Lost in Sapa

Sapa, in the Northwest Mountains not far from the Chinese border, boomed in the 19th Century when homesick French discovered its alpine charms. The place swiftly became a resort town, with visitors arriving in sedan chairs borne by natives. Now it's still a resort town, or should I say it's again a resort town, and it still smacks of a sort of colonial unsavoriness. The primary recreation here is no longer tennis, it's visiting the villages of the local ethnic minorities (primarily Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, and Black and Red Dao) and being beguiled by the little Hmong girls. These little girls throng the streets, tanned and apple-cheeked, bedecked in beautiful brocades and embroidery, and a wealth of huge hoop earrings. Their resplendent appearance is the first thing you notice about them, the second is how friendly and inquisitive they are (with better English than most of the people working in tourism in Hanoi). Thirdly, you realize they have the best sales pitch ever, and somehow you see your wallet opening up and the 100K Dong notes flowing out. No surprise I'm a great big sucker, but these kids could probably have sold me a Cadillac if I'd stayed an extra day or two. There's an unspoken exchange policy I noticed in effect: you buy something from a little Hmong girl, you get to take a picture of her. It's a system that seems to leave both parties satisfied, but it made me uncomfortable. (This taps into a larger issue I've been thinking of a lot, the ethics of tourism, but if I go into it now I will never get to the Sapa parts, so I'll save it for later.)

My first morning in Sapa, having arrived on the night train from Hanoi, I headed out of my hotel to go walk around the market (my usual pastime), and was"picked up" by 2 girls, May and Pie, who took me by the hand and hammered me with questions. By the time we'd gone 2 blocks, they knew all about my family, my siblings, my boyfriend (BTW no one here ever asks what my job is). They asked if I had any babies, and I was surprised to discover that Pie, whom I'd taken to be about 16, had 4 kids, the youngest of whom was strapped hidden on her back. He was tiny (then again so was she - I towered over her by about 18 inches) and she told me his name was (what sounded to me) "Hugh". I told her where come from there are many people named Hugh, and she laughed. In the spirit of our new friendship, I though I'd buy a pair of the earrings Pie was selling, and to be fair, a mouth harp from May. I made the gross error, however, of pulling out my wallet on the main street above the market, and in seconds I was surrounded by about 12 other women, all holding up bags, bracelets, pillowcases, etc and very much "invading my dance space". In fact, they were quite literally backing me against the wall, all clamoring "you buy something from me." Finally I handed Pie her money and broke out of the group, which followed me, I held up my hands to indicate that I was done with business for the day,and eventually most of them fell back. One older woman stayed glued to me, insisting I buy something, seemingly angry that I had looked at her stuff without buying anything (which, being as I had not looked at it so much as had it thrust under my nose, was an unfair charge). I said I didn't want anything. This went on for blocks and blocks. I finally just asked her to go away, and she said that she would follow me, all day if necessary, until I bought something, and if I really wanted her to go away, I had to buy something. (Note: I would NOT buy a Cadillac from this woman!) Finally, I turned down a side street,and the woman drifted away, muttering in Hmong.

By now, it's just 9:30 am.

But I haven't gotten to the really strange thing about Sapa: a mountain-top town, in the shadow of Mt Fansipan, Vn's highest peak, and I had seen nothing of the mountains, nor anything of Sapa. We were in deep cloud: not fog, not mist: cloud. Like when you're in a plane, descending to land and you fly through the cloud cover and for a minute or so you can see nothing, not even the wing of the plane, just the blinking red light at the end of the wingtip. I could see the road beneath my feet and about 3 shopfronts ahead of me, but otherwise all was white. Even looking at my map was difficult. (Perhaps that's why the Hmong dress so splendidly: to see each other in the mist.)

Later I met up with Brian, an American I'd met in Hanoi. This was his 4th time in Sapa, and he knew people there, 2 Hmong women, So and Thu (pron."choo", like the suppressed sneeze of a dainty lady). Thus the 4 of us began a long strange evening. We went for dinner at a place they all had been the previous night, a little shack on an unlit street.There were 2 tables, one of whihc was given over to 10 little children glued to a Chinese soap opera playing on the TV. Hmong words were exchanged, and dishes started coming out; we all spooned rice and little bites from the dishes into one another's bowls (I played it off like I do this every Tuesday night, or something). When the soap opera ended, the kids all dashed out of the shed in a hurry. Dinner for 4 of us cost a total of about 30,000 VND, which comes to $1.85. Then we headed for the foodstalls by the market, walking across an open space I was told was the main square but of course could not see. Talk had turned to Vietnam's famous rice wine, specifically the Hmong Apple Rice Wine, and we sat down at one of the stalls and ordered a bottle. We got an Aquafina water bottle filled with a dim, cloudy liquid with sediment at the bottom, like unfiltered apple cider. (Didn't taste like apple cider!) I ordered a round of sticky rice, which is packed into a bamboo tube, heated on the grill, hacked out of the bamboo, and then toasted further on the grill, cut into pieces, and served with a gravel of ground peanuts, salt and pepper for dipping. It was dense, chewy, crispy, smoky, salty: in short, the perfect bar food, and the Aquafina bottle was soon enough empty. Later, we wound up playing darts at the Tua Bar, the kind of bar that would probably be a hit in Seattle or LA.

I'm not sure if I can make it clear the very strangeness and pure surreality I felt at this moment: I'd come on the night train to Lao Cai through unseen landscape, taken a bus to Sapa trough the misty dawn, arrived in in city I could only see in 20-foot increments, surrounded by mountains whose existence I could only take on faith, playing darts with 2 women from a small Hmong village and 1 Los Angelino, while all about me more beautifully dressed girls challenged Aussie frat-boy types at pool, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and Billy Joel blasted from the speakers. It's the kind of moment that makes me think that surely there can be no such thing as fate, because this arrangement was as random as any that I could possibly imagine, or perhaps its very unlikeliness was proof of just that: how else could one possibly wind up here if not destined?

Soon the 4 of us decided to call it a night. Brian headed off for his hotel, and So and Thu linked arms with me and we all headed in the direction of our various lodgings. I though they were walking me back to my hotel, but they abruptly let go of my arms and said "Good night!" And I was suddenly alone (though my hotal, it turned out, was just a block away). The cloud was just as thick as before, but in the night time it was different: the light from all the invisible houses and shops had suffused the cloud with light, so the air itself was a source of brightness, and solid, seemingly almost gelid, and utterly isolating, as strange and beautiful as anything else I'd seen that day.