crustyadventures
Random travel thoughts from WorldNomad's Community Manager
Mud spatterings and hellos
VIETNAM | Sunday, 14 December 2003 | Views [1834]
Thanks for your mails of late: it was wonderful to return
mud-splattered and damp from the mountains in Sapa to a load of news
from home (and indeed, around the world!).
I've just had my shoes shined by the shoe-shine boy for 5000 dong
(about 60 cents) - and biy did he have his work cut out for him.
After 5 days schlepping through muddy trails across rice paddies in the
mountains, I'm back in Hanoi for a day. Now would be the time to
find myself a foot-massage - all the latest rage in VietNam for idle
youth.
I had a fantastic time on the treks... although in Australia, we'd
probably call them long walks as they weren't strenuous enough to
warrant my concerns about not being fit. As the local guides work
7 days a week without holidays, they're looking for all the short-cuts
they can find - and that includes getting the paying punters to carry
the lunch food in order to slow them down a bit.
I finally found the cold weather in Vietnam - it was in the mountains,
breathing quietly through the heavy mists that hid the tiny villages in
the valleys below. My thermal underwear kept me happy, but I
spent a lot of time wondering what the Black H'Mong girls wore under
their traditional indigo-dyed clothes - the short skirts and leg
wrappings didn't seem well suited to the temperatures. But then
again, they wore plastic sandals up and down the slippery slopes - a
small concession to modern conveniences - but still sturdy enough when
they needed to carry small children or a load of rice sacks on their
backs. They laughed continuously and stopped bothering to try and
sell you stuff if you laughed along with them.
On the first day, I walked with a few fellow travellers and a guide
called Long (Dragon) down to a tiny village where we stayed overnight
in a local house with a Black H'Mong family. There were tiny cats
everywhere that lived around the kitchen fire and slept in the warm
ashes - as all the floors were packed earth and the walls bamboo, there
wasn't a lot of insulation, and they had the choice spots. On the
second day, we continued onto a village of about 300 Tay people who
were living in stilt houses. This family seemed fascinated at my
hand writing and all 8 of them gathered around to stare whilst I made
notes in my diary, clucking and giggling... Ah, it's so much fun being
a novelty here.... I guess though it's only fair to be on the other
side for a short while - the temptation to take photos of these
fantastic people must grate after a while. After all, what's so
funny about having blue-hands from spending days dying fabrics, bent
backs from years planting rice and people poor enough that they'd sell
you the beautiful embroidered pants they were wearing if you pointed to
them with any fascination?
I made the mistake of giving one girl a bandaid when she showed me her
cut hand... it was a sparkly silver one - and suddenly there was a rush
on for band-aids. "She get one... Why I no get one?" I was
worried that such was the fervour for the shiny band-aid, that they'd
cut themselves to get more attention.
The local police also dropped in on us to check if the guides had
permits for our stay. Just when you think that Vietnam is well
into the dissolution of the People's Committees and security reports on
foreigners being filed by every street corner noodle-seller, I heard
our guide tell the local copper that Jordan the American was actually
Canadian. He wouldn't be drawn on it, telling us that it
was not our problem, just that he hadn't done the paperwork properly
and it was easier this way. But I suspect that the Americans are still
treated with caution, especially out in the remote provinces.
Anyway, it was a good laugh, but I don't think my photos of the white
mountain mist will do any justice to the beautiful landscapes and I can
only hope that I remember what it all looked like when sitting back on
my comfortable lounge in Sydney, the mud long since gone from my shoes.
Tags: Mountains
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