Our house, in the middle of the street

N 22 24.080 E 103 49.617 1448m - near Ta Phin village

Back in Sapa now, waiting for the minibus to pick us up to take us back to Lao Cai (previously discussed as the China-Vietnam border town, known as the Most Boring City In The World) to catch our train to Hanoi. We had a tiring yet rewarding two night homestay with a Red Dao family up in the mountains outside Sapa.

Sort of by accident, we met a woman from London in the market who has been studying sewing (one of the main crafts they sell in the market) from a local Red Dao woman. We talk and meet her, Ta May. (I don't have all the fancy accents and things for Vietnamese, they have about 35 letters, based on Latin characters with various accents over them or lines through them.) It is still a foreign language but slightly easier to read and recognize than Chinese. Although it is really easy to be totally lazy since so many people here know English.

After meeting, we decide that we will come and visit for a few days this week. It is about 15 km away which we intend to walk but C is feeling a bit rubbish (maybe some food wasn't cooked right or something) and we get a late start heading out. We were also invited to a wedding that day of one of the local families and we needed to be to Ta Phin by like 1:30 in order to make it to the wedding in time. Our fall back plan then is to have a motorbike take us there. We haven't taken a motorbike yet on our trip, so we add to our list of transport vehicles which so far have included ferry, train, bus, minibus, horse, camel, Russian jeep, 3 wheeled motorcycle taxi, bicycle, foot, rowboat, kayak, and maybe one or two things else I've forgotten. I regret not having a yak in there or some sort of buffalo, maybe later then.

When we arrive, we are immediately surrounded by lots of woman with things to sell us. No, we are here to meet somebody. Funny though, Red Dao costumes make it hard to tell the difference between different women. With hair gathered up and inside the pillow like hairdresses and pretty similar stitching on their clothes, I make a mental note to check out the shoes and look there first. Ok, Ta May, tan sandals, got it now. A quick bowl of noodle soup and we are off.

We follow lots of other women in their nicest clothes (the ones with extra silver bells and newly made needle point clothes) up into the hills, over muddy paths, rickety bridges, water powered rice threshing machines with occasionally motorcycles zipping by (much surer than they will be after the wedding and the amounts of rice wine consumed there). 30 minutes or so of walking brings us to a nice sized structure on the side of a hill with tables set up on front covered in bowls and the special red/pink chopsticks.

The only other foreigner there is an American (hometown Denver even), Dave, who has been in SE Asia for a few years now. Everybody else is mostly Red Dao and a few Black H’mong mixed in. We feel a little odd there, but are greeted warmly by a few different members of the family, the groom's brother and the groom goes by looking a bit nervous. 20 years old, not so young as some marriages we have heard about here. Red Dao have arranged marriages, not so much like Indian ones since the bride and groom don't have much of a say in them. They don't even really know who it will be. They meet once and then have a year to make the wedding clothes (or the bride makes them for both). Sewing and embroidery are rather important in their culture.

The wedding will go on for two days, we are there the afternoon of the first day which seems to mostly consist of eating (lots of fancy meat dishes) and loads of rice wine. Mostly the rice wine. Many get drunk rather quickly and are very jolly. There are loads of tables inside which are filled with probably much closer people to the wedding party and out back are tables for the family members. We are out front, which I assume is the foreigner's section, or for overflow guests. We never see the bride, apparently she stays in a room with a friend the entire time and only comes out the next day. Ok, I'm a bit confused by the exact procedures, I think we just attended the reception, although I don't think they were married yet. Still, there was lots of food and wine and everybody seemed pretty happy. On our walk back to town, a few motorbikes pass us, unsteadily, which seems a bit rash for the state of the road and the steep drops not far off the road. One couple goes off the road just in front of us and they have to struggle to get the front wheel back on the road.

We leave at like 5 pm, which is kind of early to leave but we have a long walk to get to the house before it gets dark. In hindsight, I'm kind of glad we took the motorbike to Ta Phin instead of walking because we walk up for at least an hour to get to the house. The really steep parts as we started getting up high were mostly in the dark so we don't quite know what everything looks like until the next day. When Ta May got married, she had to live with her in-laws for 8 years until they could afford to build their own house. The marriage almost didn't survive that period. Once they got out, it seems like the only major problem is rice wine. You know, men, the world over, all they want to do is go out drinking with their buddies, smoke, and do as little else as possible. The women work incredibly hard hustling, selling the market, carrying wicker baskets filled with wood and stones, and lots of other tasks to try and earn money for the family.

Their house is large, a bit like a barn with wooden plank sides and a tin sloped roof. It is mostly open plan, a few dividers for the back bedrooms and a open-ish loft area to store rice and other things. Everybody is gathered around the open fireplace in the kitchen area. By everybody, I mean the husband, three kids, 1 cat and 2 kittens, a dog (plus any other dog in the area that wanders in), occasional chickens, and I guess the pigs never really got to that part of the house, they would poke their head in the door on the other side and eat off the floor there. It does simplify eating a bit, if you spit something out on the floor (a half eaten chicken foot, for example, or a bit of mishandled rice or cabbage that slips out of your chopsticks), some sort of animal is going to quickly get to it and clean it up.

It has been a pretty full day, lots of walking and C is still feeling a bit rough, so we try to make it an early evening but life goes on pretty late (and starts pretty early) there. We have a dinner of tofu in tomatoes and rice and cabbage. I liked the cooking but I would have been happy if there had been some sort of other seasoning than MSG. And 3 meals a day of rice, it was really excellent rice, from their own rice fields, but it was a lot of rice.

We finish dinner and a large pot of water and some sort of branches and leaves are put on the fire to boil for herbal baths. The kids run to get some neighbors who also want to take baths and bring them back. There is a lot of activity by the time the water boils and we are able to take one. They also have a very clever water situation there. They have a elaborate system of bamboo pipes and hoses, bringing water from a local stream into a barrel in an alcove on the side of their house which then drains off down the hill again. She is slightly dismissive of the Black H’mong saying they don't build by water sources and they don't wash their food enough and water is too difficult for them. She also doesn't like that they just chop down trees instead of really searching for dead branches, thus deforesting the area much quicker. But in this alcove they have a big barrel which she fills with the hot water from the pot and we each take turns bathing in it. The barrel is just slightly small for my legs to really fit in but it is still lovely, hot water and a nice woody herb smell to the water. I think this all goes on late into the night, but we are tired and head off to bed a little bit after.

A cold night and at 4.30, alarms go off all over. William Tell Overture, quite loud, snoozed once and then off again. The kids have to be up early. They need to make some food and get things done before they hike off a few miles to school for a 7.30 start. I lie in bed and listen to the cacophony of noise and try to sleep a little bit more. Everybody is hungry and makes it known, loudly. Pigs, chickens, cats, all making a huge racket. Pigs run around the outside of house and squeal the entire way around and eventually they are let in the back door (the one by my bed) and some feed is thrown on the floor and they noisily snarf it up.

It quiets down, the kids go off to school, and I get up. Rice for breakfast, like all the meals. The tea is wonderful. There are a few tea bushes nearby and cuts off fresh branches, smokes it slighty over the fire and then puts those in the kettle to brew. It is really good green tea without any of the normal bitterness, so fresh too.

Gathering wood is one of the main daily necessities. The house has some electrics, mostly to run a few overhead lights and a telephone, but the cooking and heat is all from burning wood in the kitchen hearth. She straps on a wicker basket to her back (we offer to take one too, ha, we would never be able to carry it back) and we hike up behind the house and on the path that takes us to the valley beyond. Her husband and some of the neighbors are climbing a tree trying to pull out a large vine from it. A few others pull hard on it from the ground. When they finally get it out, is is probably 100 meters long, a few centimeters thick. It looks a lot like bamboo but she says it is something different. I guess it will find some use, a long strong rope.

We walk far, to the normal spot she likes to collect wood. She says she tries to only collect dead wood although not everybody does that. In the valley, you can hear the sound of chopping coming from all around as other families gather their wood supply. We look at birds as she goes off to find wood. Mostly bulbuls, can't get away from those it seems. A new sort of crested tit we haven't seen before though. It is funny having the luxury to walk around looking at birds while others have to work so hard just living.

We go back, she makes lunch (rice and tofu), the kids only go to half days at school so they will be back and then they will also go off to gather wood too. We nap a bit and then go off by ourselves for an afternoon walk in the same valley. When we get back, they have laid out plastic sheets on the floor and there are sheaths of rice. This is sticky rice. They store their crops for the year upstairs in the attic area, then process it as they need it. The daughter is working on some of it, taking a sheath and stepping on it, grinding it, then shaking out the grains onto the plastic. Eventually the husband starts on some too, using a piece of wood to pound the stalks and then shakes the loose grains out. The next morning, Ta May will go through the pile, put it on a circular woven mat, fling it in the air to sift off the chaff and be only left with a pile of rice. Then they have in a building a few houses away, a machine that grinds the husk off. Apparently it is quite expensive and the village as a whole owns that. But we will come back to the sticky rice later.

They are also preparing a big meal, maybe in our honor. She makes fried tofu, not the lazy way I've fried it, but turning each piece individually with chopsticks, and they have dried fish (sardines maybe) which they soak and peel the skin off each and then fry, and chop up a huge mountain of cabbage which seems like way too much food for us. However, it makes more sense when the neighbors come over with some cooked bowls of chicken parts, one spicy (the one with the chicken feet in it) and one not so spicy and a plastic water bottle which by now I know means rice wine.

We have a really nice meal with them. The husband, the neighbor husband and I have the rice wine. Well, I try to have just a little bit, they keep wanting to pour me more. It isn't quite as strong as the stuff at the wedding the day before but I think too much of it could do some damage. They keep putting bits of food in my bowl, pouring me more drinks, and it is just really friendly and nice. I hope I drank enough wine to be polite and join in and all. The chicken feet are strange. I tried a few but I'm not quite sure what you eat on them. It seems that you mostly crunch them for a bit and then spit out the rest on the floor. Anything that you spit on the floor will quickly be cleaned up by one of the many dogs or cats. At one point in the evening, the neighbor's baby has a pooh and that is also quickly finished off.

The men keep drinking (they didn't have rice with their dinner, it would dilulte the alcohol) and I move away from the table with everybody else. The bath pot comes back out again and everybody queues up for baths, we go back tomorrow so we would rather go to bed. The night is even colder (a clear night, the stars are beautiful) and I sleep in all my clothes and am still a bit cold.

The William Tell Overture again wakes us at 4.30 am. I sort of go back to sleep and then at 6 I sit in bed listening to the sounds of the morning until I finally get up 45 minutes later. The two older kids have already left for school, the youngest goes a little bit after that. His school is much closer. We have cabbage and rice for breakfast and the husband says goodbye and leaves. He is off to help neighbors find wood for their house. The late fall is house building season and everybody helps out. Ta May also needs to build a structure for their buffalo (if they are able to afford a new one, the 3 they had died last winter in the cold) at some point before the winter, so neighbors will help build that in return.

Che looks a some of her needlepoint items, really beautiful things, a small meter or so piece with months worth of work. She decides on one of them. We also think we should give her some money for all the food we have eaten and just to help out a bit. I kind of had in my mind about what we were paying for our really cheap hotel in Sapa. If we were going to spend that to stay somewhere anyways, I would really like it to go to somewhere good like that, maybe help a small amount to send the kids to school or buy food for the family. When we offer her that, she is a bit horrified, she just wanted us to have some of her rice and meet her family and all that. We get her to take half the amount and Che buys the other needlepoint because of that.

She cooks us some sticky rice before we leave and we take a plastic bottle of tea. She is meeting Hannah in the market and she also takes some for her. The sticky rice really is amazing, sort of sweet, slightly smoky, and kind of like brown rice. Two bits of rice are wrapped in a palm leaf as takeaway packages and then we leave to walk back to Sapa.

So, it is a long way there, lots of rice terraces, a few different villages, we walk about 2/3rds of the way there before coming to the main road and decide to get a motorbike the rest of the way into town. We are quite tired by the time we get back and ready to go to the hotel to see if we can take a shower and get our stuff arranged for our train to Hanoi that evening. We are sad to say goodbye. I wonder if I will be back this way again. What a special (but exhausting) few days we had. If anybody is in the Sapa area, I have contact details. I'm sure we can arrange something. A lot of the tour companies in the area do homestays, but I have to imagine they are a bit like the ones in Mongolia, more staying in a family's guest house, a more packaged experience, not really being in the middle of a family's life for a few days. It was probably the most intense sort of experience of our month's of travel so far. How will I go back to just looking at temples and things like that again.