The other night I got summarily kicked off the computer and could not finish my ramblings on our Sa Pa adventures. So here it goes...

On the first day of our trip, Huey and I were standing on the path taking a picture, when I saw a dirty little arm wrap itself around my leg. This was followed by a tiny, snot- and mud-covered, and absolutely disarming face which said "Hello bonbon!" Candy, as well as pens and money, is what the kids ask for when the see Western tourists walking around their villages. Most kids know at least a couple of words of English or French. These linguistic skills, and the insistently entrepreneurial acivities of many women and girls selling traditional clothes and jewelry at the tourist reststops, are the most visible signs of tourists' presence in the region. Which is to say that the visitors' money spent on tours of the countryside is not making its way to the local communities. Those with nicer houses - like the one we stayed at - are the only ones directoy benefitting as they are able to offer lodging for which they are paid by the tour companies. This results in a very odd combination of good services tailored to tourists (reststops with drinks, clean toilets, etc.) and uncontrived "sights," i.e. villages, many of which are extremely poor. Our guide used to be a teacher and she told us that after graduating from schol she was assigned to a school in one of the remote villages in the mountains. (These schools teach Vietnamese and are part of the government's campaign of Vietnamisation of the mountain tribes.) She told us that on many days only a few of the kids in the village would show up for school because they were needed to help with the work at home. When they did show up, they often appeared with a baby strapped to their back (because there was noone else to care for it), which meant thay they could stay for only an hour or so before the baby got fidgety and had to be taken home.

What will happen over the next few years is hard to tell. It is possible that the interest of foreign tourists will prompt improvements from the government such as better roads, sanitation facilities, etc. It is also very likely to have negative effects, such as litter, destruction of local communities, etc. At this point, the leading guidebooks (such as Lonely Planet, for example) try to provide suggestions for responsible behavior aimed at helping these communities (e.g. give money centrally for the improvement of the local school). But unless the tour groups themselves take pains to educate the visitors and unless there is some appropriate government regulation, it is likely that in a few years the region will be very much changed. If we were to come here again, I would opt for doing a trek to Fansipan (the highest peak in Vietnam, which is also in this area); i.e. focusing on the natural beauty of the mountains and not specifically going through the villages.

This concludes the socially responsible part of the program...

And speaking of improvements to the roads - the road from the village we stayed at back to Sa Pa was probably the worst road Huey and I had ever seen. Most of it was unpaved which meand that the mud was knee-deep. Parts of it were under construction, which meant that there was heavy machinery blocking the entire road. And of course, there were motorcycles everywhere. All this added up to a hair-raising journey, which often brought the olive-green Russian jeep (which was held together by various types of rubber bands, rope and other contraptions) to the very edge of the road. It didn't really help that our driver, who had arrived at the village a bit earlier than the alotted pick-up time, had been indulging in the locally-brewed rice wine during lunch. Our guide very thoughtfully made him stop at a reststop and fed him some strong Vietnamese green tea to sober him up.

A few words about our guide: She is one of the nices and most quietly impressive people I have met on this trip. She is young and was born in the countryside around Sa Pa. Whcih means that she cooks a mean meal on an open fire (including the tastiest crepes with chocolate and bananas for breakfast!) and speaks several of the local dialects. She is also educated and speaks excellent English. She was also so incredibly caring to us and to the people we met along the way. At one point she gave food to a family in one of the villages. At another point, a man approached her and complained of a wound on the bottom of his foot and she gave him her supply of antibiotoc ointment. She paid unobtrusive attention to us and was able to anticipate everything we needed. When Huey got sick she even administered some local medicine in the form of some leaves torn from a nearby bush. Later on it runed out that men are supposed to eat only 7 leaves (9 for women) rather than the 27 or so Huey dutyfully chewed and swallwed, but it was all good.

And lastly, a note of the bizzare: To get back to Hanoi, we traveled from Sa Pa to Lao Cai, which is a small town on the Chinese border. There we had to wait for a bit at a restaurant and of course we eventually had to visit the "happy place." This particular happy place was most notable for the picture of a naked woman on the wall - not hanging on the wall, but part of the tiles! What posesses a restaurant to tile its bathroom with nude scenes is a mystery to me...