Three Dirty Burly Americans

Giggling ourselves to sleep in the upstairs loft of a Ta Van village home. We hiked 15K yesterday through cultivated mountain sides just outside of Sapa town. We walked in between hand dug shelves, enabling rice fields to be grown on this slanted landscape. Three young girls led us on our first day of trekking, Tu (15) Sun (18) and Ju (15) asking us about ourselves- maybe in hopes to learn English but mainly in expectation of us to purchase some of their handicrafts from them. All of the women still hike around in their traditional garb. I am not going to lie- hiking in leg warmers and hoop earring is pretty hot... I am thinking about bringing the style to the backcountry of the Tetons this summer.

Instead of any traditional roles, the women's number one priority seems to be to "attack" tourists. All in the same high pitched sing-songy tone, "What is your name?" "Where are you from?" "You buy something from me." The first few times I was like an excited child, "Brittany!" "United States!" "Okay!" I quickly became real good at not even meeting their eyes, allowing the questions to float away in the cold air.

I learned from one of the girls that the children only go to school when they are real young. At age 12, they refocus their lives to either assisting on their family's farm or trying to sell the goods on the streets of Sapa or on the trails of the mountains. The men all seem to work real hard- farmer style. Barefoot in pools of water reaching their knee caps, plowing and harvesting the rice fields.

The first day we hiked down and into a gorgeous valley. Two of the three days we hiked it was chilly and had a persistent eerie fog. The mist was magical, and sometimes created a visibility of only 30 feet. We bought a few ponchos, but we were thankful that they never had to come out of the bag. Rain season is around the corner, then comes rice season- the latter depending on the former (I think...) We took a more intense hiking option so we quickly lose the mess of tourism behind.

The Crew= Samantha, Lexie, and I were the three that were not afraid to get dirty or wet and enjoyed the long days of hiking. The all white wearing Canadian, Ari (who dealt with three sassy sarcastic women real well) was a bit frightened by the mud and slept with the mosquito net down even though it was much too cold for mosquitoes to be around. And then, our scrawny and always fatigued guide Kim, who was sort of a complainer and used the same jokes over and over. "Oh (points to any animal) delicious." The Germans had a different guide but stayed at the homestay for the night and were a pretty good time!

It rained the night we ate a feast and played Yahtzee while drinking tiger beers and rice wine shots at our homestay (sounds like it happened in excess, but really I only had one beer and one shot, the Germans on the other hand...)

The next morning the trails were wet and muddy! We had a troop of 11 tribe women waiting for us at the door. The 11 women waiting to escort us through the sloppy day must have shot-gunned a tourist from the beginning of the day. I had two older women (I would guess 40 and 65 years old) who tried to hold my hand and point to rocks where I should (obviously) place my feet. I felt much more confident without them taking my wrists and whipping me around the trails, but I felt like the jerk not taking their assistance.

The hiking days were perfect in length and we would have lunch in the villages. Everything was so beautiful! The third day the sun shined bright :) Bright enough for us to get our tan back! We spent most of the day hiking and lounging around a gorgeous waterfall. We watched three local kids catch butterflies and wrap string around their necks until they died... that was about as hard to swallow as seeing the roasted dog head on a platter that morning in the market. Yep, and I have a photo to prove it (I will show it upon request only I think.)

Now we blog in Hanoi, about to tour the city. I am happy to say that last night was my fourth and last night train in the past 10 days... it made some scary noises as it chugged us south out of the mountains. Two days left in Vietnam, one in BKK, and then STP. Wow, I think I am ready to come home :)