Hanoi Day 6: The Tribes

Need a good breakfast this morning. Some omellete and stuff to give us lots of energy for the walk ahead. Noticed that a bowl of Pho is the same price as a small cup of coffee. So I say, screw the bitter diuretic, give me some of that hearty soup!

I'm doing the trek with my trusty CamelBak, carrying everything I brought with me to Hanoi. It was an issued challenge, and I stood to earn a cup of Irish coffee. The rest of the guys dumped their excess baggage in the hotel's store room.

We met our guide, a young man named Dinh. He's a fresh history grad, home for a couple of months before his teacher's training begins. He speaks good English, and is full of stories and gave us an incredibly personal insight of how the educated class sees their country today. What a freaking bargain!


It had rained the night before. Our trail was muddy and slick. But on the plus side, the mist had cleared and we had a fantastic view of the mountains, the terraces etc.

The road to the villages start directly SE of Mountain View. Go 2.7km along the tarmac road until the trailhead at (N22 19.169 E103 51.426), next to a little shop. Then go south and down and get intimate with the mud.

Along the way, you'll find small boys selling bamboo walking sticks for 5k Dong. It's not essential, but it gives you immeasureably better footing on slick slopes. I went the first day without a stick, and picked up a free stick on the second day. There's a big difference, for a small price.


I was psyched about the route we were taking, because it was taking us to a geocache! I checked http://www.geocaching.net for searchable caches before I left home, and I was pretty excited about this one. The trail we were following fitted the descriptions, and I was sure that the guide will lead us past the bridge in no time.

But we missed the cache by 230m. It seems that we were skipping the bridge that would have taken us to Y Linh Ho. I didn't realise we were off course until too late. To this day... I still can't figure out how I got turned around... we were heading east, paralleling a stream, then cross the stream and turned right, and we were still going east....

But just as well... As it happens, another geocaching group was there just the week before and had taken the Travel Bug that I was after...


After we hit the stream, we were walking along the rice terraces. It was still some months from planting season, so right now the terraces were merely swimming pools for ducks, and jacuzzis for buffalos. There's no path through the terraces. We had to balance ourselves on the embankments. Ravi's pants was the first that could not resist the lure of mud. Dinh's pants followed immediately after while he was helping Ravi up.

Word of advice, you can't balance or stop a fall with your arms when your hand is holding onto an expensive piece of optical electronic. The Olympus came away slightly stained but otherwise unscathed.


There were some concerns earlier about the sandals I was wearing, whether it was good enough for the muddy trek ahead. I didn't pack hiking shoes for the trip cos I wanted to minimize gear, and maximise comfort. But these were good sandals: Slatters, which I bought in Melbourne. Not as good nor as cheap as the Salomons I had been wearing for years earlier until the straps had started disintegrating whilst the sole remained in near mint condition. But these sandals gave me good grip, probably better than Ben's Asics, gave me good feedback of the terrain that I'm putting my foot down on, I can easily wash off the mud at convenient streams when it becomes slick, and it dries easily. The last is very important in the high humidity.


All through the trek, Dinh kept up a running conversation about many aspects of the life in the mountains, or in Vietnam in general.

The rice growing season. The penetration of education into the tribes. How they're taxed, and how the tax collected is immediately put to use to improve the villages in the form of schools or grid power. How the fields are inherited. How the fields here are exempt from government control unlike the rice fields on the deltas, which are ruled by the land reform laws. The gender inequality amongst the minorities.

At the same time also, he steals blankets and pillow cases from the basket carriers of passing Hmong girls. He has an excellent rapport with the locals.

We taught him a malay word: "Buaya."


We kept going east until we reached a bridge and a foodstop, where we had some lunch.

After a brief rest, we went across the bridge to the village of Lao Chai, which means market or something. And past this village, we finally reached the village of Ta Van (N22 18.144 E103 53.313), where we stopped for the night at the homestay (N22 18.004 E103 53.633). 11.6km trek in total today.


The homestay is very comfortable and cosy. It's a brick and mortar windowless house belonging to a Zay family. The house had to achieve a certain standard of hygiene before it can be licensed as a homestay. The house is made up of three chambers. The middle, where the front door opens into, is the living / dining room and where the altars are; the left chamber is where the beds are; the right opens to the kitchen. There's a mezzanine level with comfortable mattresses and warm blankets for the homestay guests.

I brought a compact sleeping bag all the way here, but it seems that I won't be using it at all the whole trip.

I think Ben might have been a little disappointed by the arrangements. I think he was visualising Mongolian char-siew-pao tents, sleeping on the grassy plains under a velvet starry sky. Too much period chinese TV series. These are agrarian tribes. I suspect Ben's wanderlust will carry him to the plains of Mongolia next.


And for the first time since we came to Hanoi, we were served complimentary drinks! The homestay owner was generous with the tea. Ravi still has to pay for his liquid bread, of course. We tried to have a tranquil moment on the patio, but that hope was dashed almost immediately when were were beset by Hmong saleswomen.


We put up our best efforts to hold on to our money, but it was a losing battle.


Dinner was very generous. There's a lot of fresh meat, which Dinh must have brought along with him. In the villages, they seem to favour meat jerkies. Our host also bought "Happy Water" for the meal.

It's a potent rice wine, made locally. In Dinh's estimation, it may be 35% alcohol. It was delicious! It goes down like a depth charge, and will likely sink a sailor. This is how I've always imagined what liquor tastes like.

But this liquor can only be safely imbibed in these villages. If you try to order them elsewhere in the cities, there's a high risk that the drink will be mixed with methanol. And that stuff makes you blind.

The Happy Water incapacitated Ben and WeeLoong for the remainder of the night.

Ravi & I managed to stay conscious and chatted with Dinh till the late hours of... 8.30pm. Early to bed and early to rise is the norm here. The kids, watching TV at a neighbour's, actually stayed up later than the dad.

We spoke of many things. The marriage traditions of the tribes. The going rate of a Zay bride (3 buffalos, 5 pigs, a large measure of rice, and silver bullions). The Zay have arranged marriages. The Black Hmong 'kidnap' their brides, with her consent of course. The Red Dzao have a more open marriage, and frequent the Love Market. Can't remember which tribe has the bride being 'inherited' by the brother-in-law or even father-in-law if the husband died. No sense letting a workable womb go to waste.

The area around Sa Pa has been a tourist attraction for more than 11 years already. It's amazing how much charm has been preserved after such a length of time. But it's also seeing some rapid growth. 5yrs ago, there were only 4 guest houses in town. Now the numbers are closer to 84.

It's evident that the government acts in the interest of the locals in managing the growth. The charm of the place and of the people are largely preserved. And there is strong regulatory control, as unseen authorities register the passports of every tenant at every hotel. Almost everywhere we stayed, our passports will be kept for half a day for registration and inspection.

We also discussed about the rest of Vietnam in general. How Hanoi felt like a very safe city, the abscence of crime despite there being no police in the streets. Dinh corrected this impression. The police in the streets are all in plain clothes.

When you put a couple of Malaysians together and ask them to talk about our country and our government, you'll frequently hear grouses, government cluelessness or corruption, dissatisfaction, race inequality, etc. When our government budgets money for education, I'm immediately thinking which fat bastards are going to line their pockets with the IT purchases this year... (But apparently times are tough with Badawi-Mr-Clean's rule; heard one Dato complained about how Khairul is taking the bulk of the projects, such that only 5% of a 5billion project is trickling down to the impoverished Dato...)

But when Dinh talked about Vietnam, he talked passionately about oversights the government has made, such as the land reform laws which leases agricultural land for only 5 short years, that only encourages the growing of fast cash crops but not the more long term crops like fruit trees. He discussed these problems, but with the desire and ambition to do something to make things better. He believes in education, and is looking forward to his teacher training. He is optimistic about the future, and he has faith in his government, and in his own ability to effect changes.

I have yet to see such spirit at home.


Eventually even Dinh and Ravi retired. I toasted myself by the fire in the kitchen for a while longer to stay warm. The aroma of a bamboo & wood fire is strangely sweet. I knocked off out of boredom after I finished jotting down the notes for this day's trip.