Went 2 many places in Vietnam. Our last stop was at Sapa Vietnam. Stayed with the Hmong tribe for a day before riding our bikes back at Hanoi again. Will post more photos when I am free.
SaPa is home to a walking market. Mainly at weekends but also part of daily life in this remote mountainous village in the north of Vietnam near the Chinese border.
It lies in a beautiful valley near the Chinese border. It is the north's main drawcard for people looking for magnificent scenery and a diverse mix of ethnic cultures in the countryside inhabited by various hill tribes.
Surrounding Sapa are the Hoang Lien Mountains, which the French nicknamed the Tonkinese Alps. These mountains include Fansipan, which at 3143 metres is Vietnam's highest. If you decide to go walking it's a good idea to hire a reputable guide.
Unlike the nearby hill tribe village, the architecture of Sapa looks distinctly European. This is because for nearly 100 years, up until 1954, many French people moved there from other parts of Vietnam to escape the tropical heat.
The H'mong and Dzao people are the largest ethnic groups in the region. While the most eye-catching people are Red Dao, who wear scarlet head-dresses with woollen tassels and silver trinkets.
The most numerous are the Hmong people, who make up over one third of the district's population. Hmong women are the most commercially minded, selling their embroidered indigo blue waistcoats, bags, hats, and silver jewellery to tourists.
Their clothes are an art form. Black tunics with blue lining, coloured aprons worn reversed, braid trimmed jackets, rich embroiderd vests, wrap around leggings, extraordinary head gear. Bright red turbans are folded one way when the woman is single and then another, when the man has been “got”, black caps perched high and held through plaits. And the hair, some of it a reddish blonde, others brownish auburn. None of them have the black ebony hair of the rest of Vietnam’s women.
It is, however, quite a battle to get to SaPa. Though less than 500 kilometres from HaNoi it takes ten hours by road or you can take an overnight train. The road is almost impassable for about a third of the way. Heavy duty tyres are needed to cross the huge slabs of rock which was being broken manually as we went. Teams of men and women laboured on the roads with the occasional bulldozer. As we came to the mountains the stone for the roads was marble. The steps up and down the hills of SaPa are all made of this smooth beautiful stone.
Coming into the town was like going back to the wild west. The main street a series of muddy tracks, unfinished hotels and guest houses awaiting the tourist boom and serious work in progress for the new market. A true concrete market with some stalls already in operation selling silk boxer shorts, plastic toys etc. There was even one concrete mixer, elsewhere in the Vietnam countryside, mixing concrete is still the source of lots of manual jobs.
On a good day, the view at Sapa is an extraordinary panorama with a constant mist which has a physical presence, thick clouds which move and the temperature changes up and down 10 degrees in seconds. The mist moves rapidly across the skyline. A living force. The gorgeous sunset happens quickly at 6pm.
