brief moment of it: Laura, the Dane was leaving Southeast Asia the same day I was, so we agreed to meet in Bangkok. These kinds of Western Agreements (as I'll call them) are also known as "LA Deals" meaning one party says "let's do X" and the other party says "ABSOLUTELY: ON THE BLOOD OF MY CHILD, THIS WILL HAPPEN 1000000000000% YESSSSS!" and then of course nothing comes of it. More on that later... I remember my last day in Sapa very fondly; it was a chilled morning, and I spent the rest of the day soaking up the town, wandering around and taking in the town and all the colors and sights it had to offer. One moment that stands out in my mind was talking with two Black Hmong girls, around the ages of 19 and 20. One had a baby on in what can only be described as a Hmong papoose, but what more like a bamboo woven basket on her back. They tried to sell me things, but I maintained a course of friendly optimism, without giving into their sales tactics, which allowed us to engage in a rather candid debate. "Who are your people?" I asked. "We're Hmong people. Not Vietnamese." "You're not Vietnamese...? Where do you live?" "We live in Vietnam, but we are not Vietnamese. Vietnamese people hate us; they call us 'Little Cats'," "Little cats? What does that mean?" "They say, 'Go away, little cats!'. You can call us anyway, just don't call us little cats. We are not cats!" "Of course not, but I always thought cats were a very nice animal... what do you think?" "Yes, is nice animal, but we are not cats." "No you're not, you are good people, don't let them make you feel bad." "We only try to do what is right, so support our family and to have enough to eat." "Do you find that foreigners are rude and not nice to you?" "Many are not nice, but some are." At this point, I was really having an epiphany regarding the nature of human beings. "I'll tell you; don't let ANY foreign person make you feel bad, only try to be a good person and you will be very lucky in life" (I was beginning to understand how to talk to Asian people; always include the word "luck" in your words and make things as simple and present tense as possible.) I needed to get going. "Okay, I'll make you a deal; you keep those items you want to sell me, and I will give you each 10,000 Dong if I can take your photo together." "Okay, we sell you this, it is handmade, very good quality, it-" "No, no, you don't understand... you KEEP this [handwoven cloth thing] and sell it to a French tourist... I just want to give you a little money, and take your picture. Are photos not allowed in your culture?" "No, photo is okay." "Okay, then here's the deal; you get 10,000 and ALSO get to sell you product. Otherwise, you don't have 10,000 Dong in your hand, and no one gets anything. So what do you say; I give you some money and I can take your photo?" "... YES. Okay." I then took these two photos:
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