I awoke to rain. The same concrete wall of fog leaned up against the window where the view of the valley was supposed to be. I had made a cocoon around myself with a furry blanket and then piled another two heavy blankets on top of to keep me warm.
And it was working except for my nose and pillow which were exposed to the cool air in the room, and that I had to go to the bathroom urgently after a ten hour sleep. This was the day our trek was to begin. My trekking companions moaned and rolled over, ready to continue their slumber into the afternoon.
I got up for the bathroom. Once shivering, I decided to put on clothes and pack for the trek rather than climb back into my cocoon. I motivated my companions to do the same, although even when I had got them in the lobby sipping hot chocolates, they still needed some convincing. The rain had stopped and we were told by the guides that the fog and cold subsided when you got down into the valley. The trek would take place in the valley, including a visit to three different hill tribes who lived down there. With the feeling that if we didn't go this morning we would be back on the train without a trek, I nudged my travelling companions a little further and they caved.
Our guide was our favorite person at the hotel, an energetic 20 year old named Quyen. She bounced around and had enough energy for all three of us lazy skeptics. She wore little black gumboots with her jogging pants tucked in to keep away the dirt and mud from her clothes and carried our food on her back in a big red backpack.
The fog cleared slightly as we descended. Sheets of it moved away to give us momentary glimpses of the terraced mountains and valleys over the guard-rail of the road we walked along. The landscape vibrated and then disappeared before our eyes as the mist moved and thickened over it.
As we descended, the tribes people ascended with their good to sell in the market and streets of Sapa secured to their backs in bamboo baskets. The ones that didn't carry handicrafts in baskets carried tools or scales to weigh their goods, and others carried babies on their backs and all the handicrafts they could layer on their person -- rings and earrings on their fingers, bracelets up their arms, hats tucked in their shirts. Each tribe had distinct features on their clothes, but they all were made of the same basic gunnysack material and dyed a deep indigo, a plant indigenous to the area. The men wore vests over long sleeves and their pants rolled up to their knees. The women were wrapped to their thighs and then wrapped more material fastened with a lace around their calves. Both men and women wore the same yellow plastic sandals and the skin grew leathery and wrinkled where it was exposed.
Our first stop was a H'mong house. Our guide had explained that the H'mong people are the most populous and one of the poorest hill tribes. They let their children decide if they want to go to school and have lots of them. So many uneducated children make them poor and keep them poor. Still, the house had a television and DVD player and a single electric lightbulb. The electricity was harnessed from the water flowing down the mountain -- hydroelectricity. The television was interesting to the other tribes people without even being turned on. The family -- grandparents, parents, cats, children -- all huddled around the fire in a side room. It was dark but for the fire and a tiny window carved out of one wood plank for ventilation.
The man who looked like the head of the household crumpled a large green leaf and packed it into the mouth of a pipe he had fashioned from a large piece of bamboo. A bamboo bong. He held the match to the crushed tobacco and took a long, slow breath. The pipe gurgled as he held his mouth and inhaled, the pile of tobacco caught and flamed for a second and then glowed red before it turned to black and went out. The man lifted his head from the pipe, let out a long exhale of dark smoke and smiled with half his teeth. The woman to his right did the same, probably his mother. And then we each had a try. The smoke was wretched and I tasted it long after we left their house, felt it in my lungs as we began to climb up the next mountain to the Zai village.
The fog had dissipated to a light mist exposing the terraced landscape and breathtaking views. The terraces were carved on the sides of every mountain and filled with muddy water waiting for the rice crops to be planted in the summer. The water in the terrace reflected the bright white sky and looked like shelves of snow from a distance. Up close, everything was green and brown. Water buffalo tread through the muddy terraces, churning up the rich muddy bottoms and nibbling at the weeds that grew in and around the water. Ducks bathed themselves in other terraces, turning around and over in the brown water. Dogs and chickens and little black pigs ducked in and out of the scenery as we walked.
That night we camped at the Zai village, one of the wealthier tribes. The Zai people make their children go to school and limit their families to one to three children. Our host family had three children, one who missed dinner because he was playing soccer with some friends. The Zai people wore Western style clothes rather than traditional hill tribe garb. Their house was similar but more solid and with no gaps between the straight planks of wood. It was neater, the furniture and structure more expertly carved and put together. They even had an outhouse enclosed in a nicely woven bamboo hut with water flushing through the hole in the ground. Luxury hill tribe living.
The kitchen consisted of a wood fire on the ground with two burners over it and some squat stools all around to allow the cook to be comfortably seated. We watched our guide prepare an enormous meal of fresh meat and vegetable dishes in a cast iron wok over an open flame and then we feasted with the host family in the larger room next to the kitchen. The host family liked us because we laughed a lot and easily. Our guide translated for us but the wall of communication grew quickly and we mostly talked amongst ourselves while our guide conversed with the family. I took two bowls of rice and vegetables and told them that I was full in Vietnamese (with the help of my guide). I had learned "I'm tired" (toi met) from a man on the bus up to Sapa and I used that one on them too, retired early to bed under another few thick blankets and a soft mattress on the floor.
After a ten hour sleep, we awoke to rain again, but it cleared soon after breakfast (batter fried bananas and apples, mmm) and we were off again. We visited one more hill tribe -- the Zau people. This tribe was as poor as the H'Mong people. This tribe, however, abstained from eating dog because there was a story of a dog who had saved a few of their children who were orphaned. The women of this tribe wrap colorful red scarves on their heads, shave their eyebrows after the age of 14 (marrying age) and are all called by the same name -- Mai. We met a little boy with a slingshot who was taking aim at a tiny bird in a tree. He let us take a few tries but we were not better than him.
We lunched and climbed up and down more muddy slopes, made one final ascent to the top of a hill where our motorbikes awaited, and on the back of the bikes, climbed back into the fog of Sapa exhausted, our shoes encased in mud and desperately in need of a hot shower. My friends left on the minibus an hour after we returned. I stayed on one more day, settling into the damp mountain climate -- at least for one more days rest before the night train to Hanoi and my flight out of Vietnam.
