SaPa: Fog, Rice, and Tribes

We arrived in Lao Cai on the overnight train around 6am and boarded a minivan bound for SaPa. SaPa is a little mountain town close to the Chinese border with a lot of tribal and tourist influences. Vietnam has over 50 different tribes, the majority of which live in the Northern mountains. As we climbed into the mountains, we passed people dressed in tribal clothing carrying farming tools or loads of wood, but the dramatic mountain views that we expected were blocked by a thick fog. Even so, we were excited after seeing several tribes so far that just wore old nike clothes. We arrived and checked into the Cat Cat View Hotel, had breakfast looking out into the grey, and hoped it would burn off.



With the fog unchanged, we opted for a walk through town. Immediately, we were approached by three women from the Black Hmong tribe who spoke excellent English. Many people on our trip so far manage to communicate, but these women (who learned exclusevly from tourists) even had proper pronunciation--it was pretty amazing. You can't go anywhere in town without a tribal escort and as they talk to you they slowly guilt you in to buying something from them. Their favorite expression is "buy from me" so that you don't buy a similar item from a competitor. This got annoying on day 2, but it was initially a fun experience.



We walked to nearby CatCat village and as the fog began to fade we took in some great views of rice pattys, tribal homes, and the imposing mountains. This village is a bit touristy compared to others, but we were happy with anything that wasn't fog. We also saw lots of kids (some of them clothed) running around their homes.

We had a great French lunch at Baguette and Chocolat, which is a training restaurant to help underprivleded youth from the area develop cooking skills. It was a nice break from our diet of mostly Asian food thus far. (The food cravings are starting to set in and all Lindsey wants is 9th Avenue pizza.)

We also bought train tickets back to Hanoi, which as usual proved to be an experience. In Asia, it seems that most transactions that anywhere else would be very simple are instead executed by sketchy means. Because we would leave from Lao Cai (where the train station is) and not SaPa we needed to purchase our tickets from a ticket agency. He provided us with a few reciepts (not tickets) and assured us that if we waved them above our heads at the train station we would be fine. Lindsey and Steve have apparently adjusted to how thins work here and thought this seemed reasonable, but her dad had his doubts. In the end we somehow picked them up at the restaurant in Lao Cai that we ate at, but it's amazing that it worked so smoothly. They really could make things a lot easier!

After getting our reciepts, Lindsey and Steve rented a motorbike to see more of the valley and expore some of the higher roads. By this point the fog had cleared a decent amount and we got our best views.



The next day we walked to the Ma Cha and Ta Phin villages where we saw the Black Hmong and Red Dao tribes respectively. This day, however, the fog never burnt off and we spent the day walking through a cold and wet cloud. Even so, the Red Dao have some amazing tribal clothes to see. They all have very long hair that is wrapped under their red hats.



This day, however, the tribal sales gig got old and we were soon annoyed with being shadowed for hours and hours. Steve bought a scarf from one woman, which only seemed to make the second woman more desperate and upset. Apparently the concept of "you don't have anything that I like" does not translate and they demand your purchase based on the fact that they've followed you for hours. Regardless, the guilt wasn't enough to make us buy a tribal wall hanging, but we did give her a dollar (They like US money).

One purchase we did want to make was of an embroidered blanket, which proved to be an overwhelming experience. Upon looking at one blanket, blankets and saleswomen appeared from nowhere to surround us with their product. Steve pointed at the pink and purple ones and told them just to not even bother, and we eventually were able to buy one off of the least pushy girl there.



In the evening, we headed by bus back to Lao Cai where we caught the overnight train back to Hanoi. SaPa was our best experience so far seeing tribal clothing, but the town is a bit overrun with tourists. We were lucky to get a half day of nice views, but for the most part it seems to be a very damp and foggy place this time of year. We're hoping to trade in the cold fog for some sunshine on a junk boat in Halong Bay.

You may have had a problem seeing our Hanoi pictures, so if so it's fixed now. As always click any of the above pictures to access our complete online album.