The hill tribes of Sa Pa

An overnight train trip heading north of Hanoi, took us to the beautiful mountainous region of Sa Pa, an area inhabited by many different hill tribes who have settled there from all over Asia.  These tribes are differentiated by their dress and often their language and appearance as well.  All beautiful and all very colourful.

The mountain sides are covered with rice paddies using every square inch possible.  Due to the cold, they are only able to produce one crop of rice a year unlike further south where as many as three crops can be produced annually.  Their rice production is only sufficient to fill their own needs so they rely heavily on tourism and their handmade crafts.

We arrived early in the morning where we were met by a bus to take us even higher into the mountains to our hotel and it was freezing.  None of us had expected it to be quite that cold so thank goodness for our hotel for renting out jackets to the likes of idiots such as us who came totally unprepared for such conditions.

After a quick shower and change followed by a great lunch of local fare, we were met by Van, a lovely girl who was to act as our guide for the duration of our stay.  She was to lead us on various hikes down the mountains to other villages.  Now, I'd always thought that the Kuna Indians of Panama were the smallest people in the world after the pygmies but now I'm not so sure.  Myra in our group, is just under five feet tall and she was taller than all the girls we saw in Sa Pa.  Van is a dainty thing from the Black H'Mong tribe who all wear very colourful costumes.  She spoke excellent English which she'd taught herself and was a mine of information of all things relating to the hill tribes.

Our first trek was to a nearby village, down steep paths, through their craft market and homes and down to the river and waterfalls below.  Here we were treated to a show of their tradional dancing and music which was lovely.  The only problem was, we'd hiked three and a half kilometres down and now had to do the same distance back up again.  Boy, did I ever feel this the next morning.

But no time to dwell on this as, the following morning, we were off for a full day hike down to another village twelve kilometres away.  Before descending, we experienced magnificent views down into the valleys showing miles upon miles of the terraced rice paddies.  It was a fairly strenuous trip but really worthwhile.  Lunch was served at the bottom village inhabited by the Red Dzao people and then we continued the hike up to a second village where, thankfully, a bus picked us up to return to the hotel.

We would have loved to stay longer but there's still so much ground to cover so it was back to Hanoi by overnight train again.