There’s a smell up here in the mountains of Northern Vietnam. It’s hard to place. It’s a mix of the wood burned in fireplaces every night, it’s part cardoman drying, it’s the smell of farmyards, and freshly cut fields. It’s Vietnamese sizzling chicken in lemongrass and chilli, it’s ginger tea, it’s wild pork hanging in village smoke houses. It’s the smell of dong changing hands and indigo dye soaking into hemp clothing. It’s baguettes baking and hessian bags full of spices on display in tiny shops throughout SaPa. It’s motorcycle fumes and incense burning. It’s chestnuts roasting and the smell of Vietnamese coffee topped with condensed milk being poured into slightly chipped cups. It’s Halida beer and cigarettes. It’s mud and mist and the rain and the steamed rice. It’s bunches of fresh herbs and strings of wild mushrooms being carried in bamboo baskets. It’s wonderful, its intoxicating, it’s SaPa.
