By Way of Asia

Sapa, Vietnam: A few final sights from our second day trekking…on to Laos!

Sapa, Vietnam:  Another wonderful thing about Sapa has been the ethnic minorities who live in the area and who are named after the varied and eccentric dress that they sport. For example, the Black H’mong - who boast the largest population in Sapa - get their name from their pretty cool black* clothing and headdresses, while the Red Dzay wear (kind of funny looking) santa-like red scarfs on top of their head. The tribes make their money from rice farming, selling fruits and vegetables, or making and selling charming hand-sewn goods such as hats, scarves, bags, and headbands. The one thing they all unfortunately have in common is absolutely terrible oral hygiene and there were times when we considered handing out the disposable toothbrushes we had in our bag from our hotel. We really enjoyed their company and, when they weren’t aggressively trying to sell us bracelets or pillowcases, we found them to be absolutely lovely people.

*The name is a bit of a misnomer since they clothes are technically dark indigo - made using the indigo plant that grows in the area. To demonstrate that the plant the guide pointed out on our trek was in fact indigo, Z took some leaves and spent a few minutes rubbing them around on his hands. They are still blue. That was three days ago.

Sapa, Vietnam: One of the best parts about Sapa has been the adorable kids and plethora (yes, plethora) of animals we’ve gotten to see both on our treks to the villages as well as in Sapa town. On our walks, we ran into buffalo, ducks, wild pigs, really cool shiny beetles, butterflies, horses, dogs, cats, the list goes on. And since the H’mong and Dzay ethnic minorities get married around 13 and begin having children shortly thereafter, there is no shortage of completely lovable little ones either playing around town or strapped to their siblings backs (who themselves can’t be older than 10 - we weren’t even allowed to be left home alone at that age, let alone take care of a newborn!)

Also, on a bit of a side note, today we saw the craziest thing we’ve seen so far on the back of a motorbike. We’ve seen some pretty ridiculous things carted around on two wheels over the past five weeks - families of six, bushels of dead chickens, a giant ladder, a woman breastfeeding - but this one takes the cake………..a dead horse. Yes, scout’s honor, a man was riding a motorbike and attached to the back was a full size, black horse. Oh, and he was riding on a dirt path on the side of a mountain at a 10% gradient. Talk about good balance.

Sapa, Vietnam: Hello world! We have found our favorite place in Asia. It’s called Sapa - a mountain town north of Hanoi, accessible by overnight train. We’ve spent a few days here trekking around and seeing the nearby villages. We couldn’t really imagine trekking anywhere else we’ve been, but this is the first place that we’ve been that hasn’t been CRAZY hot - Sapa is full of cool, mountain air, which has been a nice change of pace.

We’ve got lots of pictures to share, the first of which are the beautiful scenery. The first thing you’ll notice is that the mountains here are terraced to allow for wet rice farming - our tour guide tells us that many of the terraces are 100 years old!