As we get off the bus there are plenty of people swarming round us trying to offer us taxis, bikes and guides. It is to be expected, though I have been told that I am to wait for someone who will have my name on a peice of paper. not that it stopped some boyo trying, he rolls up on his bike saying he is here to pick up for a tour, he sees Alex and me and says its two people. I ask him the name of the people he is picking up, and he replies that he picks up so many people that he can not rremembe the name. Cleaver. I call him on it and he lets out a smile. I tell him he should know the name of the people he is picking up, and if he doesn't know my name then I will not be getting on to the bike. Good effort, I am sure he gets many a tourist jumping on his bike. Everyone has left and there is no sign of our pick up. I phone Pearl back at the hostel and she makes a phone call, suddenly a girl dressed in traditional clothes turns up holding my name on a peice of paper. It is time to go. Her name is Mai and she was the tour guide for some of the other people who I had spoken to in the hostel. Her English is very good and we follow her through Sapa town to a hotel, where we get breakfast. It is about 7.30 and we leave at 9.30 so we have plenty of time to wake up after the bus journey.
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We get chatting to Mai for a bit before we leave and we get to meet our tour guide, Lenh. She is so tiny, and only 18, she has been a tour guide for 5 months and has never had any English lessons. All her English she has learnt from being a tour guide and speaking to foreigners which is very impressive. There are just 3 people in our group, Alex, myself and a Swiss, Marshall, so it is a small group. So we start off down the road out of Sapa, there are many many women dressed in traditional dress, a black coat and leg covers with various ties around each. Everyone knows what happens, they are polite and friendly to you at the start of the trek, and indeed they follow you until you stop for lunch, then the pestering begins. This was indeed the case, but for the early part of the journey they were polite and friendly. Everyone asking your name an where you are from. I think the fact that we are a small group worked in our favour, as we only had 3 followers, I saw larger groups with as many as 20! As we are walking down the road there are breaks in the tree line that exposes a lovely view out over the valley and to all the rice field that cover the whole area. It's quite a sight! We continue down the road and it is not long before we branch off to the right and down into the valley. Walking along little dirt tracks and weaving our way through the rice fields. It is a cloudy day and there is a little breeze, so perfect for trekking. Not that I would have called today trekking, more walking, it didn't require a lot of effort.
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As the day goes on the clouds disperse and the sun comes belting out. It is hot! Very hot. We get to our first village, this is where we are stopping for lunch. There is a lot of development going on here, more than I thought, they are building a power station beside the river. Once we get past that there is a bridge over the river and in to the village where we get our lunch, the food is included in the tour. It's of a good standard, unlike Ha Long Bay. We are sitting in a lovely wee place overlooking the river, where kids are playing about in the water. I take the opportunity to cool down as I've worked up quite a sweat. There is an endless stream of women with baskets on their back trying to sell us stuff. The technique is just to keep standing there offering, I'm sure it works, people just buy something for them to go away. Alex gets pestered the most because most of the stuff they have is female orientated, like bracelets, bags and purses. Lenh tells us of a marriage that is taking place tonight between a foreigner an a local and asks us if we want to go. It is a good bit out of the way, and from talking to her there will be no special dress or ceremony, just food and drink, so we decide not to bother. Lenh describes how marriages happen in her village, apparently a guy can just grab a girl, he takes her away for 4 days, 1st day back to his home to meet the parents, normally the girl is crying and upset, then for the next few days the guy takes her about the area before he family are contacted. It is up to her family to decide if she is to get married to the guy or not, after an offer is made, including money and maybe pigs or rice fields. It is common for some girls to be so unhappy that the kill themselves. There are poisonous plants all over the mountain and some girls trek up and eat the plants! Unbelievable! What's interesting is that with all the western exposure that this tradition still exists. I mean all the guides have mobile phones, and today Lenh is wearing an angry birds hoodie, but the rules of marriage are still the same.
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Lenh takes us to her house. I have never felt so emotionally moved in my entire life. It is a shack, no more, not even fully water/wind proof. There is one main room, with 2 bedrooms. No toilet or running water, but electricity for the one light, and to charge Lenh's phone. Concrete floor, insects all over the place, the area above the main room has another level which is used to store things not often used. There are about 15 bags of rice used to feed the family for the year. Her mum is in the house, just sitting there, she broke her leg a couple of years ago and so can not walk or work and they could not afford to fix her leg after the accident, the cost was £200. Lenh's father is dead and she has a younger brother and sister, the older sister is married and lives somewhere else in the village. Lenh's work is the only income for the whole family. There is a small stove in the corner where the meals are cooked. I am so taken a back when I see the conditions that her family lives in. I feel so sorry for her. She is not sad, the opposite in fact, so happy with what she does have. She gets paid 100,000 VND a day if she does a tour, so £3. The house is so dark and shabby, they actually live here, everyday. I actually feel a lump in my throat while we are there. Lenh packs a bag for the overnight stays and we say goodbye to her mother, who despite her situation, is dressed well and smiling. We leave and go to see the primary school that Lenh went to. Easily the most modern building in the village, only 2 classrooms and we are free to walk around while the kids are learning.
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We explore the rest of the village an they have a building with some of the traditional tolls and machines inside. Lenh shows us how they skin rice using a pivot system attached to a river. When the bucket fills up it pivots, raising the other end which then falls in to a pit of rice, grinding the grain. We see how the due their clothes an indigo colour using plants from the valley. How they actually make clothes, the tedious process that takes days for just a few meters of cloth. All the clothes are made from hemp, there are marijuana trees everywhere and we are shown how you strip it down to get the fibre needed. New years is a big event in the village, and family spend the whole year making a new set of clothes for the new year. As Lenh's mother can not help, Lenh has to spend her money to buy clothes for her family. Her mother calls her lazy, because she is expected to make her clothes and not buy. All the women we come across can speak English, they start selling to tourists from as young as 10 to try and earn money. I see very few men through out the day, I think that most work in Sapa town, 2 hours away.
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I can actually feel my neck and arms burning at this stage and so I have to put my buff round my neck to give me some protection. I did not bring any sun cream as Hanoi didn't have any sun. I should have known better. We pass through the village and up to another village where we are staying. When we get to the homestay we are greeted with a pot of tea. We are staying with a family, and they have room for about 20 people in a converted barn type place. Alex gets a shower and goes for a nap and Marshall and I just chat and look at our photos. This homestay has a lot of ducks, about 20, just running around from their wee house in to the little stream. There is also a pond where they keep fish. Not just any fish, fish that eat grass! It is the strangest thing I have ever seen, the owner has to feed them twice a day, he gets up on the banks of his pond and cuts some grass and chucks it in the pond. Then the grass starts disappearing! Crazy. Marshall and I just watched in bewilderment.
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I jump in the shower before dinner and when dinner arrives it is enough for a king! 6 or so plates with different food and plenty of rice. Afterwards Lenh gets the cards out along with a bottle of rice wine. I'm not sure why they call it rice wine, it is like a shot. We are taught a local card game and the loser drinks, fast paced and we are shortly through the first bottle, magically another one appears. During one of these games you have to throw your hand in to the middle of the table and the last person loses, I throw my hand in and my Japanese bracelet explodes, with the balls rolling everywhere. Luckily for me Lenh has some thread with her and repairs it for me. Lenh has been playing the same song on her phone all evening, she loves it. We get half way through the second bottle and we decide that we have had enough and that it is time for bed. After all we have a long day of hiking tomorrow.