Sara and I finally managed to escape the moist inferno of the city (it's so hot and humid, I feel as though I'm wandering around in a giant mouth) and seek refuge in the little mountainous town of Sa Pa where it was a brisk thirty degrees (you think I'm kidding... I'm not).
The scenery surrounding Sa Pa is beautiful. If you want to split hairs (or split dreadlocks) it's not really a mountainous town per say--instead of craggy snow capped peaks, you see sharp hills of coniferous trees and rice patty steps that dive into lush valleys of rocky rivers. It's so high that the fog passes you on the street as though it's off to the shops--"Like London," one local proudly boasted--and clouds sneak around the hills as though they're in a constant game of hide and seek with each other.
The town of Sa Pa is incredibly touristy ("Ugh, white people," we roll our eyes) and by far the weirdest thing about it is the hill girl hawkers that travel in packs like feral dogs stalking their latest prey. The hill people are various tribes (most of whom migrated at one point or another from China) who still lead traditional lives. Tribes whose names I can remember include the Black H'Mong people and the Red Dao people. Their outfits are very similar to those of Tibetans, modest black clothing highlighted with bright embroidery, with varying types of headdresses. Each day, the hill girls make the 2-4 hr trek from their villages into Sa Pa and set about selling their wares: "silver" bracelets, embroidered bags, etc.
And boy, these girls could enter the street hawking Olympics. Let alone selling snow to eskimoes--they could sell grills to George Foreman.
The moment we stepped off the bus, two of them attached themselves to us like burrs, small babies tied to their backs with shmatas. "Where you froooom?" "What your naaaame?" "How many people your familyyyyy?" "You boyfrieeeend?" Actually, the funny thing was that they spoke better English than most Vietnamese we'd met up to this point. Slowly, we began gathering more and more until there was an entire entourage escorting us from one hotel to another as we tried to find a place to stay that night. The strange thing was, it wasn't until the very end that they made their pitch: "You buy from meeee! You my frieeeeend!" And when you politely decline, you get "You by from me tomorrooooow! You promise you buy no one just meeee!" No matter what you respond to that, prepare for the next day to consist of "But you promiiiiiiiise! You say you buy from meeee and now you no by from meeee! Not faiiiiiir!" They could out-guilt a Jewish mother. The good thing is that they do have a sense of humour, and you can get into a tongue-sticking-out war with them and it's all in good fun. By the end of it, we had a bunch of them following us not because they thought we'd buy anything but because they were bored and wanted to hang out with someone. Also because we gave them free cookies.
Actually, these hill people are the best thing about Sa Pa. We did a two day "trek" (trek! Bah! I LAUGH at your notion of trek, Sa Pa Tourist Office! If you do not silently weep to yourself at least once per hour, then it is NOT a trek!) down through the rice patties to do a homestay with a H'Mong family. Of course, we had our usual entourage following us (they needed some company to walk home with, anyway) but they actually came in handy as one of them was constantly on "$ue duty", holding my hand and making sure I didn't nosedive into somebody's crops (just like Buddha and the porters did when we were in Nepal... *sigh*).
The house we stayed in was really interesting. It looked, to me at least, like a barn--made of untreated dark wood, dark and drafty, with a loft bit up top where we slept and a main bit downstairs where we ate. It was incredibly sparse inside: just a few thin mattresses for us to sleep on, some tiny plastic living room furniture (which, I've noticed, appears to be the Vietnamese equivalent of IKEA) and an elaborate Vietnamese-style dresser set with shell inlay. There were copious bugs sharing our living quarters and the walls were dotted with small nests and the bathroom was outside, but at least the toilet was a western. Still, like all hill people, they had satellite tv. They may have to cook over an open fire, but at least they can watch the World Cup. There were also many barn animals about, including pigs that sounded like the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park (somewhat unnerving when you have to pee outside at three am) and a rooster with absolutely no sense of time--it went off every twenty minutes from three am to five am, and then it went off every ten minutes. Yay.
Besides the diabolic rooster and the fact that Sara somehow managed to drop her toothbrush in the pig pen (don't ask), we had an awesome time. But, Sa Pa homestays and cultural experiences aside, here's the REAL interesting thing that happened: we saw dog meat for sale in the market!! We had heard that Vietnamese cuisine often includes dog and cat, and while passing the meat stalls we saw a (furless) head as well as a completely skinned head next to some paws and what I'm assuming were dog filets. For those of you who are interested in the gruesome details, I couldn't tell what breed of Fido it was, other than it looked about medium sized with a pointy face.
Sara and I have since discussed opening the first McDonald's in Vietnam specialising in McHotdogs and McKitty burgers ... or, even better, McHelloKitty burgers. If that isn't true cultural fusion, I don't know what is.
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