Trekking in Sa Pa

Our Sa Pa adventure started with an overnight train ride from Hanoi. The four-bed cabin was extra quaint – we splashed out for the extra bunk, as sleeping with a stranger in tight quarters wasn’t on our list of adventures for this trip! Our girl slept like a rock; I didn’t think I slept at all, until hubby asked me a series of questions in the A.M.: Did you hear the kid in the next cabin start blasting cartoons at 1am? Um, no. Did you hear someone else yell ‘TURN THAT THING DOWN!’? Um, no. Did you hear me drop something and then leave to go to the bathroom? Um, no. Guess I must have slept!

We got off the train in Lao Cai, which is 2km from the China border – but as close as we were, we decided against adding another country to our list for this trip! A bus ride through winding mountain roads brought us to Sa Pa, a lovely town nestled in the Hoang Lien Son mountains, home to some of the most beautiful scenery in Vietnam. We had chosen Sapa Sisters to guide us on our 2-day trek, so we headed to their office to meet up with our guide. Sapa Sisters is run by local Hmong women; according to their web site: ‘We are very proud to be one of the few Hmong businesses that exist in this region – and one that is entirely owned and run by women. We think that this is a significant achievement because Hmong highlanders face much higher levels of poverty and many barriers to accessing capital and business connections. Tourism to our area is providing us with vital new opportunities to earn sustainable incomes, helping our families and our communities to prosper.’

We were matched up with Lang, who was an attentive and fascinating guide. She is a working mother of four young children – in a reversal of the typical culture here, her husband stays home to watch the children while she works. Her youngest is 7 months old – her husband met us at various points along the way so that she could spend time with the baby. During our entire trek, while Lang was guiding us and telling us stories, she was also busy hand-making meters and meters of hemp thread that she would use throughout the year to make clothes for her family. Her hands never stopped working. She told us the entire process of how she turns the plant into workable thread for sewing – the steps we saw over the two days made up maybe 10% of the process. It was fascinating to watch the spool around her hand grow larger and larger the longer she worked.

This was some of the lushest, most verdant, awe-inspiring scenery we’ve ever encountered. Truly breathtaking. Literally, as it was also some of the steepest, physically challenging hiking we’d ever done. I oscillated between sheer wonder at the beauty before us, and serious questioning of my life choices as we struggled up and down steep carved mountain paths, knowing that the only option out was to just make it to the end. I. Thought. I. Would. Expire. I found myself wishing for an Inception scenario – could I just have this once-in-a-lifetime memory implanted in my brain without actually living through this grueling workout?? But we managed to power through, inspired step-by-step by the landscape and people around us.

Once we made it to this bridge, we knew that we were close to our lunch stop for the first day. (Although it turns out that ‘close’ was another hour away!). The bridge was high above the water, but also served as an aqueduct, with water flowing directly under the bridge (visible through the hole shown in the last picture below) to the town on the other side.

Luckily, it was mostly downhill to lunch from there. Lang told us a lot about her culture throughout the trip – including comparing the culture today with what her people experienced 20-40 years ago. She was happy about many of the evolving aspects of the culture today – more opportunity for education for women, fewer forced marriages (which had sometimes even involved the kidnapping of women), greater economic opportunity created by tourism. However, she also balanced that by saying that while they now have a lot of amenities and things they didn’t have in the past, they are losing some of their way of life, as young people are moving out of the towns and aren’t carrying on traditions, and some villages are becoming more focused on tourists and are no longer home to the villagers themselves. And interestingly, Lang clearly identified herself as Hmong, and not Vietnamese.

I have never been happier to sit down at a lunch table in my life! We got to our table just as the skies opened up with a major thunderstorm. Perfect timing to rest our tired feet, enjoy some delicious food, look out at the misty landscape, and buy some handicrafts from the three Hmong women who had followed us all the way from Sapa Town and had helped us navigate every slippery rock and creek crossing.

After lunch, it was a relatively ‘short’ (!!) walk to the next village and our homestay. We learned about the process of harvesting and processing the rice growing in the tiered rice paddies – green plants were not yet ready to harvest, yellow plants were ready. Water buffalo were owned by families and had to be watched closely during the growing season – they were not allowed to roam free until after the rice was harvested.

Before getting to our homestay, we enjoyed a batik class with one of Lang’s aunts (Lang has a large family – over 150 cousins!), who runs a lovely indigo shop in the village. She introduced us to the entire process of designing and dying batik using hemp fabric and indigo dye. We sat by an ash fire bowl that kept the wax warm, while Lang’s aunt carved designs into the fabric for us to trace with wax. The process was very relaxing, but almost more than our tired minds and bodies could handle – we did as much as we could, and then Lang and her aunt graciously took care of the finishing touches for us. We saw how the fabric would be dipped and dried multiple times in the vats of indigo dye, and then the wax would be melted off, leaving a beautiful batik design. We were seriously doubtful of our artistic abilities – but with expert help, all three turned out better than we expected! Lang’s aunt turned them into beautiful pillowcases for us that Lang’s husband delivered the next day – these will end up being some of our favorite souvenirs from the trip.

We finally hauled our weary selves to the homestay for the night, which was different than what we had experienced in the Mekong Delta. This was more like a family hostel, with shared dining and sleeping areas. Beautiful views, and a chance to hear stories from other fellow travelers from around the world. We easily fell asleep cocooned in our mosquito nets.

The second day was mercifully easier, and just as beautiful. On the first day, when asked if we wanted to take the shorter or longer route, we said longer, of COURSE. When offered a similar choice on the second day, we practically shouted ‘SHORTER!’ in unison, with no guilt whatsoever! We walked through the heart of the village, taking winding paths past homes and farms, tiny churches and hand-dyed cloth drying on the line.

We passed through a bamboo forest and more lush hills.

A stop at a local swimming hole offered a perfect respite. After hearing a story from Lang of a tourist who had recently fallen from the top of the waterfall and suffered life-threatening injuries, we could barely watch as a guy picked his way precariously to the top – luckily, he lived to see another day.