Sapa. Trek & Village Stay. Part I

When we meet Mu and Tsu at the church in the morning it is raining. We are wearing our rain coats but they seem unphased, their hemp tunics don't even look damp. There are four other people on the trek, two girls from New Zealand and an American couple. As we start walking through the town and a few younger H'mong girls join us and an older woman, who turns out to be Mu and Tsu's mother. Our 'trek' is basically Mu and Tsu allowing us to walk home with them. They have already walked this four hour route this morning in order to meet us in Sapa.

Above: Chan eating watermelon

After a few stops in town to pick up some shopping, including a slice of water melon which Mu breaks  in to pieces and hands to Chang on her back, we turn off the main road onto a steep track. Because of the rain the rain the path is very muddy. Despite only wearing little plastic sandals and being either pregnant, an old woman or carrying a baby, the women help us up the slippery slope. They must find our walking boots and rain coats hilarious.

Above: A particualry steep and muddy section of the path

The rain soon eases off and every now and then we stop to look at small farms and villages, we see maize, green tea and marijuana which i'm told is grown mainly for the hemp in the stalk, which is used to make clothing. The stalks are dried in big bundles and then torn into strips which are weaved on a loom. We also see indigo plants which are used to dye the finished cloth. Mu shows me how women strip the hemp into strands whilst they are walking and wrap them into bundles around their hands.  She demonstrates on my hand, somehow managing to not look where she is walking, somthing I have to pay close attention to due to all the rocks and mud.  

Above: Tea

Above: Marijuana and drying hemp

Above: Soaking indigo for dye

Above: Weaving hemp

 At one point one of younger girls screams and points to the hedge where I see a small green snake. Mu shouts at me to move away and proceeds to hit it with a long stick of bamboo a then a rock before flinging it into the hedge. They tell me that it is very poisonous and lots of people die from being bitten when farming. One of the New Zealanders says 'Excellent, so woman with a baby on her back goes to kill it', but the other options are the small girls, the pregnant woman or the old woman. 

Above: Killing the snake

Above: Buying bread enroute

After a few hours we stop at Tsu's house for lunch. Women go to live in their husband's home when they are married so Mu, Tsu and their mother all live separately, although Mu lives with the young pregnant girl, who is her husband's brother's wife and just sixteen. This is her second pregnancy after a miscarriage last year.  The house has a hard dirt floor and wooden walls and roof with a small second floor forming a balcony or mezzanine. A dividing wall goes across half the room separating the kitchen from the living area. There are lots of small children everywhere, bare foot, filthy and making themselves even more filthy eating jelly without spoons.

Above: Tsu's kitchen

Low wooden tables and benches are produced and dish after dish of food is brought from the fire in a pit in the kitchen. We are all given a small bowl of rice to which we add tofu cooked with sweet tomatoes, cabbage, noodles, omelette and green chilly sauce. Having to eat stange food was one of my main concerns with doing a home stay, but I needn't of worried, it is all delicious. We are encouraged to eat as much as we want, but the H'mong all eat much more than us. I ask if they eat this everyday, and Tsu tells me that mostly they just have rice and vegetables. 

Above: Lunch

Over lunch Mu and Tsu tell us about their mother, the 'old woman', who it turns out is only 50. She has seven children. The oldest is 37 and the youngest is a boy of 10 - meaning he has nieces and nephews who are older than him. She doesn't speak English but wants to learn. I ask where Mu and Tsu learnt such good English. Two years ago, Tsu tells me, all she could say was "You buy from me". She decided to learn more by talking to tourists in the market. She progressed from phrases such as "Where you from?" "How long in Sapa?" and "My name is Tsu" to full conversations. She has more understanding of the language and better pronunciation than hotel owners in Hanoi, who mostly only understand basic questions such as "Do you have any rooms?". 

Above: Three generations

Mu and Tsu talk about how Sapa has changed in the past few years, what it is like selling to tourists - "Americans spend the most! I can sell them a $2 bracelet for $15 and they won't even try and haggle!" and how many guests they get a week - sometimes three or four groups, sometimes none. 

After lunch everyone, including the extra children , walk for 10 minutes down the track to the turning to Mu's house. Here Tsu takes the couple from New Zealand to the main road to catch a motobike back to Sapa. The Americans, Charlotte and I follow Mu and the children climb a wall and walk through the rice fields to Mu's house where we will be staying the night. 

Above: Dry stone walling  - just like Dartmoor!