Friday, December 28, 2012 Sa Pa, Vietnam
travel 2012 travel 2013 neuage.org ALL TRAVEL
Vietnam December Blogs: First blog in Vietnam December 21; Christmas Day Hanoi December 25; Sapa Day 1 December 26; Sapa Trekking 1 December 27; Sapa Trekking 2 December 28; Cat Cat Village, Sapa December 29, 2012; Guangzhou January 02 2013
Slideshow of Hanoi photos. Photo slideshow of Sapa. For slideshow of 'on your bike' biking around Hanoi. Slideshow of Hội An
Videos: Hoian (youtube); Black H'mong tribal village of Sapa, (youtube); Hanoi (youtube); Christmas Eve in Hanoi (youtube); Cat Cat (on youtube); Sapa (youtube)
We trekked to two villages today.
The first was Lao Chai village, 6 km from the centre town, where the H'mong people are
living. The trek was through rice fields and quite steep. The most difficult
part was walking and balancing on the edge of the terraced rice paddies. In my
embarrassment of being 65 a village girl had to hold my hand over quite a long
stretch that was about six inches wide and straight down a long ways on the
right and into the water on the left. I managed to slip into the water several
times but the girl kept me from falling down the mountain. Narda
had a girl with a baby on her back holding her from slipping down the side.
We
took about two hours to get down to the bottom to the beginning of the Muong Hoa valley. Our guide who
collected us from where we are staying this week; the Thai Binh
Sapa Hotel (http://thaibinhhotel.com/), was from the H’mong tribe and she spoke good English. She had her baby
strapped to her back the whole way and was really a good guide and a steady
hand to Narda over some of the slippery and muddy
parts of the path.
We
had lunch at her village and went on to Ta Van Village which borders Lao Chai Village.
A better description is from
http://www.allsapatours.com/sapa-vietnam/Ta-Van-Village.html, “Ta Van means "a big turning
road" like a basket brim, or tripod-leg line. Vast terrace fields with
unique position of a big turning road become a landscape and a destination of
Ta Van. Seo Mi Ti
scenery-old pine forest, a half day of sloping road away from township centre, is also a particularly interesting eco-tourist site
of Ta Van. And Ta van has become an integral tourist site for ecological
excursions in Sapa.”
Lunch was good with the only
complaint being the constant harassment from children selling stuff. We did
purchase a bed spread and some other embroidered things from our guide’s
mother. The bed spread she said took three-months to make, OK so we believe
things but it was well done and the mother (in the photos below) was making
them whilst we were 
there and a lot of
work goes into these things. We paid 700 dongs about $35 US and for a handmade
spread that seemed cheap. They die the fabric with indigo plants that make it
go green. The fabric is soaked for months; the longer it is in the dye the
darker. We picked some of the plants and it instantly makes skin turn green.
I am
not sure how much the villages are affected by the tourist coming through. They
are better off and have built schools off the proceeds so we are doing our
little bit. The village by Western standards are quite poor and I am not sure
we could live like they do for very long which probably illustrates our
materialistic ways.
There
are six major groups in the Sa Pa area each speaks their own language though
they share Vietnamese they do not understand the other village’s languages.
Each village has its own culture and beliefs. Our guide is Buddhist and she
married a fellow from another village. Some villages are Christian some have no
beliefs – which is impossible because we all believe something or the other – but
they all co-exist and have for I suppose many hundreds if not thousands of
years. Apparently they were not affected by the American war in the 1960s and
early 1970s and the government has pretty much left them alone, probably
because they are so isolated and non-threatening. This is really something to
see; we, with all our Western beliefs and wants and to see tribes living like
they have for so long makes one believe that society may continue. They will be
still here when all the Christians, Muslims, Jews and spiritualists of many
hues destroy themselves. The teenagers do not run off to Hanoi but stay in
their villages and keep the traditions going.
I took 188 photos and a lot of
video today and I am trying to select the best 20 or 30 or maybe 50 for today’s
album which I am uploading to Facebook, Google+ and a few other photostreaming sites.
This is the view from our hotel
room
We have two more days here and
hope to get to the other villages. The weather has been fantastic.
contact DALIAN CHINA ~ TOFU ~ PICTURE POEMS ~ Educational blogs updated August 15, 2013 Vietnam trekking.
Blog Index updated August 15, 2013 K - 12 technology (updated August 13, 2013). Travel Site (2013) updated August 14, 2013. Videos/Blogs on Youtube, Twitter, Wordpress, Photo albums. Updated 15 Second Street, Round Lake, New York and photos from parent's 1943 wedding as well as Leigh's page. Farmville page updated Thursday, March 17, 2011 5:58 PM neuage.org updated August 15, 2013 neuage.us updated August 15, 2013 Resume updated August 15, 2013
Blog updated / Integrating Technology Blog: terrell.neuage.us and/or neuage.me, neuage.info, neuage.mobi, livejournal, Serendipity, neuage.co, drupal-gardens
Today working on picture poem links starting around "better"). Picture poems are the digital format of work I did as a street artist in New Orleans in the 1970s, as well as New York City, Honolulu, San Francisco and Adelaide South Australia. Follow @neuage.
|
|||