I didnt think it could really get any better than Halong Bay.....
After a tax, overnight train and bus I eventually arrived at Bac Ha Market near Sapa in the northern mountains of Vietnam. It was a market like no other I had seen. The market operates every sunday and the various local ethnic minority people come down from their remote mountain homes to do their weekly shop. The main attraction is the bright rainbow coloured traditional clothes worn by the very different minority women. It was eyecathing. You can buy anything at this market...water buffalo (white ones too -I'd never seen white ones before), pigs, dog pups (yes ...eventually eat), fruit, clothes, normal household goods all the while being contstantly asked "hello...you buy from me?".....no thanks was my standard reply but when I passed the meat section and saw a pigs head and its little hooves on the table I couldnt even muster a reply (managed to get a picture tho - not for the blog!!). Thankfully I missed the stall which apparently had a dogs head feet tail etc on it for sale.
We then went to a nearby village and went inside local house which reminded me very much of my parents old house in India. Thick mud floor and walls for insulation, a mud stove, rugs to sleep on - all very basic and of course very poor.
After spending the night in Sapa we set off early for a 13k trek from Ta Van Village to the Tay Village of Ban Ho where I would be stopping for the night at a homestay - ie with the locals. The trek was mostly down hill through corn and picture post card rice field terraces. Although not too hard, it took its toll on our legs eventually as we tried not to fall into the paddy fields! The weather luckily was great and the scenery just superb. All the while we were "escorted" by some locals who, like on the Great Wall turned up out of no where to "assist" and who predictably tried selling various items of clothing/bags etc. at the end. It was such a wonderful serene quite walk with hardly any other tourists around. We were a party of 5 - myself, a spanish girl and a dutch couple plus our tour guide and I have to say they also made my trip special as we all got on so well.
The dutch chap had little or not grip on his shoes and often kept slipping which the local girls found very funny and which eventually came back to haunt him as we let rip after sampling some "happy water" as our guide called it (rice wine) at our homestay. I had probably the best vietnamese meal cooked by our family and guide that night and unlike in the Mekong Delta the family actually joined us for dinner. As the table was set and the dishes laid I noticed a dish containing some very dark meat which I hadnt seen prepared. It was dog meat which apparently is a delicacy (sp?) and supposedly brings good luck and wealth. All I could think about was Champ (my god as a child)...the happy water soon made me forget.
The guide bought along a CD of the most appalling western music I had every heard including that "frog" song (you know the mobile phone tune) - by the end of the night however we were all dancing away including "mama" of our host family (who apparenly rarely joins in with the tourists) and I soon had them all doing humam pyramids (3 people at the bottom on all fours, 2 on top of the 3 on all fours and 1 at the very top) - I could very well have been at HOVE RFC rather than the other side of the world.
Next morning we had pancakes for breakfast whilst hearing a squealing pig being prepared for slaughter. The squealing took an age to stop - poor pig. Feeling a bit poorly (I managed to pick up a cold) we headed to a local waterfall and hot spring (the spring wasnt as nice as it sounds - it was a pipe from one side of the mountain to our end into a concrete manmade sqare tub which you had to pay to use!). We then set off on a calf cracking trek back the way we had come the previous day and uphill . It was midday and I struggled as I had very little energy (due to my COLD!!) but slowly I managed to make it up and end the trip on a high before getting the overnight train back to Hanoi from where I write.
Its now about 6.37 am and I plan to chill a day or two in Hanoi and shift this cold - will probably be around on msn/skype later this pm.
Thats if for now folks
Ten4.x
ps - OMG re woolies!! what is the world coming to!
