28.11.2002 18 °C
Xin chao!
I'll preface this email by stating that this computer is seriously dodgy and things are jumping all over the place so if the continuity is somewhat lacking, that is the reason why. This is my third attempt at writing this mail....grrr
I am now in beautiful Sapa in the NW highlands of Vietnam. Actually for the sake of Ruben and Greg (from my Halong Bay tour) who didn't make it here...let's just say the place really sucks so don't feel as though you have missed out on anything!
Sapa was built as a hill station back in the 1920s and is not far from the Chinese border. Upon my arrival in Sapa at the crack ofdawn on Wednesday, I was thinking the whole highland mountain trekking was a very bad idea as it was very cold (around 11 degrees) and there was incessant drizzle and very ominous clouds. Thankfully I awoke yesterday morning to see a delightful sliver of sunshine peeking through the curtains of my hotel room and the view from my balcony was truly amazing. There were fluffy white clouds shrouding the higher mountains around the town and it was quite ethereal
I'm staying in a nice-ish hotel with very very hot water in the shower (and bath!! woohoo!), a comfy bed and awesome views over the mountains and valleys below. Oh and I have Cable TV. I have a new favourite song too. I was watching MTV Asia yesterday morning (very scary stuff)and came across a song called Boogie Woogie Number 5. It is a dance track by two very cheesy Japanese chicky-babes and is a cross between Aerobics Oz style, Tellitubbies on smack and Abba (not that there is anything wrong with Abba - they are Swedish after all).I've decided I'm going to join the groupie circuit and follow them around the globe on their next world tour - or maybe NOT!
Sapa is a relatively peaceful place after Hanoi, and a good place to meet the local H´mong people - who are ultra-friendly and constantly wishing to make conversation with you. The H'mong people (one of the ethnic minority groups in Vietnam) live in and around Sapa in the valleys of Cat Cat and Ta Phin (didn't see any cats though, just dogs, pigs and chickens..... I went for a walk down to their village when I got here on Wednesday and came upon a small cafe...a tiny bamboo hut covered with tarpaulin for rain protection. It was raining quite heavily at that point so I really just wanted to get out of the cold. But I ended up staying there for several hours with the cafe owner and her daughter. Soon after my arrival, I was greeted atvarious stages of my visit by 15-20 of the Black H'mong (there are also the Red, White etc etc)girls who showed me their "tres jolie" goods. At one point I must have had 10 of them hovered round me showing their goods. Normally such a situation would be quite overwhelming and somewhat suffocating but because of their genuine warmth, kindness and friendliness, it didn´t seem so bad.
They were very curious to know all about me! Their English is quite good and many of them also speak a little French. They´re especially friendly and talkative if you happen to buy anything from them - which of course I did - a dozen or so bangles, and even a musical instrument (a thing you pluck and blow at the same time). Tricky to get the knack of but with about 8 enthusiastic teachers, I finally got there......
The other major exciting event of Wednesday was my first motorbike ride! It was quite a hoot....I had been walking for about 5km (go the pedometer!)and it was getting pretty muddy so I jumped on the back of a motorbike to get back up to Sapa. Good stuff....bumpy all the way but we didn't do an Evil Knievel (sp?) or anything into the rice fields so not too bad. There are some seriously crazy motorbike drivers in Vietnam. Not all of them are locals either. You sometimes get crazy Dutchman who have had too much Tiger Beer and wake up the next morning with no bike but the scars to prove it (not to mention any names Ruben!). Watch out those of you Down Under as the flying Dutchman is coming to a town near you very soon! Arrggh - the horror, the horror!
On my way to dinner on Wednesday night, I was again greeted by the beautiful H'mong children. They wanted to know where my husband was. I said he was having a hair cut and massage before heading off to a Karaoke Bar to eat noodles. No....they saw my ring and thoughtit very odd I was on my own. This time they started playing with my hair, touching my skin ( i guess to see if it was real!) and kissing my hands. Many of them are only very young yet they happily wander the streets in hope of finding new friends and are eager to communicate with everyone.I feel bad because I can´t remember all their names! No doubt they will remind me several times over when I am shown more of their "tres jolie" goodies.
Actually this afternoon I ran into many of the same children I met yesterday. Instead of calling them by their names, Ma, Zhang, Chi and Pi Ka Chu (isn't that one of the Pokemon dudes?) etc, they are encouraging me to call them Clever, Silly, Crazy and Lazy - seriously!! I have also been dubbed "clever" so I think I have made it as an honorary H'mong.
After my plucking up the courage to hop on a Honda Om motorcycle on Wednesday, I was keen to hit the road again and thus hired a local motorbike taxi dude to drive me up around the Tram Ton Pass - the highest mountain pass in Vietnam. As it was a truly beautiful day yesterday, it was a good day to do this trip. I could see for miles in all directions, and even when thick clouds coated the valleys, they would move quickly and so the views were generally pretty good. He drove me about 15km up and around Sapa. Really good stuff. I also visited Thac Ba, or the "Silver Waterfall" on the way. Because there had been so much rain of late, the waterfall was abundant and truly beautiful. Every Tom, Dick and Harry along the way was wavingand saying G'day to me (Ok not G'day but Xin Chao). I think theywere like, what the? Crazy blonde foreigner on motorbike. It must have hit about 24 degrees yesterday and the sun was very powerful. I came home rather red in the face from my motorbike sunburn. I think the anti-malarial medication I'm taking (Doxycycline) is helping me bronze up because it makes the user photosensitive.
This morning I ran into my motorbike friend from yesterday and he drove me down to the village of Tai Phin to visit the home of the Red Dzao people. When I got down to the village, one of the ladies invited me into her mud hut - I had initially thought maybe it was sheer generosity, but it turned out that it was an opportunity to sell me stuff. Grrrrr.....
I had dinner with a Israeli guy last night - at first he seemed lovely, but then he started to moan about the locals...and he turned out to be a complete jerk. He resents how, as he sees it, the H´mong make a career out of their poverty and demonstrated to me, his despicable contempt for the H´mong people - it seems he thinks that to be a "real man", you have to be a complete prick! It´s tough to know how to deal with the poverty here though. On the one hand, the H´mong are seriously underprivileged and preying on hapless backpackers IS their main source of income. So of course you want to try and help them by buying things off them. But then, you can´t just keep buying 100 bangles, just to help someone out....And is it really that helpful if they have a little more money, but no access to clean water, and basic education? I dunno...You also reach a point where you just don´t want to buy any more, and you get sick of being asked. And a simple "No thank you" can be occasionally met with a torrent of abuse...Now, that´s not going to win any customers over!
The other major event of the past week was my marriage to a Romanian Mafia dude.
Just testing to see if you were still reading!
No, I visted Halong Bay and Cat Ba Island. I had seen pictures of Halong Bay in National Geographic magazines and been told by the dude who sold me my backpack how spectacular it is but you cannot describe it with only words and pictures. The whole "I cannot heave my heart into my mouth" (aka Cordelia in King Lear) is quite appropriate here. If you have been to the Karst area of Thailand, it is (I suspect) quite similar. Even though the weather was a little chilly and overcast....the place was very enchanting. The water was lovely and warm when I finally got up the courage to jump in. Quite fun jumping off the boat for a swim in the middle of the beautiful limestone islets of Halong Bay.
The troops from the Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island trip were an extremely groovy crowd of people, and I am grateful I had the opportunity to meet them all (how corny do I sound?). The trip consisted of the Swedish delegation, a Kiwi, 3 Dutchies, 4 Frenchmen and an Irish couple. The tour guide was pretty cool too - she taught us all that if you want to marry a Vietnamese man you are best off going for a "rice man"and not a "noodle man" because "noodle men" like karaoke bars too much and oh boy is that pretty scary stuff! I have yet to check out the karaoke scene here. As part of our tour to Halong Bay we were supposed to check out the nightlife on Cat Ba island, but all the karaoke bars were pretty dead. We wound up in the extremely pov local discotheque to hear about three songs from the 80s recycled over and over and only 3-4 people on the dance floor (all of whom were absolutely shocking boogiers).
Our trip to Halong Bay started with a bumpy minibus ride up toHalong City, where we then boarded a boat for a cruise out onHalong Bay. Halong Bay is part of the Gulf of Tonkin and is filled with limestone islets similar to those you see in Southern Thailand (I already said this didn't I? Testing you again!). There are lots of caves there too.
It's quite fascinating cruising around the bay as you come across floating villages and schools. Interestingly, there seem to be as many dogs living in these villages as there are people. Perhaps in case they have a bad fishing season! Halong Bay is prone to typhoons in the Summer ( I think) so I have no idea what the people do in such catastrophic circumstances. I certainly wouldn't want to be living out there if a typhoon was looming.
We spent the second day of our trip hiking on Cat Ba island anddoing more sailing. There was a particularly interesting crewmanwearing a Russian hat and smiling quite cheesily for photographswith everyone on the boat. I think he was a noodle man who enjoyed drinking Vodka. Good value entertainment though. I suspect that all the tourists doing this trip have their photos taken with him so he is quite the performer. Maybe he is considered a sex symbol in NE Nam. He should really start charging people - maybe a couple of thousand dong per picture.
We did a hike up the second tallest mountain on Cat Ba island onthis day also. The mountain was only a couple of hundred metreshigh but because it had been raining recently, the path was quite muddy and slippery. My butt managed (somehow) to stay dry - must be those genuine imitation Nikes I picked up in the shoe market in Hanoi for a ridiculously uninflated price. The lunch after the hike was nice though, and we shared it with the local cat and dog
Upon our return to Hanoi on Sunday night, we had dinner at theTamarind Cafe (vego restaurant affiliated with the tour group) and played Jenga. I was kinda sad for the trip to end because I really liked everybody, but we'll possibly meet up again one day on the road - somewhere in this big wide world.
Not sure what's on the agenda for this afternoon. I don't want to spend anymore money while I'm up here...ok, maybe ONE more motorbike ride, so I may be best to duck for cover in a cafe for the afternoon and sip Ca Fe Seu (Vietnamese Black Coffee). I just saw some young fellow walking past with a snake hanging off a stick....maybe I'll go do some taste testing at the Chapa Restaurant....or maybe not. There is a snake village not far from Hanoi and I'm goinn to head out there when I get back to Hanoi in a couple of days.
Tomorrow is the market day in Sapa - supposed to quite a gathering of people. So that's the plan for tomorrow. Then back to Hanoi on the O'nite train for a couple days before I head South.
Ciao
Belinda xo
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