Sapa

Days 86-88

It is freezing here in Sapa, high up in the Tonkinese Alps. We haven’t felt cold like it since last spring in Ireland and its surely a taste of things to come when we go home in a little over a week now. Thankfully before, we will descend along the Red River valley back to the warmth to the Vietnamese capital Hanoi and hopefully onto Hue in central Vietnam.

The journey from Dien Bien Phu on Saturday (17^th Nov) took 9 hours and the road were probably the worst yet, although thankfully our bus wasn’t packed to rafters full of cargo and people. The roads were absolutely shocking missing proper surfacing for large parts along the way, but our driver was forceful with the bus through the mud and made short work of it. The scenery at least was the most spectacular yet. Unlike on the Lao side of these mountains, where the valleys and forest look impenetrable, the hill tribes in Vietnam have made little of the vegetation and terrain and proceeded to use it for cultivation. There are plantations of fruit trees, but overwhelmingly rice is the main occupier of these slopes.  The rice had been harvested so the paddies are not lush green of the postcards, but a light brown from the remaining stubble; nevertheless the endless rows of rice terraces are spectacular.

Not only is the landscape interesting, but the frequent villages that we travelled through are occupied by different hill tribe people. The H'mong are the most famous of these hill tribes and are well known for the unique style of ladies dress, who I might add were only too willing to wave and pose as I snapped a photo on the way past. The H'mong occupy Vietnam, China and Laos and were well known for their loyalty to the maverick CIA operative Tony Poe from Long Beach, California. He led them in their fight against the North Vietnamese forces in the Secret War in the 1960s and was the inspiration for Colonel Kurtz in the Vietnam War film Apocalypse Now.   

My wife and I discussed that although the untouched hills in Laos are beautiful they are a bit mundane after a few hours, while the human sculpted (or scarred?) Vietnamese hills seem to continually offer something of interest to the eye. I was continually twisting my head and looking at the land and the people, my wife on the other hand was still finding the journeying tough as her stomach bug still has not passed. “This is the last bus journey we are taking like this” she declared. I hope she is right, because I think we would still be in Laos if I was as sick as she was! We only have ten days left on our trip now and we are taking the train to Hanoi so hopefully any buses in the meantime will be smooth and flat.

We arrived in Sapa and it was absolutely freezing, at least that’s how it feels after being in tropical heat for the last 3 months, it feels like Autumn in Ireland and we have had to layer up to keep out the chill. Sapa is an old French hill station built in the 1920s and 30s. It’s a lovely little place, more like an apline village than anything else. The location is very picturesque with views of the mountains towering above us and the rice terrace paddies below, the swirling cloud however makes an uninterupted view nearly impossible. The hill tribes that come down from the hills to trade and sell their wares give the town a busy, bustling vibe, especially in the markets which leave nothing to the imagination on how the meat gets from live animal to food on our plates.

Vietnam’s highest peak Fansipan (3143m/10 312ft) hovers in the clouds above the town and it so happened there was a race to the summit from Sapa. A couple of Catalans from our guesthouse who were also comrades from our epic bus ride from Laos to Dien Bien Phu entered the race, one chap came fifth and was the first foreigner. Completing the 35 km (21miles) course in an impressive 3 hours and 35minutes and got prize money of 2 million Dong for his efforts! This sounds a lot better than the conversion to US dollars of $100

As a communist country you expect Vietnam to have free public health care, free education, and good workers rights, our thoughts on this were confirmed by the declaration from the narrator in the video that we saw at the Dien Bien Phu battle museum. That video proved itself to be pure propaganda as we found out that in reality these benefits are not the case in practice at all. We got chatting to the hotel staff last night, these guys work 7 days a week with only a week off a year around Tet, the Vietnamese New Year, which I am pretty sure would be illegal in most Western capitalist countries. One of the workers also told us a story about his grandfather, who has an old war injury that he required surgery for, but the best that could get for free was a few painkillers. The family had to club together to fork out for the surgery at full price. However despite our friend's frustration about his government, another guest this morning made a comment about Vietnamese being a bunch of liars and he completely flipped. Dissatisfaction with the system there clearly is, but Nationalism still runs deep here.

Thanksgiving is a festival that I have been introduced to over the past decade as I am married to an American.  Although I have never been in America for Thanksgiving, my wife and I always celebrate in our home with friends and family. Having opted to be hobos for three months, this year we don’t have a home and we are far away from turkeys and stuffing. And even with plentiful sweet potatoes and Pumpkin soup in Vietnam, a Thanksgiving dinner will most likely be out of the question. This was something we were aware of, but it is still with heavy hearts and a bout of homesickness that this reality approaches us this Thursday. Hopefully seeing family and friends soon should alleviate all that.

The city of Hue is our most likely destination for Thanksgiving and we aim to get there by tomorrow night taking a train out of these mountains tonight to Hanoi and then on to another train to Hue through the day. It will most likely mean another 24 hours travelling, but if the journey is made in trains it will be much more manageable for our rear-ends, stomachs and patience.