Round The World: Vietnam- Sapa Village

HOT TRACKS...

And before I get into Sapa,I wanted to show you a typical intersection in Vietnam. They are an absolute joke as there are no traffic laws, well if there are no one follows them. Crossing the street is straight out of the arcade game Frogger...no joke!!!

We managed to runite at the hostel with most of our group from Ha Long. Of the group 6 amazing Aussies (Rob, Christian, Alice, Lizzie, Phoebe and Emily) and 1 South African who wasn't on the boat, but whom I'd explored Hanoi with a few days earlier, joined us on a 2-day trip to the hilltown of Sapa. We knew little else about Sapa than that tons of people told us we HAD to go, and that was all we needed to know.

An overnight train ride to a town just down the mountain from Sapa, which lies only 3 Kilometers from China. It was surprisingly comfortable. Each room had 2 sets of bunk beds, complimentary water and cookies and even your own private night light. Garrett and I were roomed with Lizzie and Alice. Lizzie is a tall, slender, soft-spoken elementary school teacher at home. Alice is a extremely upbeat, blonde Vetrenarian, and a semi-celebrity in Australia due to her recent stint on the reality show “Big Brother”. Both girls are stopping off in SE Asia for some vacation time before they head to London for a year or so to work and take on a change of scenery. On the ride up we really get to know eachother and come to find out what stellar girls they really are. So stellar in fact we end up traveling the length of Vietnam together.

We arrive the town squinty-eyed at about 5am and could feel a big drop in temperature. We find a van to fit us all and barter the price down with the driver for a solid 10 minutes, which is pretty standard in Vietnam. After a foggy, over-priced ride up the mountain, we're taken to a hotel which we had no intention on stayting at, probably the drivers Aunt or something. We kindly tell the driver to drop us in the city's center and he complies. It's about 6am at this point, and the small town is still, lifeless as we walk the streets looking for a place to stay. The weather in Sapa is pretty brutal, it is near freezing and the air is extremely moist, which only heightens the frigidness. While checking out a hotel, Alice befriends some girls from a nearby village, being the friendly, outgoing person she is. Before you know it we are all sitting is a cafe having hot cocoa with a group of village girls as Alice had offered to treat them all.

These little girls where between the ages of 6-12, and were all incredible. Despite having no foreign languages taught at their schools, each of them spoke perfect English and French. They informed us that they learned everything from tourists, which is mind blowing to me! I mean, Ive grown up around Spanish speakers my whole life, but it never sunk in 1 bit; I still get the “awwww thats cute, he's trying (but he sucks)” laugh when I try to converse with Spanish people. I absolutely love kids and I have seen some cute kids in my day, but these were among the cutest I have seen in my life. They were just so full of life, talking non-stop and always giggling. They were like minature adults at the same time though, they were all so quick and sassy even.

The kids ended up inviting us to their village and we gladly accepted. We knew they were probably sent into town to pick up tourists, but we couldnt resist their cuteness (we later found out they all woke up at 3am to take the 2 hour hike into town in the freezing dark). After checking into our hotel, a quick shower and breakfast, we were ready to rock. But before we left, some of our group wanted to buy gumboots to prevent them from the slippery surfaces we would be facing on the hike to their village. The kids took us around to different shops and bargained like grown women with the shopkeepers for us. They made us storm out of 2 stores because at they put it, “They trying to rip you off because they think you are stupid tourists, but you are our friends!” But the 3rd store was a charm and we got a good deal on the boots thanks to our mini-tour guides. I felt like a Vietnamese version of Vince from the show Entourage as we cruised the streets with our new friends, I felt like we owned the town. We had a great amazing group of backpackers with us, and now we had recruited the coolest kids in the world to be our tour guides to their village for the day!

Our entourage began the chilly hike excited as could be, I think we all could feel it was going to be a great day! The hike to the village was nothing short of spectacular! As we made our way down the slippery valley, we were sourounded by mountains upon mountains of terraced rice fields! The cold air was still and I really could feel the serenity of our surroundings, it was beautiful! All of a sudden 1 of little Vietnamese Sherpas taps me on the leg and handed me a little horse that she made out of a fern leaf...what??? After that the kids made us all hats out of fern leaves that Ceasar himself would be jealous of! I didnt think these kids could get any more rad or cute, but they managed to do so with their Fern-leaf voodoo magic. They were like those clowns at the parties who make balloon animals, minus the creepy factor!

After about 2 hours descending through the valley, we arrived at the village. It was nothing more than a bunch of flimsy wooden huts, a school and more rice fields, but it was amazing to see it nonetheless. We were given a tour of 1 of the girls homes while the girls went and got all dolled up for lunch. The inside of the hut was as you could imagine, very basic, dark and dirty. Next we were led to another hut where we would have lunch with the family. We all sat around the table as massive amounts of rice, noodles and other stuff was piled onto the table. All of us sat their looking at eachother wondering when to start chowing down, but that was quickly resolved as the youngest/sassiest of the girls yelled to us grinning, “what are you waiting for...eat!”. It was settled, we began to fill our empty stomachs as if we had not eaten in days, we were all starving!

Once our delicious meal was finished, a bunch of village people with goods-in-hand filed in the room. We paid the girls nothing to be our tour guides and we paid less than $1 for an all you could eat lunch inside the home of true villagers, there had to be a catch! And this was it, once they had us cornered in their hut, they bombarded us with handmade goods and asked us to buy them all...aHA! Fair enough, I couldn't blame them though, they were just trying to survive like the rest of us. But I was not prepared for the brutal tactics the girls would use against us.

Each of the girls would come up to me and try and sell whatever it was they were selling and I would kindly tell them that I bought some stuff already and they would reply in the most whiney voice ever “why you buy from her, but you not buy from me!” They had plenty of more selling lines than that, but you get the drift; they were trying to use the friendships we had forged to make us feel bad and buy their products. I took everything with a grain of salt because I am positive their parents put them up to this and that they were doing what they were told. It was a bit disturbing when that thought crossed my mind that the kids had been acting the whole day and were just leading us to our slaughter the whole time. But when I thought about it more, I could tell the kids were really enjoying our company, as we were theirs; but they were just taking care of business at the end of the day and they really meant us no harm.

We slowly unhinged the jaws of the relentless sellers that had formed a cloud over us and we parted ways. The hike out of the village took about 10 minutes until we arrived at a group of dirtbike-taxis that would take us back to our hotel. I sadly said my final goodbyes to the girls and promised them I would be back 1 day to visit them with my future girlfriend or wife and they were very excited about the idea. The ride back to town was spectacular as well. I got to have a birds eye view of the valley our group had ascended ony a few hours earlier and it was a sight for sore eyes! And everytime I would pass a group of village kids making their ways back to the village I would yell “Hello!” and they would echo back in the happiest way ever, “Hellooooooo!”. It was the coolest game ever....Sapa is a magical place, go there!

On the 2nd day we all rented motorbikes and took an absolutley stunning/amusing ride to another village on the other side of town. The road was only about 6 feet wide and it wound like a snake between layers of cloudy hills and miles of primitive village. I felt as if I were in a motorcycle video game made by National Geographic or something because I was having the time of my life on my motorbike, while enjoying the unreal scenery that was flying past! After checking out the village we headed to a nearby waterfall which was very beatiful. On the way we posed with a massive water buffalo and that was that. Day 2 was over before we knew it and we had to leave this wonderful place called Sapa that we almost skipped to be honest.

The weather was perfect for our drive down the mountain. It allowed us to see the miles and miles of gorgeous rice-terraced mountians we had missed on the way up due to fog. What a perfect way to end a perfect trip to a perfect place with perfect people...life is beautiful!