31 | October | 2011 | Teresa Van Haalen Ventures

Our train from Hanoi to Lao Cai (just 20 miles from the China border) arrived yesterday at 6:30 in the morning, after an all night ride in a very comfortable, private sleeper car. Our shuttle van carried us and our backpacks up 40 miles of curvy mountain road to the mountain town of Sapa. Sapa was established during the French occupation in 1922 as a hill station, and is perched on the side of precipitous hillsides that are terraced with rice fields down to the river valley far below. (The view from our Sapa View Hotel is amazing!) The sun gods have blessed us during our visit, and as we went out trekking with our guide yesterday, and today, the often present cloud cover lifted and provided us with spectacular views.

I’ve posted only a few photos, for brevity, but the ethnic differences among the H’Mong people (I only have samples of the Black and Red H’Mongs here) are significant, including the standard of living, the language, the clothing, and their approach to strangers. We only visited 3 groups, the Giay, the Black, and encounters with the Red. There are several other mountain tribes, which the French blanketed as Montanardes (mountain people). We visited a mountain school today, which is a whole other story!

Yesterday we took a 6 km trek to a small village, Cat Cat, below Sapa, where the Black H’mong people live, and today we took a much longer and steeper 5 hour trek to villages around the Ta Van River. Cuong said, “Oh this is nothing. We have to travel many days with walking sticks and mud over our ankles.”) The amazing thing to me is that these tiny people make this trek every day with baskets of rice, (or whatever bounty they have) on their backs, to take to market from the village to Sapa!

The wow(!) for me on this leg of our trip has been the colors of the weavings and the smiles of the women (not so much the men and the kids), who follow us as we walk through the countryside. Opportunities for the future for the children who are born into these communities are bleak, so in a way it was a sobering trek, underscoring the many challenges Vietnam will be facing as they move into the future.

Our guide, Cuong, has been amazing, meeting us at our hotel yesterday morning for our first hike, holding my hand down the muddy, steep slopes on a part of our trip today, and guiding us to the best Vietnam priced massage at the end of the day!

Trekking opportunities are everywhere here in Sapa, including mountain shops selling North Face gear. The highest peak (which Cuong does often, mostly, he says with Australians) is Fanispan, and at over 3,000 meters is the tallest peak in VN. And of course requires travelers to pack in food, tents, and all gear (been there, done that!).

I’m posting some photos of our treks yesterday and today. See if you agree about the amazing colors we encountered. Sorry again for the horrible formatting. I need a wordpress class soon!