Act I: North Vietnam2

I told you’d I’d be back after a long break to tell a tale of 4 young travelers, 2 plane rides, 8 bus rides, 7 different accommodations, hundreds of dollars spent, thousands of riel paid, and millions of dong surrendered. Three weeks of traveling is clearly the longest period of time that I’ve ever been traveling without being home. And it’s a little strange to be calling Bangkok home, but for the time being it is, and it feels good to back to something familiar. Vietnam and Cambodia were undeniably beautiful, emotional, and full of life. Of course three weeks is way too much to cover in one post, plus the nearly 400 photographs I took, so I’m going to divide it up into Acts. This Act I. Cue curtains. Enter Stage left…..no, no, right.

We departed Bangkok on Sunday evening October 4th and arrived in Hanoi about 2 hours later. We found ourselves a hotel for $6 dollars each in an area called the Old Quarter.  Now for those of you not so keen on your Vietnam history before the American War (as it’s called in Vietnam), the country used to be occupied by the French before Uncle Ho (Ho Chi Minh) ran them out of town. So naturally there is a lot of French influence in the architecture and cuisine in both Hanoi and Saigon. Thin and tall buildings, cafes, and freshly baked baguettes. All of this was a refreshing change because the city had an identity, whereas Bangkok is a mish-mash of buildings and streets.

Hanoi was still extremely busy though, and while I thought Bangkok’s drivers were bad, Hanoi’s are terrible. Motos (motorbikes) out number cars and street lights are either ignored or non-existent. Crossing the street is terrifying and you’ll be just as lucky to get across with your eyes closed than if they were open- and that’s no exaggeration. We found the trick was to just go for it and keep a steady pace, so the motos could calculate their plan of avoidance- I’m pretty sure I still almost got nailed no less than 5 times. Additionally, the sidewalks are blocked by all of the parked motos, so the street is your only option. Pedestrians live in constant fear of being instantly pulverized.

After chilling out in Hanoi for a day we set up a trip through our hotel to go north to Sapa, which is a small town in the mountains close to the Chinese border. In just the past ten years or so it has seen an explosion in tourism because of its magnificent landscape and ethnic diversity. Many different ethnic groups live in the area by growing rice on the mountain sides. Many of them would sooner consider their nationality to be that of their ethnic group rather than being considered Vietnamese. However, there is certainly no resentment toward the Vietnamese, as they have been part of the land for hundreds of years. While the children are required to attend school, many of the parents don’t know how to speak Vietnamese because they never attended school in the first place and are so isolated that each ethnic group has their own language. A neighboring village only 1km away may be of a different ethnic group, so while the two villages may be friends, they often can’t verbally communicate with each other. Get all that?

We took a swanky overnight sleeping train whose A/C was wackier than Willy Wonka. At one point it got so cold in our cabin I could see my breath, while later it became unbearably hot- and we had no control over it. It wasn’t the best night of sleep. The second day in Sapa we set off on a a two day trek through the mountains with our guide, Linh, who was part of the Hmong people. Apparently this is the same ethnic group featured in the movie Gran Torino with Clint Eastwood, I’ve never seen it, but I do know the Hmong people are all over the world, about 5 million in total, mostly in China and Vietnam. We disembarked on our trek with about 10 other tribes people, all women, who walked with us and made us cool little animals out of pieces of straw, clearly something learned through a lot of down time walking to and from their village. They were all very curios and kind, and most could speak very good English because of all of the tourists that come around.

After getting to the bottom of the valley, I found many of these people and children who had won my heart over with their cute straw animals all began to ask me to buy a bag, bracelet, hat, or headband of some sort from them. Oh they are good! How is a person able to deny commitment like that? “Oh ya know, just heading back to my village, thought I’d tag along with you funny looking white folk for the walk. Where do you come from? What’s your name? How old are you? Oh, interesting. I’m a little bored, let me make you these adorable plant animals. Look a deer! Look a caterpillar! Look a flower! No worries, just some friendly gifts from me to you. Would you look at that, it seems as if we have arrived at the village! YOU WANT TO BUY A BAG? YOU WANT HEADBAND? YOU WANT BRACELET? BUY FROM ME! BUY FROM ME! BUY BUY BUY! ONLY 100,000 DONG! I GIVE YOU SPECIAL PRICE, 80,000 DONG! WHY YOU BUY FROM HER NOT FROM ME! YOU BUY FORM HER AND NOT FROM ME! YOU LIKE HER MORE, YOU DON’T LIKE ME! LATER YOU BUY FROM ME OK!”

Sorry, I got a little carried away on that rant but that is exactly what its like. And they drive hard bargains, which are really never bargains until you begin to walk away and they cave in. That’s if you can walk away. I got surrounded on a bridge and had no easy escape unless I plowed people over. It’s a good thing my mother taught me to be polite, because that all you can really do is keep saying “No, thank you” and “Sorry, don’t want.” I escaped the bridge ambush eventually and took haven in the little restaurant for lunch while the sellers waited patiently by the door. One women after lunch insisted that I had promised to buy something from her when we first left Sapa at the top of the valley (I didn’t of course). She wouldn’t leave me alone after I insisted that I never said such a thing. “YOU PROMISE YOU BUY FROM ME! YOU PROMISE ME AT TOP OF HILL! I REMEMBER, YOU SAY YOU GERMAN!” I think you’ve got the wrong guy lady. Good hunting!

I may have neglected to mention that this was a two-day trek in which we would stay at one of the houses in the village for the night. So as we continued to make our way to that destination after lunch we continued to pass adorable children, a school, more sellers, and plenty of wildlife- buffalo, chickens, and pigs. We arrived at our house in the early afternoon and relaxed around the place, meeting three other (older) travelers and their guides- two Australians and one Japanese. We got to know each other as we played pool and sat around eating garlic fries. Yes it’s true, we weren’t exactly roughing it at all like we thought. The home seemed to be equipped and ready to take on the most needy of westerners- hot shower, flushing toilet, and a pool table. Granted, the families don’t mind since its extra income for the family which would otherwise have none, and they were more than happy to have us.

After a gigantic dinner consisting of beef, pork, chicken, vegetable, tofu (yuck!) and rice of course, we continued to drink what is known as Rice Wine, or as or guide began to call it, Magic Water. Both of which are misnomers because the taste certainly doesn’t resemble any wine I’ve ever had. And it didn’t give me any magical powers either- doing quite the opposite in fact. No, what we were drinking is better known as rice whiskey. Distilled and made by the farmers themselves, it is the drink of choice for the Hmong people with many traditions associated. Essentially its moonshine that is distilled into a 15 gallon jug, then siphoned off into empty water bottles for easy pouring and consumption. And consumed it was.  A somewhat acquired taste, the first shot goes down pretty hard, and gets exponentially easier as they come, for obvious reasons I imagine. It was a fun night with a lot of excitement, but I won’t go into details because I don’t want to bore you (also they are a little hazy).

After a solid night’s sleep, which was aided by our Magic Water, we woke early to have crepes and bananas for breakfast. We headed out on the last leg of our trek walking along the sides of the rice paddies with the valley below. It was another beautiful day although a little hazy like the day before. We slowly wound down the mountain, stopping along the way for our guide Linh to show us some games, villages, and how to shoot a slingshot (we know how, but she did it a lot better). The trek ended with soup fo lunch, some more heckling from the sellers, and a bus back to Sapa. That’s right, we didn’t even have walk back up the valley. As Americans, we were way too lazy for that. It was also about 20km.

Enjoy the photographs as usual. Sorry for any typos, I’m a bit lazy when it comes to proofreading my personal blog. Act II will come in the following few days with any luck.