Sa Pa

Our trip to Sa Pa could not start without some necessary tangles. We reserved seats on the train overnight and then had to find the private company's ticketing office to pay and pick them up. We went to the address where we thought it was located, but found nothing but a residential alley. We went to a wifi cafe to try and find the right address. While there we found a new address, reserved our Sa Pa hotel, and succumbed to some melancholy. The cafe had a very western atmosphere, but at the same time it was inescapably Vietnamese. A single Vietnamese pop song was playing on loop; Christmas lights spelling out 'happy new year' decorated the counter; I was drinking passion fruit juice, and our window seat looked out onto a rotunda with a patriotic sculpture at it's center. It was simultaneously a reminder of the home I'll be returning to and a reminder of the new home I'd soon be leaving. Anyway, we got back on our feet and went to the opposite side of town to get our tickets, only to find that we were at the wrong place yet again. We went back across town, further into that residential alley, and discovered that the ticket office was on the third floor of someone's house. They told us that because we had not gotten our tickets sooner they had given them away but we were fortunate because another duo had canceled their trip so we could have their tickets. A dubious tale, but we finally had tickets and would be on our way to Sa Pa.

The beds in the sleeper cabin of the eight-hour overnight train are probably uncomfortable for anyone much taller than me, but I found it surprisingly easy to sleep for the whole trip, and woke up at six am just in time to disembark at the Lào Cai train station. Another 40 minutes in a van brought us to Sa Pa. We passed several beautiful terraced rice fields on the way but I didn't take any pictures because I assumed that I'd be getting better views of them later. However, after an unintentional nap, a dense fog rolled in and shrouded the landscape for the rest of the day. As a result, we took it easy. We walked around Sa Pa town, through the markets and to the church, and made plans for our next two days. At dinner we had a lovely experience with some very strange 'western' food and an adorable waitress who delighted in our Vietnamese skills and kept coming over to chat with us and ask us how to say certain things in English.

Hmong Mary and Jesus

Rain gathering on cobwebs

Locally brewed beer

On Saturday we braved the weather and the winding roads. We rented a motorbike and, with Violet at the helm, meandered through the mountains. We couldn't see much of the impressive views that the valleys would surely have offered on a clear day, but we passed waterfall after waterfall and the fog and the ferns made us feel like we were in a prehistoric jungle. We passed the Silver Waterfall and drove into the next province. We started going into the valley at that point, got below the fog, and got some nice vistas.

Into the fog

Emerging from the fog

Silver Waterfall

Getting below the clouds

Terraced rice fields in the valley

We were going to go to another village after we came back and warmed up with lunch, but the fog turned into rain and the roads were really bad, so we decided to call it a day. We met up with some Fulbright ETAs from Malaysia who are on their halfway break and have been touring Vietnam. Being with them, and having spent some time with the ETAs in Laos, makes me really appreciate the Fulbright network. Other ETAs can understand my experience on a different level, but also offer new perspectives because of the cultural differences between our countries.

On Friday we booked a Sunday tour of the Bắc Hà market. It is supposedly a market for locals, but for the most part it seemed like a market for locals to sell their handicrafts to tourists. Nevertheless, there were definitely less-touristy sectors, like the livestock areas and the food stands. We watched people poke and haggle over scrawny ponies, squat around caged songbirds, and inspect the rumps of water buffalo. I pet one such buffalo. The best part of the market was seeing the incredibly beautiful and intricate garb of the local women of the Flower Hmong tribe.

Note the woman on the far right carrying a puppy like a purse

Beaded and embroidered baby carrier

Horse sale area

The pigs looked different than they do in the South

Snake bits (a preview of my next post!)

Crochety-looking water buffalo

After a few hours roaming the market, we were taken to a village whose inhabitants still seemed to be at the market, so it was pretty much empty. I did learn that the current crop in the fields is a mix of soy (the yellow leaves) and corn, and that rice will be planted next. We also went to a river that divides Vietnam from China.

Soy and corn fields in the valley

China!

On the Vietnam side of the river

We got dropped off at the train station in Lào Cai (the one closest to Sa Pa) and Violet, the three Malaysian ETAs, and I hung out at a bia hoi place to while away the hours until our night buses back to Hanoi.