Stepping off the train, the first people I ran into were Ceceile and Louise, from the Halong trip. Turns out they were headed to the same hotel, so we all got into the same minibus and made our way there. At the hotel, there was a group of hill tribe people waiting for us. They greeted us, and asked the questions we’d hear asked over the next couple of days “Where are you from?”, What’s your name?”, “How many brothers, how many sisters?”, “How old are you?”, followed by a “Oh, very young!” after any answer. There English was really quite good, for a bunch of people who live in shacks in the hills of Vietnam.
For some reason, I never quite determined, the Danes and I were ushered back onto the bus, and taken to another hotel. Not as fancy looking, but still not too shabby – we checked in, showered, and met in the restaurant for lunch. Next we met our guide, and headed out for our first trek.
Accompanying us on the trek were three tribeswoman, with a few others popping in to say hello on occasion. Their village was 7kms away, but they make the trek daily. We kept waiting for them to spring a “Can you give me some money” on us, but they didn’t. Of course, when we got to their village they were keen to sell us some wares. The girls gave in, but I wasn’t really keen on anything. Most of all, not too keen on carrying it for the next little while.
We stopped at the guesthouse where the girls would be spending the night. There were a bunch of traditional garments around,and the girls played dressup, and forced (yes, forced) me to dress up too. After a couple of hours of sitting around there, I said goodbye and headed back to Sapa by motorbike.
Dinner wasn’t until 7, so I wandered around the city, hoping to find Lynette and Li Sa, but with no luck. The hilltribe girls still in the city tried to sell me their wares. One lady, who looked to be about 70, but was probably younger, offered me marijuana, coke, and opium. “No thanks”, “No thanks”, “No thanks”. A younger girl, 16, although she looked much younger, struggled to grasp the notion that I didn’t want anything. First she told me she was getting married the next day, to a boy who she loved, but didn’t do anything but smoke cigarettes and talk to his friends. Then she told me that she was actually never likely to get married, because it was cost a possible suitor too much money. Approximately $100, she told me. At 7, I ate dinner with the hotel staff. Good feast, but way too much food – as they kept adding more and more to my plate. I was exhausted afterwards, so I headed to sleep soon after.
