Life in the remote north Vietnam

Its been some time now since I have travelled to a new country but it doesn’t mean I haven’t seen bucket loads of new things. This blog post is more like a bunch of short stories rather than 1 large one.

In between each trip I spent my time helping out new friends in Sapa and doing a bit of web design for Sapa O’Chau (who you would remember from my previous post).  But the main of my time was spent enjoying my time with my lovely girlfriend Sông.

Learning  2 cultures, 2 languages and 2 people.

The first thing you get to know after staying in the remote north for more than 2 days is that the locals do NOT think themselves Vietnamese. They are Hmong, and very proud of that. As such they have there own language which is centuries old, there own rules and cultures and way of life. The Vietnamese then impose there rules over the top as the country they live in.

So learning to speak hmong, and Vietnamese is quite hard. I want to learn hmong so I can understand the locals and friends when they talk and also talk to Sông’s family, but I need to learn Vietnamese as it’s the universal in the country.

2 Days after "pinching"

Anyways I was sick after returning from Bali, fever and other things, so my girlfriend and her best friend decided I need a traditional healing method (after being sick for 2 weeks….), so as one held me to the bed (these girls are stronger than they look), the other proceeded to pinch me on the neck creating long lines of bruises.  It only hurt for about 10 min but the marks were immediate. About 2 days later I was healthy again no more fever or problems… the marks were also a sign for everyone in the village and town to see I was sick and seemed to keep people away. Definitely noticeable.

Learning to ride a motorbike.

The motorbike rental in Sa Pa is nice and cheap for locals I think we paid 2-3$ a day for the rental (excluding petrol). Sông asked a few times if I could teach her how to ride the motorbike, and I was more than compliant. 

We packed a lunch and headed to remote roads where no cars or other bikes were and would practice. The views in the north Vietnam are always amazing but some of the roads we traveled are untouched by tourists simply due to there remoteness.

After lunch I would take back over driving and we would take the local’s trails and see where they ended up. More often than not it would be a dead end at a locals house but some times we were lucky and it would loop back to a main road.  

We followed a small trail from “ta phin” (a small Red Dao village) and it was very tricky on the bike but it was amazing views.  At times Sông had to get off and walk as the rubble was so slippry or the hill was to steep for the both of on the bike to climb. Especially when on the one side of the trail was a steep drop on the hill and the trail was only ½ meter wide if that.

I haven’t seen my sister in years…

Sông little nephews.

One morning Sông suggested that we go see here sister who married a man from a village far away (arranged marriage) and had to move away to live with him. She had not seen her in a long time.  Her grand mother also lived there. So one morning we packed a lunch and 5 kilo’s of candy for the kids. I left my camera at home as I didn’t want to be the tourist brought to a family occasion, looking back I should have brought it but at the time I decided not. We drove over the mountain onto on of the best mountain roads ever. It was so high up and loads of corners  (it wasn’t going to be the last time I drove it).

After a few hours driving we ended up at her sisters house. It was long before the entire village’s children had heard that someone foreign was in town with candy and the house was full of kids. The village was apparently all the same family all coming from the 1 grand parents, and we met the grand father. After a small lunch we went to meet the grand mother. Sadly it was so long since she had seen Sông she didn’t know who she was. Her grandmother was also very old so Sông wasn’t surprised, and took it with a laugh. It was a very good day’s trip and that evening we headed back towards Sa Pa waving goodbye to her nephews who had candy in his mouth.

Lets go to Sin Ho markets?

Another motorbike trip, this one was to take us to Sin Ho markets. A flower Hmong area near the Laos/China Boarder, it was going to take us 2 days to drive there.  The town of Sa Pa had not seen rain in weeks and the water tanks were empty for 2 days. This ment no showers, no toilets, no washing… nothing. Apparently its not uncommon, but after the 2^nd day I said lets go somewhere so we hired a motorbike, told the lady not to expect us back for 5 days and we just drove.

We headed down the same mountain pass towards Sôngs sisters but then we took a small road and did a detour though some villages. 

We entered several large towns, one thing I was amazed at in Vietnam was the main towns all have 3 lane motorways going through the town and grand statues. But no people with cars or bikes… then when you get 1km out of town it turns into dirt and rubble again?? Why not just build 1 lane and use the rest to fix up the roads linking the towns…  It did make for some time to test the new bike I had just hired. It has only done 200km when we left Sa Pa so I needed to “work it in” hitting 80km a hour on a 125cc screaming though a small town was fun.

That night we stayed in the province capital, the military buildings and all the government buildings definitely had grand place in the town and were very easy to spot.  

The next morning we headed up the hill along a small road, it started to climb and didn’t stop for 70km, it went up then down a bit then up up… we passed the clouds and kept going. When the road turned into rubble and the houses turned into shacks I knew we were getting close. 

We arrived in a cloud hazed town of Sin Ho and after checking in we headed on the bike out of town to explore before it started to rain and we had to head back.

The next morning we were both up early to go and see the markets. The town had Black Dao and Flower Hmong living near by and they had all swarmed to the town for the market day.  Everything from yarn for weaving, VCD movies of songs, and meat and Veg of every type was on offer. The Black Dao were almost the same as Red Dao but they had a black scarf as a hat rather than red. The Flower hmong were dressed in every array of colors under the sun and patterns.

Outside the markets were all the men of the wives inside. They were all lines up on there motorbikes waiting for there wives to come back and head home.

In the square was 3 cars and a queue of people. Today also happened to be driving school day. People were learning how to drive and park cars in the local square. Very funny to see the 3 cars dancing around in the same pattern in the square very very very very slowly.

We headed back to SaPa early as Sôngs family had a visit from the local shaman and were told that tomorrow no one is to leave the house or travel as something bad would happen. So we raced back to SaPa and arrived at night. The next day we spent the day at Sông other sister (Pan) and her husbands house listening to music and I helped Mr Do install some “free” software on his computer.

A Family visit

I had not yet been to Sôngs family house, but one free morning we headed to the markets bought loads of fresh meat and vegies and then headed down the valley on the motorbike. The house was a very beautiful traditional house, built by Sôngs father, next door was her brothers house. Little chickens and pigs ran all around it was a real farm house. Her brothers children where hold from morning school and were very happy to see us as it meant only 1 thing CANDY. We went for a small walk around the family house and then down the hill to a place where we could over look the entire village and valley.

I gave my camera to Sôngs niece to have a play and take some photos. She was instantly paparazzi taking loads of photos of her brother, her feet and the clouds.  

The pictures she took came out really well.

Sôngs little nephew took a interest in my empty can of Coke rolling it down the hill 20 times before it got so dinged up that it couldn’t roll any more. Then it was turned into a soccer ball.

After some lunch we were both put to work around the farm house. I took a liking to working the corn mill. When the first basket was finished I was so happy and tired, then mama (Sôngs mum) came with another and another… 

The kids who had been at school returned and  we all watched some funny movies.

The next day we took a ride around the valley to see people planting rice, the planting season had just started and the town of Sapa was empty.
Everyone had gone home to there villages to help with the planting. We stops off at some friends and got a taste of what the planting was like. If someone is slow or not watching the others they get some mud fligged at them. A bit of fun to keep the work interesting. They work from sun up to sun down.

That’s all for now, im sitting on a train writing while we head to Hoi An  for a week away together before I move onwards away from Vietnam, time to make some happy memories that will last us both till I return.

Till next time, remember HAVE FUN!

Steffen.