Mr. Tony Vo,… bon vivant and general advisor, the “front
office manager” at my hotel, the Hanoi Imperial Hotel in Hanoi, http://www.hanoiimperialhotel.com/
had talked me in to going on a side trip, a “Sapa Trekking” trip. I was to
understand I would take the night train with a sleeper car to Lao Cai and then
bus up to my hotel in Sapa. I had a hazy understanding I would go out to some
native villages of hill people who are ethnic minorities in Viet Nam and walk
around a bit and take pictures as a high-fiving white guy tourista, it sounds
good no?
The PDF file e-mailed to me describes this mental image
“Sapa is an incredibly picturesque village that lies on the Hoang Lien Son
mountain range near the Chinese border in North West Vietnam, it is called the
“Tokinese Alps”……
Ok go already
They sent someone to get me on the train; I thought sharing
a sleeper car with three other people was a little odd, but whatever. I had bought
some brand new Keen shoes before I left the States from REI. I put them under
the bottom bunk, I never saw them again. The train was super noisy. There was a
small angry man with a deadblow hammer berating the train roof all night long
(my only explanation). I did take an ambian and managed to get some sleep. In
the morning I lurched to the “café car” the workers, who wore very impressive
uniforms, were playing cards for money. It was so deliciously seedy I wanted a
photo, I brought up the camera, they panicked and brought up the waving hand, I
got a shot anyway but said “yeah ok, cool you bet” and sat down.
When I got on the minibus I said “my shoes, my shoes my
precious shoes”. The guy running things didn’t say “fuck off” he said “it will
be very difficult”… I said to call someone to check.. “It will be very
difficult”. I said something about “lost and found”; he found this very funny
that I thought this was a viable option for the return of my shoes. I explained
in terms of bad karma that taking another man’s shoes were more or less at the
tip-top of badness… my fellow travelers listened on with amusement
When I got to my hotel http://www.boutiquesapahotel.com/I
was a little tired and cranky. It said I would check in immediately and I could
take a cool shower. I figured I needed to get ready to trek, remember I had no
shoes, just some Teva sandals on my feet. Eventually I did go to my room and
the view was breathtaking. I took a shower, cooled down and was feeling good. I
checked on the tour and then walked up the street to the market it turned out I
needn’t have worried. Apparently all kindsa people show up unprepared there
were several shops selling North Face stuff; shoes, packs, jackets, you name
it. I got some cheap shoes for $20.
My guide showed up at the hotel and off we went. Her name
was Zaza and she rocked, she is a Black Hmong from a small village near Sapa. I
assumed we were walking to a car of some type. We were not.
She explained we simply were going to walk the entire thing
from where we were. Hmm, glad I gots me some shoes then. She spoke very good
English and I was able to really learn about the area (I had lots of questions).
Since I had booked the tour by myself it was just me and her taking a stroll, a
long, hot ball busting stroll. (Key Gilligan’s Island theme song here). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfR7qxtgCgY
It was fun and informative and the whole thing was good,
lots of photo options and we eventually got to the bottom. Zaza seemed to
assume I would want a car or motor bike to get back up to the hotel. I told her
I thought I could make it if we went slowly. So I walked all the way back and
was very proud of myself. The hotel, Boutique Spa Hotel provided free
breakfast, lunch and dinner by the way and the food was excellent; ask to stay
in room 403.
The next day I was hurting and sore. The previous day I had
suggested we do something different because it was just the two of us, I told
Zaza I could rent a car and we could go way out and visit a village not
normally bothered by tourists. But today was a little different a young woman
from Florida named Megan joined our group and Zaza had invited two of her
girlfriends. So as a merry group of five off we walked.
We hit a trail and it got very narrow and muddy and steep
very quickly. Megan and I both slipped and fell in the mud on our asses in no
time. I started to worry about my camera getting wet; I also couldn’t well take
photos with a muddy hand. I sprained my thumb trying to break my fall. I
started to try and grab plants for support. My guide Zaza said “ok, this plant
is fine; don’t grab the one next to it because it is poisonous”. Zaza and her
friends helped us along, her girlfriend helpers now seemed to not to have been
invited by accident. I was looking for a walking stick for support but couldn’t
find one. At one point I was trying to walk along a section of bamboo fence to
stay upright and a branch hit me in the face—zoop, I felt my contact lens shoot
out.
I said Ok, everyone STOP for a moment.
I asked if anyone had a mirror. Mah, Zaza’s friend pulled a
jagged piece of mirror glass out of a cloth purse which looked like a dagger. I
said “this looks like a weapon”. I looked for my contact, it was gone. Zaza
suggested we go look for it. I gave the same laugh the guy gave me when I
suggested we go look for my shoes.
I said “so where are we going here, I see no destination in
mind, is this really a trail your tribe uses or are you just going cross
country to be weird or what”???
An amused Zaza looked at me and said “this is what you asked
for Ed”
I said “How is that”
She explained “you said you wanted to go where there were no
tourists, do you see any tourists? And yes this is one of our regular trails,
and I would use this everyday but when I go on this trial I would normally wear
my boots and I would run the whole way, we don’t walk, we run everywhere we go”
I thought …”ach! Fer crying out loud”!!
So sure enough, about five minutes later a dude who had been
working in the fields along side of us came out and wearing nothing but a pair
of shorts and sandals he RAN down the trail and disappeared from sight in about
2 seconds. It dawned on me I had a brutal hike ahead of me. We literally were
walking along on the lip of those rice paddy dikes a narrow muddy band of dirt
about eight inches wide. The Black Hmong women trotted across these like giddy
little pixies. Megan and I skulked warily.
It seemed either straight up or straight down. We eventually
came out on a high aqueduct type of bridge with no guard rail. Megan was afraid
of heights, I was glad it wasn’t windy. Zaza talked about having lunch. I asked
what we were going to eat? She said my lunch was on her back. Hmmmm
There was a large snake by the trail. Zaza said “Ed can’t
you see that snake”, I said “remember I am operating with one eye here”. Megan
said is that snake Poisonous”?, Zaza said “oh yes, all the large snakes like
that in Vietnam are poisonous, the bright green tree snake called the leaf
snake is the worst”. Some boys grabbed bamboo sticks and went after the snake.
We stopped for lunch and the baguette sandwich Zaza had
prepared was excellent. Zaza’s two friends peeled off here and came back
selling stuff, I didn’t recognize them. I said I didn’t want to buy their goods
but to give them a nice tip for helping to keep me in one piece (more or less)
on the trail. A small cadre of girls came over and started their perpetual
chant of “
“You buy one from me ..too”
“You buy one form me ..too”
They sounded like doves cooing.
I started to imitate this which made everyone laugh. We were finally at the bottom and walking
along a village in a flat area. Some Red Dao women walked by. Zaza pulled out
an umbrella Megan was red and cooked on the shoulders and neck. There came up a
wooden walkway bridge and then a small building. Zaza asked if wanted a car? I said “yes I want an
air-conditioned Mercedes with a bed and a masseuse”. She laughed and said “I
will ride with you then”.
I said “you are sweating Zaza you are exhausted”
She said no she wasn’t and she could walk back the way we
came.
I said “yeah right”
We sat down and she tried to call her friend for a car ride.
He was already busy.
Next she asked f we would ride on the back of a motorbike. I
said yeah.
They showed up and off we went, the road back was a long
ways up! I really felt like I had in fact got to really see and experience that
part of Vietnam. It was a hell of an adventure and I highly recommend it.
I can’t really convey at this point how tired, sweaty,
sticky and worn out I was. My knees were swollen, I had a blood blister on my
toe, my thighs were screaming and all the Gatorade in the world wouldn’t have
helped. But I really felt like I had accomplished something too.
So I had two hours to clean up and then back to the night
train again. I decided to just throw away my muddy shoes. Someone at the hotel
wanted them. When I got to the train it was just me and one other in our
sleeper car. I had a bottom bunk. I turned out the lights, locked the door and
went to sleep.
In the morning a Chinese man was lying across from me
reading a book on an I-pad. His eyes darted up and down in an unfamiliar
reading pattern. How could he and his wife have gotten in my cabin in the
middle of the night without waking me up, I thought to myself, “ where oh where did YOU come from
sunshine”???
