Francesca and Henk-Jan's Backpacking Trip!

The first of April was spent in bed mostly as we prepared for our first long train journey of our trip. We paid our kind new hostel owners a little extra to be allowed to stay in our room for a few more hours. Around 7:00 PM we grabbed a taxi to the train station to make sure we’d be on time. Little did we know the station was literally only 15 minutes away so we got there a little early. We made sure we had the right seats and waited out the time. After an hour or so the train arrived and we got to board it. We had to cross a few tracks to get to it and were confused about where to enter. Some local guy helped us out and also found out that, even though we thought we had bunks together, we were actually given tickets for two separate cabins. The man helped us get into the same cabin, where we took a top and bottom bunk and dropped our bags.

We were joined by a nice Vietnamese couple and soon after the train got moving. The couple seemed to want to sleep at first, but eventually started a conversation and we talked about our travels and their lives for some time. Since the train would arrive pretty early we went to bed around 10:30 PM and actually found the bunks pretty decent for some shut-eye. At first you feel the train shake quite a bit, and the rhythm of hitting the sections of the tracks can get somewhat annoying, but Francesca and I both woke up quite rested the next morning. We had arrived in Lao Cai.





Francesca had reserved a room in a hotel in Sapa, and they provided transport to the city. So when we spotted a guy standing around with her name on a sign we knew who to follow. We dropped our bags in the back of the van and spent an hour on the bumpy road. The views around us were grand, with lush green mountains and rice paddies as far as the eye could see. Not that that meant that much, because the area is famously cloudy and it obscured our sight quite badly at times.



Around 7:30 AM we arrived in the small town of Sapa at the Cat Cat Hotel. We had to wait a while before we could check in, so we headed upstairs to the top floor where the restaurant was located. I had a chicken soup (Pho Ga) and a fruit salad whilst Francesca got herself bread and cheese. The view from the outdoor terrace was lovely and the food so cheap and so good! After breakfast we headed back to reception and were handed the key to our room. The room was spacious and nicely decorated. It overlooked Sapa and the surrounding mountains.









The first hour or two in Sapa we looked into some of the hikes/homestays we could do the following days. We knew there was a festival in town and headed out to have a look around. Wiki: “Sa Pa (or Sapa) is a quiet mountain town and home to a great diversity of ethnic minority peoples. The total population of 36,000 consists mostly of minority groups. Besides the Kinh (Viet) people (15%) there are mainly 5 ethnic groups in Sapa: Hmong 52%, Dao 25%, Tay 5%, Giay 2% and a small number of Xa Pho. Approximately 7,000 live in Sapa, the other 36,000 being scattered in small communes throughout the district.”

We exited the Cat Cat Hotel and were immediately jumped on by two Hmong women that tried to have friendly conversations with us. They followed us through the little food market and into a large arena. The arena was home to part of the “Sapa in the Clouds” festival’s market, as well as some local games being played by the youth and young adults. We saw them trying to throw little sandbags on strings through large hoops over 25 meters high. A few Hmong and Yao girls were playing hacky sack. We walked around the market, seeing some local produce, but mostly Chinese import souvenirs.











We also checked out the absolutely packed Catholic Church, before heading to the little museum/tourist office. ‘Our’ Hmongs didn’t follow us here, so we finally got to be together. There was a little photo exhibit called “Through Hmong Eyes” which was a collection of pictures taken by minority children of things that interested them. Since they weren’t intruders in their own worlds the pictures gave a unique perspective of their lives.



A level above this exhibit we found a tiny museum dedicated to Sapa’s history. The building was much nicer than its contents and we were left a little disappointment by the lack of information. Pictures of the surroundings in the different seasons were astonishing nonetheless. Outside of the museum we were greeted by some Red Dzao women. They tried to sell us some wares and we wanted to take some pictures of them. We made a deal, buying a little bracelet of traditional Dzao cloth. They are called Red Dzao because they always use red to decorate the clothes they wear. Social status is determined by the size of a woman's head-dress, while shaved eyebrows are a local standard for beauty.



I spotted the Hmong ladies still outside the gates to the tourist office and led Francesca through a side exit to the local restaurants. We saw little pigs being roasted, families sharing hotpots, fish being killed on the spot, wondered about the black chicken on the spit, and bought some regular drumsticks and sticky rice to snack on for lunch. We headed back to the Cat Cat Hotel and decided to walk down to the Cat Cat Village, a recommendation from one of the employees of the hotel.





It took about 45 minutes to walk down to the little village, which we did accompanied by two Hmong ladies once more. They tried to bribe us into leaving us if we bought something from them, but we didn’t really mind their company and kept going. Eventually they turned back, only to be replaced by another lady. She invited her into her house, where we saw an original paper ancestral altar. The lady tried to sell me some clothing, but none of it fit me (surprise, surprise!) so we got to continue our tour of Cat Cat.











There were a few more little shops which we perused. A large stack of machetes and farm tools lay outside on a stall. There were certainly a few potential murder weapons there! We left the shops behind, continuing down the little trail and eventually reaching a scenic waterfall. By two o’clock we were ready to head back up again. We had to climb for about a quarter of an hour before reaching a small bridge. On the other side we were met by some ‘Xe Om drivers’ (literally ‘back hug’) and were taken back to Sapa for a small fee.



Back in the hotel Francesca and I sat down to confirm our 3 Day/ 2 Night Homestay at Ta Van and Ban Ho villages tour and packed our bag for the following morning. In the evening we had food at the Cat Cat Restaurant again. I had wanted to try the hotpot after seeing it earlier in the day and ordered the chicken hotpot. Francesca got herself a very tasty chicken in honey and sesame seed with French fries. My hotpot came and the separate ingredients (chicken, vegetables, and noodles) had to be put in the hotpot. I wasn’t entirely sure how long to cook all of it and asked the aid of one of the employees. She ended up cooking all my food (which was a lot!) making me fall in love with the concept of hotpots in the process.





We met our guide Mai the next morning around 9:00 AM. Francesca had gotten us free water as part of the deal, which meant I had a few liters of water to carry with in the daypack. Because the entrance tickets to the villages still had to be brought to the hotel we had to wait a little while, but around 10:00 AM were underway. Mai had brought two friends that went with us to our first stop. Unfortunately there were a lot of other people walking down so we were constantly surrounded by other foreigners. Nonetheless, seeing local villagers working the fields in the morning mist was impressive. We made a quick stop at 11:00 AM and a Japanese tourist cleverly avoided the child-touts by making them balloon animals. Cheap and effective!









The real hike started right after that as we had to climb down a pretty steep and slippery hill. Our hiking shoes’ profiles were soon filled with mud and turned the slope into a slide. Francesca needed the help of the two friends of Mai to get downhill. That gave me the perfect chance to take some cool pictures of this pretty sight. The guide and her friends were wearing simple white sandals, and carried their really young babies on their backs. However, being used to the conditions they got down the hills much more easily.



The rice terraces all around us were stunning and I kept taking pictures whilst Francesca struggled forward with the two girls. For over an hour we were surrounded by rolling hills, streaming water and green fields. Little houses stood separately in the distance and we wondered about the hard, yet peaceful existence the inhabitants must be living. In the meantime a few of the Hmong guides had captured a crab and de-clawed it, tied it to a string and carried it with, for dinner perhaps...









We admired the river and the village of Lao Chai in the distance, where we then continued to walk to for lunch. Before we could sit down for lunch we had to deal with the incessant touting by the two guides that had helped us down, and we ended up buying a bracelet and a belt, mainly to thank them for their help. A Red Dzao woman also tried to make a bit of money, but her pushy whining annoyed us so we went inside. Francesca and I had both been excited about the food, hoping it would be traditional tribal food. When two baguettes, two omelets and some vegetables arrived we were thoroughly disappointed. We ate since we were hungry, but didn’t feel entirely satisfied.













We walked through the village of Lao Chai, and saw local kids riding these gigantic water buffaloes through town. Impressive! We arrived in Ta Van around 2:30 PM and met our Zay host. We saw her house was filled with beds (space for approx. 20 people) and feared the experience wouldn’t be as unique as we had hoped and previously experienced during our homestays. It didn’t take long for other people to arrive. A British couple with the girl’s mother and an Australian guy joined us at the table where we engaged in a whole afternoon and evening of interesting conversations.









Before dinner arrived we got a plate of home-made fries with garlic. Again, not very traditional... We learned from Mai that dinner was bought by the hotel and brought to the homestay, where it was cooked by the hostess and the guide. No wonder we weren’t feeling the connection! Dinner was pretty decent regardless, with a table filled with pork, chicken, fresh vegetables, tofu and rice. We continued our talks after dinner, discussing world politics, travel, history and many other things. We all went to bed around 10:00 PM.





On the morning of the 5th of April we awoke to a pancake breakfast in Ta Van. Our fellow guests’ guide was there and we finally learned something about the Zay people we were staying with. Here’s some information on them:

“The Giay (or Zay) are a relatively small minority group, Traditional Giay society is feudal, with a strict demarcation between the local aristocracy and the peasant classes. All villagers work the communal lands, living in closely knit villages of stilt houses. A few Giay women still wear the traditional style of dress, distinguished by the highly colored, circular panel sewn around the collar and a shirt-fastening on the right shoulder: the shirt itself is often of bright green, pink or blue. On formal occasions, women may also wear a chequered turban.”



We said goodbye to our fellow travelers and hello to Mai. She had two new friends with her. The hiking continued and the views were largely the same and as stunning as the day before. We crossed more rice paddies where people were working hard to earn a meager living. We had to walk for a good 5 hours up and down the hills with a quick lunch break in the Red Dzao village of Giang Ta Chai. This time we got ramen noodles with some vegetables in a broth. On a rest-stop at the top of the hill above town, we got to ask Mai a few questions about her life. She was 25 but already had two young kids at home. Since she did 3 day trek often, her husband took care of them and she doesn’t get to see them much. When we asked if she would like to visit another country sometime, she responded by telling us “Maybe Hanoi.” We realized that she had never even been out of the Sapa area.















We arrived in Ban Ho around 4:00 PM at our Tay hosts’ place. Francesca spotted a young dog and immediately started playing with it. This house, too, was built for the sole purpose of tourism. The whole upper floor was filled with mattresses. Luckily there was a little room with a mattress for two, and we lay down for a while.

“The Tay grow rice in paddy fields, preferably in the plains and in the valleys. The villages consist of wooden or bamboo stilt houses and are often built in the immediate vicinity of a stream or a river. The household is the basic economic unit and tends to be a nuclear family limited to close relatives.

The Tay, Giay, Numg and Thai women wear brightly-colored jackets, – pink, green, or blue – double-breasted, often with contrasting braid at the collar. The tartan headscarf covers their hair gathered into a bun. Traditionally, each group used to have their own style of bun, held up with long silver needles, but the custom is vanishing.”

Outside we met the two other guests at this house, a British guy named Ben and a Japanese girl. Francesca had a bit of a headache and we’d found out that the locals had a traditional way of disposing of said pain. They heat up a buffalo horn by filling it with a piece of hot coal, which they then attach to the forehead. The oxygen gets burned up and the horn sucks itself tight on the skin, hopefully removing the headache. I had wanted Francesca to try… and got her to! Here are the awesome pictures of this memorable event. It left a large bruise on her forehead that would last for several days. Mai also got the Japanese girl to try it and she too ended up with a nice brown circle on her forehead.

















We got more fries around 5:00 PM and dinner around 6:00 PM. Ben gave us some useful information about travel and work in China, which is basically what we talked about for a few hours. Dinner was similar to the previous day’s grub, with the addition of tasty spring-rolls and tofu in tomato-sauce. Francesca went to read in our room and I stayed out for a while longer to talk to Ben. Around 9:30 PM we all went to sleep, tired after a good long day of hiking.





On the 5th pancakes were on the menu again. Oh, we love traditional hill-tribe food! We left with Mai to have a look around Ban Ho. Ban Ho is home to a pretty big waterfall and some steep cliffs that some locals jump off of. I felt it was sufficient to wet my feet and Francesca stayed dry entirely. Ben, a wall climber, did want to try and made some impressive jumps. Ban Ho also had a hot-spring… Until we remembered the guy at the hotel saying it was lukewarm. And we saw what it looked like. We turned back to the homestay and packed our bags for departure.







The previous two days had been relatively overcast, but today was a hot, sunny day and Francesca was suffering under the temperature. She had a headache and didn’t really want to walk uphill for over an hour. I talked to Mai and wanted a car for both of us. When there were only Xe Om available I decided to walk, and Francesca could relax for a while before she was taken to the Red Dzao village.

The walk uphill was extremely brutal under the blazing sun and I was glad Francesca didn’t have to go through it. Between the heat and the intense incline I was sweating like a bear and gasping for air. I was happy to see Mai sweating as well. At least it showed she was human! (These women who tackle rough climbs with ease usually seem superhuman to us!) After a good hour of nonstop uphill action we arrived in the village where Francesca was sitting in the shade and a nice breeze. The little hut she was in made us smile as it was made out of bamboo and looked extremely basic, but it was filled with karaoke equipment, big stereo-towers and a TV. I love that clash of tradition and electronics.





A car picked us up, took us back to Sapa and dropped us off at the hotel around 2:00 PM. Even though we didn’t have a room we could have a shower before our return to Hanoi that evening. Francesca wanted to try the black chicken, but when we looked it up online and read it tasted like cigarettes, and heard from reception it’s supposed to give you an upset stomach we skipped that idea and decided to eat at the restaurant later. The minivan to Lao Cai came earlier than promised, meaning Francesca and I had to forfeit our plans of eating at the Cat Cat Restaurant. Since we got to Lao Cai so early we had ample time to eat some (crappy) food at a (crappy) restaurant, and I could buy some buns, some tuna, cheese, fruit and other snacks for the train ride back.

The train back to Hanoi left earlier than the one we’d taken to Lao Cai and would thus put us back in Hanoi even earlier in the morning. We again had relatively decent sleep – no nice Vietnamese people this time though, just a cranky lady who wanted a bottom bunk and tried to steal ours as well. When we arrived around 4:00 AM at the hotel the doors were all locked and we feared having to wait a few hours before they’d wake up. Luckily our cabdriver understood enough English to call them for us and soon we were in a nice room with fresh sheets and soft pillows.

I would want to tell you we did a lot in the following days leading up to our flight to Hong Kong. The truth, however, is simple. A bacterial infection knocked me down again, dehydrated me and saw me faint once more. I actually hit my head on the wall (and then the floor) rather hard and ended up with a big bruise on my forehead and a small wound on my skull. Now I know what those Nam veterans are talking about when they show their war-wounds!

Anyway, it meant I was bed-ridden for a few days, giving us time to catch up on our posts, read books, watch movies (Hanoi Hilton for example) and order in lots of cheap and good food. We packed our bags on the 9th, ready to take on Hong Kong and soon after China…