Vietnam: Sapa

Fig. 2.1 - A view of the Sapa valley.

Sweaty, tired, and out of breath from the steep climb up the staircase from Cat Cat village, we stopped at an art gallery cum drink stand to prepare ourselves for the long grind up the road to Sapa. When we mentioned to one of the employees that we had come all this way without a local guide or organized tour group, she exclaimed, "Ah! You are freedom tourists!" Freedom tourists? Suddenly, I felt as if our whole purpose as travellers had taken a radical shift. No longer were we simply visiting the sites, snapping a few photos and catching a few parasites along with the food we were eating; no, we were something much more: we were freedom tourists! We were champions of the oppressed, bearers of peace and wisdom, pillars of strength and hope for the future of mankind! And here I thought I'd go to Vietnam, buy a couple of T-Shirts and some antique propaganda posters and call it a week. But no, apparently I was destined for much more.

Of course, the term 'freedom tourist' is a slightly lost in translation reference to the less than epic label of 'independent traveller.' With large, beaten backpacks, clothes faded and worn, disheveled hair and a fresh growth of stubble (a sometimes disconcerting feature when it comes to women), not to mention the ubiquitous Lonely Planet guide in hand, the 'independent traveller' or 'freedom tourist' is easy to spot and is fairly commonplace in Southeast Asia. I would argue that the only way to really experience a new country is to do so independently and freely, for so much is lost when you are being carted from one locale to the next without having to make your own decisions and interacting with people who actually live there. The very few times where we have signed on for some kind of package tour, I felt in many ways disconnected from reality, and would have given anything to exchange my passive, voyeuristic experience for a series of simultaneous root canals on each of my teeth without the aid of an anesthetic.

This last point speaks volumes, considering that the travels of a 'freedom tourist' are typically anything but luxurious. In fact, they can oftentimes result in undue stresses on the mind and body that might otherwise have been avoided had one had the common sense to do things the easy way.

Take the train to Sapa, for instance. Situated in the northwest region of Vietnam, Sapa is a roughly eight-hour journey from Hanoi, and as a result, most tourists opt to take the overnight train to avoid having to be conscious for the arduous crawl to the north; and with good reason. The alternative is to take the local day train (the option we chose and later regretted), which stopped at every station along its 380km route. Our initial feeling was that we'd get a chance to see some of the countryside and experience some of the local flavour as we crossed through rural Vietnam. However, we failed to foresee that all of the windows in our luxurious coach would be barred and covered in a layer of grime, making it nearly impossible to see through. We also failed to foresee the fact that the kinds of locals this train tended to attract were not the ones we'd be inclined to snap photos of and send home as postcards. Instead, they tended to be cast-offs of Vietnamese society, disregarding all of the acceptable social norms that any self-respecting Vietnamese would uphold to the death. So tired were we of the endless stream of tobacco smoke, tinny music blaring from peoples' cell phones, and loud, berating voices, that we ended up spending half of our time in the third-class coach, which was empty of people (apart from the occasional drunk), and which offered nothing but hard, wooden benches to sit on. Ironically, the car was spotlessly clean and sported enormous and uncharacteristically clean windows that offered a panoramic view of the rice fields and mountains that formed the passing landscape.



Fig. 2.2 -2.3 - Laura chowing down on a 'freedom tourist's' breakfast of bread and 'Laughing Cow' cheese spread. Note the train's grimy interior and the bars on the windows. So much for enjoying the scenery.. Compare to the luxury of the tourist night train, which had the benefit of not smelling like sewage, but had the disadvantage of being installed with suped-up hydraulics which kept the train bouncing all night.

One of the risks one takes as a 'freedom tourist' is the fact that while you have just as much of a chance to save a lot of money, you are also in a rather vulnerable position that makes it easy for others to rip you off. Case in point: after arriving in Lao Cai, the terminus station for the Sapa route, you are required to take a bus to Sapa proper, which is roughly an hour away via twisting, mountainous roads. It is advisable never, ever to listen to the first person that approaches you once you disembark from the train. Actually, as a rule of thumb it's advisable never to listen to anyone that approaches you in Asia, since most people find you strange and creepy and the only ones who don't just want your money - and lots of it. Naturally being easily targeted because of the colour of our skin (which in Asia is actually the same colour as money), we were met by a bus operator the second we set foot onto the train platform, who despite our less than subtle demands to leave us alone, seemed to interpret our brusque manner and absolute contempt for his very existence as a signed and sealed agreement that we would take him up on his offer to charge us the ludicrous sum of 85,000 dong (roughly converted to $4.50 in Canadian dollars).

Nevertheless, we were followed out of the station and to the parking lot, where an armada of cheaply-made Chinese mini-buses were lined up to whisk tourists and locals alike up to Sapa and all destination in between. Our efforts to secure a better deal, however, were met with utter failure. Actually, our attempts at bargaining and turning one bus operator against each other worked in reverse, as each quoted price we were given was more inflated than the last. There was little choice, therefore, but to go with the man who had approached us in the first place. It was a defeat that neither of us took well, and the fact that we were used as a selling feature a few minutes later when the bus operator pointed us out to a couple more Westerners, suggesting that “it couldn’t be that bad if these whiteys have found the terms agreeable,” made us even more irritated.







Fig. 2.4-2.9 - Images from around Cat Cat village. Of course, as you can tell by my baffled expression as I attempt to interpret the map, we never knew if we'd found the village or not.

Sapa itself was an eclectic mix of natural beauty, commercialism and abject third world poverty at its best. A site that has, in one form or another, solely existed for the benefits of Caucasians who cannot cope with the sub-tropical climate of North Vietnam, the village of Sapa has blossomed over the past ten years in a harried attempt to convert the entire mountainside into a series of undistinguishable hotels that all proudly mount clocks displaying the times in Beijing, Paris, London, New York and Tokyo (all off by an hour or two or twelve, natch).

The streets in Sapa, which are all uphill (even when going downhill), are lined with shops hawking unique handcrafted hill tribe textiles all manufactured in factories in China. Many of the tribes people themselves, whose impoverished lives have been turned into a spectacle for the curious tourist, roam the streets in small packs, decorated from head to foot in traditional costume of brightly coloured and intricately sewn design. They are extremely polite and good-natured, however, and can often been seen waiting outside the doors of your hotel waving and smiling.

Perhaps one of the more disconcerting exchanges with the hill tribe women was their use of the phrase “You buy me?” as they thrust out one trinket after the other in a frantic attempt to make a sale. Perhaps they didn’t quite understand that my backpack was all the luggage I had, and it was already full. Besides, I was pretty certain that Customs in Singapore would not be exceptionally pleased by the fact that I was trying to smuggle a member of the H’mong tribe into the country, regardless of the nation’s great affinity for cheap, migrant labour.

To be entirely honest, things in Sapa could have been considerably worse (think Thailand), and overall the experience was an enjoyable one. Both places we stayed were at the edge of town overlooking the valley below. Within minutes we could be out of the town limits, literally exiting one world and entering another. While the town of Sapa itself is rather developed and crowded, the outlying region is sparsely populated and incredibly poor.

The villages nearest Sapa – Cat Cat and Lao Chai – are inhabited by the H’Mong tribe, one of many hill tribes that populate the mountainous region of Northern Vietnam. To call them villages is a bit of misnomer, for if you blink, you’ll miss them. Rather, the mountainsides are dotted with crudely built huts of wood, branches and corrugated steel. Well-worn dirt paths wind along the slopes, connecting one hut to the next, and past thousands of rice paddies and the occasional livestock. Without a guide and armed only with a crudely drawn tourist map, we spent two days exploring these hills, and while we often had no idea where we really were, we were content to just enjoy the serenity of nature and escape the bedlam that is Asia. And most importantly, we did it on our own.


Fig. 2.10 - Some urchins we met en route from Lao Chai to Sapa who put the 'rag' back into 'amuffin.' While you can't really tell with this photo, the girl in the centre is not wearing any pants and she is also wielding a pickaxe twice her size.












Fig. 2.11-2.21 - Images from around the Sapa Valley, beginning south from Lao Chai and moving north to Sapa.

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