We woke up early the next day even though we were kind of sad to leave our warm and cozy beds, as we had booked a trip to visit the Sunday market in Bac Ha, which is frequented by the Flower Hmong people. We boarded a minivan from our hotel, and took a 150 minutes ride which I doze off uneventfully after swallowing a Stugeron.
When I woke up, we were aldy in Bac Ha, surrounded by the lovely Flower Hmong people, dressed in pink. Every Sunday, the Flower Hmong kinspeople will flock to Bac Ha to trade wares, buy groceries, meet each other and gossip (according to what the guide said). And they sell almost everything here! Pottery, cutlery, cooking utensils, vegetables, gardening tools, knives, gasoline lamps, furniture, pets, horses, buffaloes, dogs, pigs, poultry, etc. The dogs, on the other hand, are not being sold as pet, mind you. Jessica somehow seemed interested to buy some piglets home, had I not dissuaded her!
Although they are known as the Flower Hmong, their traditional costumes are pink, just like the Black Hmong with their black costumes. And somehow they are not really bothered with the presence of tourists in their area; I don't recall being approached by any Flower Hmong people asking me to buy their wares, but then they would still ask for money if you take photos of them. The other funny thing that I noticed is that it would be the women folk doing the trading, while the men would just gather and binge drink alcohol until their wives carry them back on donkeys!
3 hours later, we headed back towards Lao Cai in our minivan, but made a brief stop at a local Black Hmong village for a short stroll. The Black Hmong still resides in their traditional mudbrick houses with thatched roof, and thrived on planting paddy and other crops. Shy Hmong children would just peeked at us from the windows, occasionally throw us a "hi", while the adults would be busy with their own daily routines.
Our guide happened to be a 18 year old Black Hmong girl from Sapa; she had been a tour guide for the past 4 years and she has learnt English and French on her own just by conversing with tourists. What an achievement! And she only studied till elementary school, and was forced to work as high school in Vietnam is not government subsidized!
We were dropped off in Lao Cai after having peeked at the Vietnamese-Chinese border (He Kou); we loitered around the streets of Lao Cai, shivering (it was stll 10-12 degrees celcius), while waiting for our train back to Hanoi. And all train tickets back to Hanoi were sold out as well, so we had to get one which stops at the northeastern edge of Hanoi, which worried us to hell - we needed to be back in Hanoi by 8.00am to catch our minivan for Halong Bay which we had pay US$85 each! It would be such a big waste if we had miss it!
And as I lay myself down to sleep, somehow I prayed hard that we would reach Hanoi in time...
3 hours later, we headed back towards Lao Cai in our minivan, but made a brief stop at a local Black Hmong village for a short stroll. The Black Hmong still resides in their traditional mudbrick houses with thatched roof, and thrived on planting paddy and other crops. Shy Hmong children would just peeked at us from the windows, occasionally throw us a "hi", while the adults would be busy with their own daily routines.
Our guide happened to be a 18 year old Black Hmong girl from Sapa; she had been a tour guide for the past 4 years and she has learnt English and French on her own just by conversing with tourists. What an achievement! And she only studied till elementary school, and was forced to work as high school in Vietnam is not government subsidized!
We were dropped off in Lao Cai after having peeked at the Vietnamese-Chinese border (He Kou); we loitered around the streets of Lao Cai, shivering (it was stll 10-12 degrees celcius), while waiting for our train back to Hanoi. And all train tickets back to Hanoi were sold out as well, so we had to get one which stops at the northeastern edge of Hanoi, which worried us to hell - we needed to be back in Hanoi by 8.00am to catch our minivan for Halong Bay which we had pay US$85 each! It would be such a big waste if we had miss it!
And as I lay myself down to sleep, somehow I prayed hard that we would reach Hanoi in time...
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