Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum, Hanoi

Hills enroute to Sapa

Greetings from Hanoi! The last you heard from me we were in Laos about to travel from Vang Vieng to Vientiane. That was 20 Dec. It seems like a long time ago. Ray was still not feeling 100% that day so we took our time and decided to take the more comfortable bus to Vientiane in the afternoon. This was a 3 1/2 hr easy ride, and the extra passengers loaded on as we passed each small town didn't bother us. The route first descended through medium sized hills to a broad plain that got increasingly heavily populated as we approached Vientiane.

Ray was definitely better by the time we reached Vientiane so we explored the streets that evening and the next morning. This is a small city established by the French & still has remants of the colonial style. To us it was relatively expensive after the rest of Laos, but we still only paid 16 USD for our room. We watched the sun set from one of the many small patio bars on the banks of the Mekong river and the next day walked along Vientiane's version of the Champs Elysee to their Arc de Triumph, the Victory Monument. This was built in 1969 using concrete provided by the Americans that was supposed to be for an airport. It is still only partially finished as only 1 out of the planned 4 staircases leading to the top are completed. We walked up and got a good view of the city, much of which seems to be under construction or renovation.

Took an afternoon flight to Hanoi and then took a minibus into the city. This was a bargain at 3 USD as it took 45 minutes from the distant airport to the Old Quarter of Hanoi, where we are staying in one of the many mini hotels. This is good value, as we have a arge room with a modern bathroom, even a bathtub, for 15 USD. We can walk everywhere from the hotel, although coming to Hanoi traffic was an adjustment for us. Thailand has millions of cars, motorcycles and tuk tuks, Laos has tuk tuks and motorcycles and pedestrians, Hanoi has pedestrians, motorcycles, cyclos (pedicabs) and bicycles, bicycles, bicycles.

The Old Quarter of Hanoi for us is a cacaphony of sights and sounds. It was established in the 13th century with each of 36 guilds laying claim to a street. Today the street names reflect the original product although the product sold on that street may now be something else. On Hang Gai (hemp), you now find silk clothing and embroidered tablecloths and Hang Bac still has some Siversmith shops. Every narrow street is lined with shops, the sidewalks are crowded with street vendors, extensions of the shops and little restaurants that consist of a charcoal burner on which is boiling various version of Pho, the Vietnamese soup. The customers sit on little stools in a circle around the fire on the sidewalk. Along the sidewalks and on the edges of the street walk women selling fresh bread from burlap covered baskets on their heads, or fruit and vegetables from baskets hung from a long pole on their shoulders. Bicycles heavily laden with goods to sell are pedalled or pushed from street to street. Down the middle of the street race hundreds of motorcycles and bicycles, blowing their horns to announce their arrival and usually ignoring the few stop lights and pedestrians trying to cross the street. Add to this the local Hanoi people and tourists threading their way between the vendors and the motorcycles that are parallel parked on the sidewalk. The tourists have to fight off the entreaties of people begging, the boys with loads of maps and postcards, and the cyclo drivers to use their services "cheap, cheap". We are now very adept at crossing streets without being killed and at saying "no thank you" and walking fast to avoid further sales pitches.

With all that we are enjoying the city. We have visited several large local markets selling everything imaginable, from clothing to live chickens and fish. We have visited the Women's Museum with displays of the native dress of many of the 54 ethnic groups found in Vietnam and the Ho Chi Minh Museum for the Vietnamese version of his life and the Vietnamese revolution against the French and the Americans. We have eaten in several small travellers restaurants and some good ones as well. We try to stick to Vietnamese food, but can't face Pho for breakfast. We still go for bread or pancakes and omelets. One of our favourite dishes has been the grilled fish, called Cha Ca in Hanoi. It comes on its own charcoal burner with a sizzling pan of flavourful fish on top.

We spent an enjoyable evening watching the famous Water Puppets. This art form was started in northern Vietnam in the 11th century by rice farmers. The stage is a water tank and the puppeteers stand in the water behind a bamboo screen controlling wooden marionettes with one or more sticks underwater. The water is muddy, like the rice fields, so you can't see the sticks. An orchestra of traditional instruments including drums, cymbals, bamboo xylaphone, flute and an unusual one stringed dan bau. The performance consisted of folk music played by the orchestra followed by several vignettes depicting village life, rice planting and several legends.

Friday, Christmas Eve, we left on a 6 AM minibus with 9 others and 2 guides for a 10 1/2 hour trip to Sapa, northwest of Hanoi near the Chinese border. Just leaving Hanoi so early in the morning was interesting. People were already bustling about setting up shop and doing their morning limbering up exercises. We passed by a huge fruit and vegetable market that looks very impromptu set up along side the road, but is actually the largest market of its kind in Hanoi. We crossed the Red River on a long bridge made famous by the number of times it was bombed and rebuilt during the Vietnamese war. Coming the other way into Hanoi were hoards of bicycles with the biggest loads I have ever seen. Andre's laden touring bicycle has nothing on these! Most were higher than their rider and almost as wide as a car.

It was several hours until we came to the plains surrounding Hanoi. The fields were all carefully divided into small garden plots of rice, corn or other cash crops. Most of the work is done by hand or using a water buffalo to till the fields. Many of the crops are even watered by hand by people carrying water buckets on each end of a shoulder pole.

Finally we started climbing into the foothills gaining altitude until we reached Lao Cai, right on the Chinese border. It was entirely destroyed by the Chinese in 1979 and is now a thriving but unattractive town with a large military presence. From Lao Cai, it was 37 K uphill on tight switchbacks for 1 1/2 hours until we reached Sapa, altitude 1600 M.

The town is on the top of one of the peaks forming a circus around a small valley. It exists as a market town for the neighbouring hilltribe people and as a tourist attraction for people coming to see the hilltribe people in their colourful outfits. Sapa means French soldier in commemoration of the man who discovered the area in 1914 and establshed the town as a resort area for the French wishing to escape the heat of the lowlands. I doubt that the French would have visited at this time of year.

As soon as the sun disappears behind the hills the temperature drops and there is no central heating in the guesthouses. Our room was no exception. With 2 comforters and our water bottles filled with boiling water under the covers, we did keep warm, although my thermometer registered 5 C in the room the next morning. We had also come well prepared with our warm clothing we used on our trek in Nepal. It is a beautiful area though, and there are many trails leading over the hills to the scattered villages in the area. The highest mountain in Vietnam, Fansipan, at 3143 M is visible from the town. Apparently you can climb it in 5 or 6 days, but at this time of year it would be too cold for me.

There is a large market everyday, but larger still on Saturday that attracts the locals from all over. The largest group of people are the black Hmong who wear a black tunic over knee length black shorts and black leg wrappings. The outfits have embroidered sleeves and coloured edgings and the women wear lots of silver jewelry and carry the children in indigo coloured cloth carriers. The downside is that the women now make hats, bags, scarves and shirts and agressively hawk their wares all over the town. The goods are beautifully decorated and well made, but you cannot sit or go anywhere without a hoard of small black clad women shoving articles at you. We learned to aviod the worst areas & escape to the trails around town.

Christmas Eve we wandered around town and much to our surprise found that the center of attention was a Catholic Church celebrating a special mass for the event. This was like no other chruch service I have been to. It was truly a fusion of Hilltribe animism, Buddhism and Catholism. The priest and his assistants were trying to set up a PA system to broadcast the service to the people outside, but were having difficulty, so what was broadcast was a Vietnamese rock song. The church was filled with hilltribe people of all ages, some holding the traditional candles, and coming and going at will. There was a nativity scene inside a straw cave. It had figures of Mary & Joseph and a baby that was 10 times bigger than the parents. Add to this one of those K-Tel special lights constructed of a bunch of plastic straws that lit up and revolved behind the family. Very interesting. Outside the church vendors had set up portable roadside cafes surrounded by plastic to try to keep some of the heat provided by charcoal burners in. Apparently this is a popular hangout area for the young people of the district to come & look each other over.

Christmas day the weather was sunny and warmed up nicely. We went for a walk with our guide in the morning down into the valley to visit some of the village homes and to see a waterfall. The other members of our hiking group were an Italian family with their 2 children, Tessa, who will be 3 in January and Aluna, a boy who will be 6 in January. The family has been travelling for 5 months and do not plan to return home until the end of May. I was most impressed as the children were well behaved and hiked very well. Little Tessa was the center of attention with all the local women who wanted to pick her up and kiss her, much to her displeasure.

We had a free afternoon so Ray & struck out on our own to explore the paths leading south out of town into the next valley. We had a good time & enjoyed the peace and quiet. The local people around there let us be and went about their chores.

The next day, Sunday, we got up early to board the minibus and drive 2 1/2 hrs to Bac Ha, another mountain village known for its Sunday market. This meant driving down those switchbacks back to Lao Cai, then turning off and following more mountain roads up to 900 M. We knew we were approaching Bac Ha when we started passing person after person carrying goods or leading a pony laden with goods. The people in this area are mostly flower Hmong, named for their very colourful outfits. The women wear full skirts of a blue patterned material embroidered and appliqued with more colours and patterns. Their blouses were bright green or blue or flowered velveteen broadly trimmed with similar appliques.

Bac Ha Market

Bac Ha Tobacco

Our guesthouse was right across from the market so after checking in, we made the rounds. It was like no other market we have been to yet. It was jammed with people in all their colourful finery and teeming with interesting products and foods. There was homemade wine & liquor being sampled, local tobacco smoked with long bamboo hookah pipes, spices, meats, chickens, ducks, a dog market, a pig market, a pony market, birds in cages, kittens - you name it, it was there. Ray went through a roll of film very quickly. When we had walked around the market enough, we borrowed chairs from the restaurant at our guesthouse & put them in the sun across the street & sat there just soaking up the scene.

In the afternoon, our guide took us a walk in the area. As we walked through the town, we stopped to let a funeral procession pass by. The parade of people on foot carried banners proclaiming the deceased war experience and others carried an altar with incense burning. Next came the body wrapped in cloths and covered with a ceremonial blanket that looked like a casket. When it had passed we continued to a French Colonial style mansion that was built in 1921 for the King of the Hmongs, a French sympathizer. It is now a People's Committee building and the King & his son live in France.

From there we headed out of town and followed many of the Hmong returning to their homes after the market. In the next valley we could see a large group of Hmong women in the distance and could hear the sounds of a party. When we reached them, we discovered that this was the 2nd day of a wedding celebration and the bride & groom were about to leave for their new home. We saw them leave then proceeded to the house where the party had been, but we were too late. There had been too much wedding wine consumed, so we were not invited in.

Instead, we went to another home nearby where our guide gained permission for us to come in & see the women make their famous corn liquor. The still was in the dark kitchen half of the house. A large vat, covered by a pan of cold water was boiling over an open fire. The resulting liquid was draining through a spigot on the side of the vat and was filtered through a dirty cloth into a stone jug. The jug filled to everflowing while we were there so one of the women sort of cleaned out a plastic container to hold the liquor from the jug. We were offered a taste of the homebrew, and since it is impolite to refuse, we did. It was a clear, almost tasteless liquid that was very strong, but not unpleasant. The women were making the liquor in preparation for another wedding the next week. It is the duty of the groom's family to supply 200 bottles of this stuff, about 6,000,000 Dong and 3 pigs to the family of the bride.

The next day we rose early again for the 9 1/2 hour trip back to Hanoi. All in all an interesting trip. You could easily spend a few more days in Sapa exploring more trails and Bac Ha was fascinating.

We are busy now planning the rest of our time in Vietnam. We will take another overnight tour to Halong Bay, where we will spend New year's Eve & then head south to visit Hue & Hoi An in the Central part and end up in Ho Chi Minh (Saigon) and the Mekong Delta, before heading off to Cambodia & Thailand.

Happy New Year's to everyone, and have a great party & drink a toast to us.

Jeanne & Ray