Ah, Sapa

August 20, 2014

If you have been following our Facebook posts you might have realized that we fell in love with Sapa. When researching our trip I kept seeing the words, indescribable, exhilarating, beautiful, extraordinary – and even with those words they still don’t completely describe the beauty of this place and the people who live here.

Sapa is northwest of Hanoi – reachable by car or by a 10 hour overnight train.  There are about 8 different trains that make this trip daily, all year long.  They vary only a little bit in price and in the times they leave and arrive in Sapa.  The main difference in price is how you are going to ride the train. We opted for a private car/compartment which is the most expensive, but well worth it.  

The ride was long and bumpy from Hanoi to Sapa.   I think we slept a little bit.  Our train was about 2 hours late arriving in Sapa. We were greeted by our guide but by the time we got to the bus for our hotel it was full.  We were put on another bus and then observed a pushing match between our new guide (a tiger lady) and another driver as they argued over who was going to get the passengers.  The tiger lady picked up a couple people in town to fill in the empty seats.The price for the 35 K ride was $2.50.

Our bus trip up to the mountain was eventful.  Driving in Vietnam is always a hair raising experience, but this was the scariest I have seen so far.  Our bus driver was passing everyone, even on the corners. Once we narrowly missed another bus, once a truck and one time a motorbike ran into our bus.  No one was hurt but the driver yelled out the window at the bike. Our room wasn't ready when we arrived – it was only 8:30am, so we had breakfast and decided to take a trek to a local village.

Our hotel, H’Mong Sapa Hotel hires local staff and works with Sapa O’Chau tours, who also hires local guides and helps to educate their guides as well as support the local schools. Most of the youth from the villages only stay in school through 9^th grade.  The high schools cost to attend and most of the children are needed to help work to support their families, or in the case of the young girls their own children as most get married at 15.

Our first trek was to Cat Cat Village to see the waterfall and then onto another village Xi Chai. It was about 6 miles, usually either going straight down or up. Our guide, Chinh (19) was wonderful, he is from Cat Cat village and we met many of his family along the way. He shared so much about their culture and his family and lifestyle. In their culture when you are ready to take a wife you do so by kidnapping her. His brother (who at 23 has been married 3 times) kidnapped his first wife by breaking into her home with 5 men.  She stayed with him 3 days until they went to her parents to pay the bride fee.  She refused to go back.  His second wife stayed wife him for a year before leaving him to marry someone else.  The third wife he took off of the street.  It is much cheaper this way.  The bride fee is only $50 US if you take her from the street instead of her home.  I was really taken aback at first when Chinh explained this, but it isn’t quite as brutal as it sounds.  I understood that the women’s family usually know in advance of the kidnapping, and the women are free to go back to their families if they don’t want to stay.  Chinh can’t ask for a wife for another year as his brother just got married, they can only have one marriage per family, per year. His 3 younger sisters have all been kidnapped and married.  The youngest is 15, the oldest is 17 and she has 2 children. 

Our trek on day two was very long, but we are so glad we went.  Walking through the many rice paddies, small villages and countryside was breathtaking.  Once again our guide, Louis, was so incredible. I am not sure if the people are as genuinely as nice as they seem, or if Sapa O’Chau tours offers suggestions to their guides on customer service. It doesn't matter – we felt like we were best friends with both guides after spending several hours with them, talking about our families, sharing bits about our cultures and teaching them English while learning (trying) a few H'mong word and phrases from them. At the end of the day we would help our guides with their homework, which was learning a few new words in English, such as anxiety. Try to explain that word to a none English speaker.

This trek took almost all day and was about 12 miles by the time we were through. We went through several small villages before ending up at the Red Dao (pronounced Zao) village where we spent a few minutes in a mineral bath. We were unfortunate to end up at the bath at the same time a group of Vietnamese men were there who had already been partaking in much rice wine and beer.  They were very loud which took away some of the joy of our visit and bath.  John and I had a “private” room with two barrels.  You sit in the barrel of very hot water that has been steeped in many different herbs.  It smelled a little like eucalyptus.  We were already so hot that the hot water wasn’t that refreshing.  We sat in the barrels for as long as we could – only about 10 minutes of the allotted 25. 

My words won’t be able to describe the scenery – so the link to the pictures is here.

It is such a different world in Sapa. The life of the people  in the villages is simple. Although it has been very changed by the tourist industry which is about 20 years old, their lifestyle in the villages has stayed the same. They do have electricity but only for lights and the occasional T.V.. Their homes are one or two rooms and if they have a second floor it is to dry and store the corn and rice.  They cook over fires, usually inside.  They work hard at farming and the women at their sewing and embroidering. The women play up their lack of education a bit as they ask you to buy their crafts from them, and those with babies usually ask for you to help support their children by buying their products.  They will follow you as you walk through town and on the treks. I liked when they followed us on a trek because that is when we really got to talk to them. We always bought from them trying to spend at least $100,000 VND (about $5) each. Very little for the amount of work they put into their products as well as the amount of time they put into the sale. They were tireless as they walked along for many kilometers, caring their heavy baskets, trying to teach us a few words in Hmong, asking us our name, where we were from, etc.  They all speak at least that much English.  I can now say, thank you, hello, and goodbye in Vietnamese and H'mong. The ladies in the town don’t really want to visit, they only want us to buy from them, which we did – too much.  I really enjoyed watching my husband bargaining with the ladies.  

It is so beautiful here - have I mentioned that before?  It got very warm during the day although at night it was cool as we sat on the balcony with a bottle of wine and John enjoying his cigar watching the stars come out. There is so much light in Haiphong we seldom see the stars – and they are so close here. It is about 5500 feet in elevation and very foggy, wet and green. It is like Shangri-La.

A few other tidbits –

The H'mong language was never written down so they write their words as they sound in English.

Rice, black cardamom (the spice) and indigo plant (to dye the fabrics) are their biggest crops.  They all have water buffalo as well as pigs, ducks and chickens to support their families.  Every spare corner grows a vegetable or plant to feed their families or their animals.    

My name is Bình Minh –

8/7/14

Auntie Binh Minh to be exact.  Auntie because well, I am not young and Aunt is a sign of respect, or so I was told.  John is - Uncle John. 

Trying to eat in HaiPhong has been our biggest struggle.  Because we haven’t yet learned the language we aren’t sure what to order at restaurants.  We tried two restaurants that were listed on travel websites.  The first one Com Vietnam. It popped up on the map of Hai Phong as a very good place to eat with traditional Vietnamese food.  It was close to our destinations for the day – the Hai Phong Post Office and Queen of the Rosary Cathedral.  We picked the hottest day we could for this adventure and were quickly thankful for the taxi we found not too far from our home.

We were dropped off near the post office but our taxi driver wasn't sure of our destination and pointed us in the wrong direction.  We walked north about 8 blocks asking several people for directions.  We were finally turned around and ended up back where we started from. The post office was one building south of where we were dropped off.  By this time we were dripping with sweat and the unairconditioned post office was only slightly better than the heat outdoors due to the many circulating fans in the lobby.  Although a wonderful old building it doesn't compare to the post office in Saigon. Probably not a great stop when visiting Hai Phong unless you are really into post offices. We were able to send off a letter to John’s mom without too much trouble and headed back out into the heat to find the cathedral.  The cathedral was about 4 blocks away and was filled with several hundred school children at mass for the day.  We were able to peek inside without distributing them too much – although many had spotted us and were pointing and waving despite their teachers disapproving looks.  There was another building next to the cathedral which we were told was housing for the nurses that stayed there.  It was also very beautiful and old – but not open to tourists.

From there we walked to Com Vietnam which was back by the post office.  We were asked to pick from the display case (no menu – thank heavens) and went inside our private room (with many fans, thank heavens once again) to wait.  We ordered shrimp, pork, morning glory and rice.  They don’t peel the small shrimp, but take little bites as they eat the soft shell and all – including the little feet.  I tried to eat it whole but couldn't quite get it down.  John peeled his but it was difficult and even he gave up after a few tries.  The pork was pretty good and the morning glory was wonderful as usual.  Our meal here was under 100,000 VND (about $5).

Our day ended with the return taxi driver taking the long, long, long, way home.  What cost us 30,000 dong to get to ended up costing 100,000 to return home and no A/C in the cab. The shower felt soooo good. 

Last night we went tried to find another restaurant that was rated highly on TripAdvisor.  Quan Ngon sounded like the perfect place to eat.  The menu had English entries, great food, friendly service and they even offered wine – which isn’t common. Where they placed it on the map was not where the address was, but just to be sure we went to the map location first.  Nothing.  So we jumped in a taxi and went to the address.  Much to our dismay the restaurant was gone.  It appeared to have burned down. It must have been recently as the last review was in January.

We ended up at ZoZo’s.  A place we had walked by many times but hadn't stopped in at yet.  This was an outdoor restaurant on the street.  It was bigger than most of the street restaurants and always had a crowd. The wait staff spoke very little English and we had a good time trying to figure out what they were saying and the other way around as they tried to understand us.  We ended up with our first Vietnamese grill, or các món nướng.  We have seen this many times and it always smelled so good when walking around town. They brought the grill right to the table, along with marinated beef, sliced vegies, pickled vegies, sliced (the long way) cucumbers, another meet wrapped around vegies and tied as well as my favorite, morning glory, and of course we had beer over ice.  They patiently taught us how to grill our meats and vegies and which sauces to dip it in.  This was our best dinner in Hai Phong so far.  This meal was 255,000 VND or $12 US.  John ended up giving them at 100,000 VND tip for all their help – they tried to give it back saying it was too much – but we insisted since they had to work so hard to help us. 

Getting acclimated –

Llife is always an adventure and my trip to Viet Nam was no disappointment.  The night before I left, Seattle was hit by thunderstorms.  It sounded great and made for some awesome sleeping weather, but unfortunately the storms didn’t clear up in time for my flight and my first flight was delayed long enough to make me miss my connection to Tokyo.  Alaska Airlines came to the rescue and put me on a flight to LA, then Hong Kong and finally arriving in Hanoi 12 hours after my original flight was due to arrive.

It was great to be back in Viet Nam.  I wish I had taken video of our taxi ride from the airport to the hotel. It is indescribable, you have to experience it yourself.  The good thing is everyone looks out for everyone else – it doesn’t always seem like it as they are passing on the shoulder, driving with two cars in one lane and narrowly missing trucks and motorcycles as they squeeze through to get to their destination.  I don’t see road rage or accidents. I am sure they happen, but it doesn’t seem like it happens very often. The video below is from a much tamer ride from the Hanoi to Hai Phong.

Hanoi has grown since my last visit in 2007. It is much busier and more sophisticated than before.  The people are still very friendly and school children love to practice their English on us calling out “Hello” as we walk by.

We went out to a place for lunch that I remembered going to with Christina and Maggie many years ago. But it was hot and by the time we checked into our awesome suite at the Melia Hotel, I was a sweaty, stinking mess. My husband on the other hand seemed quite cool and collected. After a short nap we walked to Hoan Kiem Lake and had dinner on a roof top restaurant.  Made it back to the hotel and slept great from about 11pm to 7am. 

The following day about an hour before our driver was to pick us for the drive to Hai Phong, the wind came up and the rain came down hard.  The rain stopped just as we were having the bags loaded into the van. It was pretty clear most of the way until we got to our home and another downpour showered us as we unloaded my many bags and boxes.  A group of boys were playing soccer out on the street when we arrived and I saw one of them lay down in the street which was quickly filling with water as the rain came down hard. He laughed, jumped up, shook himself off and went on with the game.

Our home is a four story “villa” located near one of the many rivers in Hai Phong and down a couple of buildings from a Karaoke bar. There are empty lots (very narrow) on each side of us but a house behind us.  Even though our home is 4 stories, the other houses on our street rise way above ours.  I hope I get to meet some of our neighbors and see the insides of their homes at some point. Can’t imagine what they do with all the room. I think I will have to study my Vietnamese a little bit first.   

It is hot, hot, hot here.  John said it took him about 3 weeks to feel acclimated.  I am trying my best to get outside as often as possible and walk.  Today’s walk was a little too much during the heat of the day. We headed home after lunch for a siesta and will try again this evening.  

COUNTDOWN (T minus 96 and counting)

And so the countdown continues as we are now only 4 days away from (Typhoon) Dawn's arrival in Hanoi... finally! This will be such a game changer in the best of ways. So looking forward to Thursday and heading to Hanoi for meetings and then picking up Dawn at the airport Thursday night!

So in the last 3 weeks work continues to progress, albeit slowly. I've had to learn a lot more patience and the necessity to hurry up and slooooooow way down. But progress nonetheless. Waiting for one more local government agreement to be signed off on before I can sign a lease on an office and hire on my assistant, so 

As far as missing home and family; so difficult at times. I miss the states, I miss Seattle; and I miss my family so damn much. And the kids have their own lives now and its hard to connect as often as I would like. I miss them so much and yes I miss Bubba, more than I thought I would, damn. And yes the food.. this place is Mexican food barren. But they do have decent barbeque and okay pizza and you can find burgers and fries but none of that is quite the same as back home. On the other hand, plenty of their own delicious food; still discovering wonderful dishes and great restaurants. And yes I do miss a few of my favorites TV shows that so far I can't figure out how to get streamed. Gotta figure that out. But we do get HBO and Cinemax (about a year behind in programming), FOX Sports and then there's BBC and CNN. Oh and some Premier League Futbol and some cartoons (Tom and Jerry are big here) as well.

Some highlights of the last couple of weeks...

I was fortunate enough to spend some time with my Kids Without Borders colleagues and friends Son and Judy Pham and their humanitarian group from Seattle. An amazing dinner in Hanoi and a wonderful morning with the group and our kids at the Hoa Phoung orphanage here in Hanoi. A truly humbling experience that makes you appreciate what you have and at the same time feel guilty for not giving back more. Oh yes, and they brought me my care package of Mt. Si coffee from my lovely bride; I found a coffee pot and now I'm enjoying fresh brewed good ole American (even better, Seattle) coffee. Ahhhh the difference the little guilty pleasures can make.

Had one day where the power was out after a night of thunder and hard rain, and a long morning of meetings I stepped out of the taxi in front of my house and i dropped my phone into a deep puddle of rain. Dead phone... After immediately consulting Facebook for expert advice I went to the market to get a bag of rice. As I stood laboring over the decision of which rice would be best, a very nice young (95 years young ) woman walked up and smiled (obviously flirting); and pointed to a particularly hearty and rich looking rice. How she knew that that particular strain of rice would work the best is beyond me. After a few hours in the rice... wallah, phone worked (and still does).
What a relief!

On that same day after all of my meetings and my phone trauma I was mentally exhausted but I had been invited to go see of all things a Venezuelan musical group perform at the Haiphong Opera House (beautiful venue). Wasn't going to go but I decided what the heck; I could seriously use some culture. Glad I went, great performance and I got to sit and chat with Venezuelan ambassador who turned out to be quite the character. 

And then to top it all off my first typhoon made its appearance this weekend. Super Typhoon Ramussen hit northern Vietnam after causing havoc in the Philippines, but by the time it got to us here it wasn't as bad as it could have been. After one scary night and day, and a lot of wind and rain, all is good.

Enjoy the related pics!

Countdown . . .

Ok – it has been awhile.  I spent a crushing two weeks after leaving my job setting up a combined estate sale for our items as well as my parents who are downsizing after 50 plus years.  My last day of work was  June 13, on June 14 we started moving boxes and boxes of stuff (with help from family and two hired hunks from Evergreen Moving in Spanaway) to our home which we have been renting from my sister. That same day my sister moved her bedroom furniture in and she and her husband were back in their home after an almost 2 year absence.  So now we had my sister and her husband, me and my three international students living in the house which was full of boxes and furniture which needed to be staged and marked for an estate sale. We were soon joined by the parents of one of the students who were visiting for graduation. A full house and difficult transition for someone who doesn’t handle clutter very well.

I have had an estate sale before but we hired Sisters – a local antique shop and estate sale business to handle the sale.  For some reason I didn’t even think of doing that this time.  A huge mistake!  Even though we had plenty of help from my brother in law, sister, and especially my daughter Christina it was days and days of work to research and mark the tools, china, furniture, books, kitchen items and everything that you acquire over the years.

On Tuesday June 24 I started with a friends and family sale – the reason for this was to push myself to make sure I was ready and to learn how I was going to handle the days where we were open to the public.  I learned a good lesson at the sale.  My husband bought a few Starbucks mugs from other cities when he was traveling.  To be honest, I never really liked the mugs, we didn’t have room for them in the cupboard and what we didn’t need was more mugs. I was so happy to get rid of them and listed them for .50 each. My dear friend said, “Really Dawn?  You are only charging .50 cents each?”  Yes – take them off my hands.  She calmly bought them and informed me a few days later she sold one of them for $45.  During the sale I had my cell phone and laptop and looked up any items I wasn’t sure about. Even with that  - people in the know got some great deals on our behalf. 

For our last sale with Sisters taking a 50% profit we cleared $3000, took the weekend off and came home to everything taken care of.  Doing it ourselves we put in well over 100 hours of combined labor and research, made $2000 and spent a couple of days cleaning.  Even with that our expenses were almost 40% after I bought food for our helpers and decided to pay my daughter for her help.  We also needed to hire helpers to move what was left out of the house and into the carport to be picked up later for a Habitat for Humanity sale and dump fees for everything else. I really wished I would of remembered to contact Sisters once again. 

After finishing the cleaning on Sunday evening I treated myself to steak dinner which I brought home from the Keg – unfortunately I forgot I no longer had silverware and couldn't cut my steak, thankfully the wine was great.  The next morning I headed out to Victor, ID to spend a wonderful 6 days with my son and his beautiful family.

June 29 update

June 29th update:

Good couple of weeks work wise, lots of progress and still very much enjoying the people and culture of Vietnam. Tough couple of weeks on the home front though. One of my aunt's past away and it was difficult not being there for the family, fortunately my wonderful brother Dennis was there to help our mom and help represent the family and give support. Tough on mom though, she is the youngest of 9 siblings and its just her and one other sister left.. fortunately they are both in good health and the majority of the siblings and our grandmother lived well into their 90s. 

And back in Washington, Dawn is dealing with all the preparation of moving, garage sale and helping her parents and maybe worst of all...find
ing a home for our good friend and loving companion... Bubba. Through our good friends at the Northwest Bulldog Rescue group were able to find Bubs a good home nearby and yesterday morning Dawn had to make the heartbreaking hand off. Bulldogs because of their breathing issues (squashed face), aren't allowed on long flights and no one in the family or close circle could take him. Dawn very muc
h liked the people that will be his new family but I know how much it hurt her to say goodbye.

Times like this I feel so helpless and all alone, and guilty for not being there for my aunt's funeral and deserting Bubba and putting Dawn through having to do all of this work before leaving, including having to hand Bubba over. I know Bubba is not a loyal guy and probably especially at this age, will probably not know the difference and will adjust quickly, but I do love him.  It it has finally sunk in, that its final. Silly I know. Time to move on.

Besides with Dawn and Johnny back home I have gotten to Skype with Rhiannon and Maggie and my brother Dennis and I've been able to Skype call my mom's land line. Since she doesn't have a computer at least I can talk to her on the phone. And it saves me from having to write letters. What's a "letter"?. The first time I called her she couldn't believe it was me, good to sty in touch, it helps.

Have to stay busy and there is lots to do and I know Dawn will be here in about a month and it will be much easier and a heck of a lot more fun... together. I did find a house (villa is the proper term i guess); and if all goes well at the walk through today, I will be signing a contract and moving in Tuesday.

Walk thru went well, looks like I'll be moving in on Tuesday the first. No more hotel living except for trips to Hanoi and our trips to visit other parts of Vietnam and the surrounding countries. And speaking of Hanoi, I got invited to the Independence Day celebration at the U.S. Embassy in Hanoi which is on the third (for some reason). Time to dress up and mingle with the diplomats.

Enough for now, I'll add some random pics. Still can't get over the "motor-bikes" and how they get 4 or 5 people including kids transported around in the sea of motor-bike humanity (the streets). Many don't wear helmets, notice the kids in more than one of the pics w/o helmets... insane. Also note, I had dinner at the Texas Barbeque restaurant the  other night. Not half bad at all, the bbq ribs and chicken was quite good; notice the empty plate. Though I noted the beef was not from Texas but from Australia, hmmmm. They also have Mexican food, Pastas and Pizza and burgers...home away from home. I also added some pics of the house and one last parting shot from Bubba. 

Two and a half weeks later...

Still enjoying the discovery... meeting new people, eating new foods, exploring the city and the area (went to the beach last Sunday (check out the cap on the pic with little boy in the water... go Hawks! even on the other side of the world). Thought I had found a great house for us but it turned out to be a little far from the downtown; but yesterday I found another great property only a little more than a mile from downtown and down the street from lots of restaurants, shopping and a "Big C" (supermarket).

As interesting this journey is....all of this would be and will be so, so much more enjoyable when Dawn is here to share it with me. Missing her birthday and Father's Day here was tough. The work is starting to get more and more involved with meetings and my Peace Winds colleague who has helped me in this transition will be leaving back to the U.S. So I will be on my own now working with the government and businesses on putting together the plans for business continuity/disaster preparedness training, all of this to be completed over the next 3 years.  Check out peacewindsamerica.org  (the Vietnam Initiative) for more info on what we're doing here. Back to the big(ger) city of Hanoi Thursday for meetings Thursday and Friday then back to Hai Phong on Saturday...as always I will take as many photos as I can.

I will let some of the pictures tell the story and I'll check back with another update in a week or so.