Note: This post was written by Holly who is currently unable to access her Blogger account).
Doannie and I couldn’t go to Sa Pa due to a deadly landslide that cut off all access to this northwesterly corner of Viet Nam in 2008, so I was very excited to be traveling there this time around. On the advice of our friends and super world travelers Kameko and Eric, we booked the overnight Chapa train from Ha Noi to Láo Cai against the initial advice of our travel agent Diep (who overestimated our appetite for luxury travel and underestimated our love of public transportation). This was no T or MARTA - the Chapa train was actually quite lux and our sleeper cabin and its gentle clickety-clack sounds made for a great slumber. We woke up 7 hours later and 20 degrees cooler on the border with China in the misty rain.
My mom and I decided that Láo Cai province is the Oconee county of Viet Nam - it is in the far northwestern corner, in the foothills of a large mountain range (the Hoàng Liên Son, the easternmost part of the Himalayas), and chock full of beautiful hikes and waterfalls. Our trip to the top of Fanispan mountain and to Heaven’s Gate were both completely swathed in clouds, but that didn’t slow us down. When walking through the mist to the Love Waterfall we were surrounded by a swarm of dragonflies, which might be the most mystical thing I have ever experienced.
We also decided that Sa Pa town is the Gatlinberg of Viet Nam - kind of kitschy, but also quaint and lovely and a wonderful destination for families. One of the benefits of traveling to Viet Nam in July was that most of the tourists in this and other areas were Vietnamese folk enjoying their summer holidays. We walked around the lake, watched kids play hacky sack, helped the kids negotiate their first souvenir purchases, and even convinced Em to try street food.
But the most unique part of our time in Sa Pa was our trek through the rice fields with women from the Red Dao tribe. All down the length of the country, the mountains of western Viet Nam’s border with Lao are home to ethnic groups who are distinctly different from the Viet people. They all have their own languages and traditional dress - our guide Do Do, who is Hmong, could only converse with the Red Dao women in Vietnamese. When we stepped off the main road and into the terraced fields, seven women appeared out of thin air - exactly one for each member of our group. One walked with each of us, holding our hands as they guided us down the steep paths and over the river passages. We saw people harvesting corn (which is planted on the slanted part of the terraces, in between the rice) and even saw a guy putting fish from his small estuary into the seat of his moto to take to market before speeding away up the incline. At the end of our journey, the women insisted we each buy a small handicraft from them even though we had just wanted to compensate them for their time as our guides. I’m so glad we did, as I love that we have these momentos of our time with them.
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