Saying goodbye to Sapa

Today was our last day in Sapa and in the end it was a little difficult to say goodbye. When Pippin woke up this morning, she said, "Oh, do we HAVE to leave today? This feels like home!" Our time in Sapa has been an amazing and eye-opening experience for us all. Once again, the addage that building relationships is what it is all about has rung more true than ever here.

On our first day in Sapa we met a young woman named Pla (in our last post we called her Bla, we have learned otherwise, since then.) She was immediately warm, friendly, and full of fun. As with most of the Black Hmong women and Red Dzao women in Sapa, she makes a living for her family by selling various traditional goods: purses with local embroidery designs, jewelry, traditional belts, pillow covers, etc. We were new to town and were mostly just trying to see the sights, but she just kept walking with us, coming on one of our hikes for quite a long distance. Pla chatted with us and joked around with us and at some point we promised we would buy some bracelets from her if she could sell us some good quality ones. She promised she would get some and see us later.
Pla on the first day we met her...

True to her word, when we climbed back up out of the valley from our small hike, there she was with some pretty copper bracelets. We bought them from her and she kept walking along with us until we reached our hotel. We all seemed to strike a connection with her, and so the next day when we were out and about, we were really happy when we saw her again. This time our interactions were more about just having fun together and getting to know things about each other. We also talked to Pla about maybe guiding us for a fee on a longer hike to her childhood village of Lao Chai. She agreed and since we had already also talked to Ma, another woman we had befriended, they agreed to split the fee. They seemed fine with this, since they were friends.

A picture of Tao, a fourteen-year-old girl and friend of Pla's who we met in Lao Chai.

We had an amazingly clear day for our hike. As you have seen with our previous post about it, the scenery was spectacular and the two women were great company. That was on Sunday. On the subsequent days we sought each other out and had many more good visits. On our last day, we ended up spending a good part of the afternoon with Pla walking and talking about life for the Hmong people in Sapa. Pla talked more about the realities of their day to day life -- how what money does come in immediately goes out. She talked about how expensive it is for schooling for the Hmong children. Apparently, when they are educated in their village it is free -- but it only covers the primary years. If they want their children to have further schooling they must send them in to Sapa, and in Sapa it is very expensive to send their children to school. With the prohibitive cost, it is nearly impossible for most Hmong families to afford schooling for their children beyond the primary years. As a result, most minority people are illiterate.
Pla also told us about other challenges they face. Apparently 15 young hill tribe women have disappeared in the last year from the Sapa area. She told us that they are smuggled into China and land up being kept against their will by pimps in different parts of China. The local Vietnamese authorites do not (according to her) seem to be doing very much about it. One of the women who disappeared just 4 months ago was her sister in law. Her brother now faces life alone and they had a young child together. It made us sad to know that these warm people are so vulnerable. Our lives in the West are so very predictable in comparison. Once again, both Kai and Pippin learned a lot from these interactions with Pla. All that said, she was by no means feeling sorry for herself. Her general sense of happiness and playfulness radiated (we feel the same can be said about most of the locals in these mountains).

We have been debating about including the next picture in the blog. Dog meat (and many other curious delicacies) are eaten throughout the region. So, of course that means that one can buy dog meat in the local markets. To our western eyes it can be a little jarring -- this kind of sight actually made Kai and Pippin want to avoid the market altogether! The vendors at the market seemed to have a good chuckle when tourists came by and saw the meat on display. So here it is:
We will depart from that image with a more friendly one of an elder Red Dzao women with Pippin. The locals really enjoyed the kids and grabbed them at every opportunity for a little interaction. We have certainly found that traveling with children has many hidden benefits. Locals are so much more receptive seeing us as a family. They see us less as just a "meal" and more in a holistic manner. It seems their family connections are still so strong and intact that they identify more (with us as a traveling family) and feel like they have something to talk to us about.
Another local woman who agreed to have her picture taken. I think we became well known in the few days we were there for all our chattiness (and of course for buying all those bangles).
Our last day in Sapa -- we spent the afternoon hanging out with Pla. The kids had gotten very attached and were sad to say goodbye.
One of the local kids sporting a lovely smile.
We are back in Hanoi now, having arrived this morning on the night train from Lao Cai. We all slept well but the train arrived at 5h15 am and so we had to wait awhile for our hotel room. We have two days ahead in Hanoi and then on Friday we fly back to Bangkok at noon.

So until later...

Skye, Ronato, Kai and Pippin