Archive for March, 2006
March 29th, 2006
It’s easy to get behind on my journal when I have someone to talk to each night. When I would normally be writing, I now have Sarah to chat with until the wee hours, so my updates have been lagging. It has been great to have some steady company though, so I’m afraid I have no regrets in getting behind.
At the same time, the relentless pace I typically assign myself in a given day has slowed. Sarah’s not exactly willing to trudge behind me for successive days of 12-hour photo excursions, so with only a couple of days as exceptions, I have treated my time in Thailand with her as my vacation from traveling. We wake up slowly and forsake the sunlight in favour of debating whether turning up the air con means to make the room colder or hotter. Once outside the room, we have often spent more time hunting down a good meal or the best fruit shakes in town than blasting from sight to sight and trying to cram as much travelling into the day as possible.
There have been, however, a couple of days that stand as exceptions. First, in Ayuthaya, a town not too far north of Bangkok where impressive temple ruins and modern wats rise above the modern city’s low lying architecture. Hopping on bicycles, we ignored the oppressive heat (for a while) and toured some gorgeous sights. I was pleased that even after seeing a place like Angkor Wat, the temples here still captured my imagination.
In the late afternoon, we took a boat ride around the island formed by the converging rivers and explored even more temples. When we arrived back at our hotel, the sun was just beginning to set, so Sarah exhorted me to bike off by myself to catch the last rays of day and then to take photos when the temples were lit up at night. I dodged the stares of security guards while I tried to get as close as I could to the illuminated temples. Similarly, I dodged the punches of Thailand’s brattiest kid who decided I would be his plaything while I was waiting for the temples to light up.
That long day was followed by a relatively peaceful days trip up to Sukothai where the bike riding and temple hopping was repeated. Another expansive collection of ruined temples coaxed us from the shade and we explored the former Thai capital’s ruins. Happily, both Ayuthaya and Sukkothai were not bustling with tourists like the now-overrun Angkor area and the days were peaceful and not spent waiting for a tour group stop crowding a narrow passageway.
Now in Chinag Mai, Sarah and I have had a lovely time chilling out, exploring the Sunday night market, going to Muay Thai boxing, and doing more chilling out.
Muay Thai was one of the highlights for me. The dim Thapae arena is a regular host to nights of fights heavily marketed to tourists. Though marketed in this way, the fights themselves seemed quite authentic. I spent most of my time at ringside trying to rise to the challenge of shooting a sport I had never even seen live before let along photograph while marveling at the spectacle and occasionally getting showered by a splatter of sweat from a recently-punched boxer.
Happily, Sarah ran into one of her best friends Hannah who is also traveling in Southeast Asia. They were planning to meet in Cambodia in a week, but managed to cross paths at the boxing match so now the two of them could chat and ignore the fact that grown men were surrounding them and yelling at young boys to kick each other in the neck.
When I say young boys, I mean it. One of the matches featured a couple of boys who couldn’t have been more than 12 years old, but they may have been as young as 10. It was simultaneously disturbing and impressive. The crowd of gambling Thais at ringside were excitedly cheering them on and they shouted in unison whenever one of these kids made a strike. A chorus of yells went up each time a knee hit its target. And plenty knees did hit their targets. Each of these boys probably could have kicked my ass. They displayed remarkable skill for their age and seeing them duel was like watching them turn into men before your very eyes. But at the same time, they were just boys, and the crowd was furiously calling for each of them to pound the hell out of the other.
The other matches weren’t quite as disturbing since the combatants were mostly above the age of consent. As a photographer, it was a decidedly challenging sport to shoo, but it was good fun trying to rise to that challenge. Not surprisingly, the last bout of the night was easiest to shoot since it was just a demonstration match where each fighter took turns landing his most furious blows on the other. They sent each other flying in exaggerated arcs to the canvas after unleashing crushing kicks to the side. The best part was that Sarah and Hannah both thought it was real and was the best fight of the night. They were truly disappointed when I told them it was all fake.
So, from ancient, ruined cities to boys trying to knee each other in the face, Thailand has so far offered a diverse experience. Time to go see what else it has in store for us.
March 22nd, 2006
Sunburn bloody sunburn. Well, it’s not really bloody. That would mean I should be in the hospital I suppose. No, just pink. My first (and possibly last) trip to the beach on this trip has resulted in a nice coating of pink on my back.
After leaving Luang Prabang, I have arrived in Thailand where, after getting into my hotel, one of my first acts was to head back to the airport to pick up Sarah who will be accompanying me for the next couple weeks through Thailand. We spent the next couple days bumming around in Bangkok, drinking yummy fruit shakes, making fun of hippies (really, that was just me) and having a fun time while trying to dodge the heat.
Since we were in Thailand, we felt somewhat obligated to head south and visit an island. Without a lot of thought into the matter, we chose Phuket. Looked nice enough. Why not? So, a quick flight and we checked into a nice little hostel, cranked our air conditioning and started planning a day at the beach.
(A side note: I have only had air con once so far on this trip - in Taman Negara and I only got it there because it was the only room I could find at all - so having Sarah, whose Japanese winter has not yet ended, here is a bit of a blessing for me. I can happily splurge on the AC and have the excuse that it’s for her sake.)
We boarded a bus and headed to Karon beach where we found ourselves some beach chairs to call home base. The clear sun had heated the air and sand and the blue water was by far the most inviting place for us to be.
We splashed and played in the relatively calm waters for a good couple of hours, laughing the whole time, merrily ignoring that tremendously hot ball of fusing atoms beaming down upon us. When we emerged, giddy from the water, we started probing around our exposed skin to discover that we had miscalculated the strength of our sunscreen.
Sarah put it well, ‘In this day and age, there’s really no excuse to get a sunburn.’ But somehow, we both did it. We had applied Sarah’s SPF 30 cream when we left the hotel. In between then and waiting for the bus, the ride to the beach, lunch, staking out our beach spot and loads of watery frolicking, the protection had substantially diminished and our skin silently soaked up the UV rays. Add to that the sun sensitivity we both seem to be experiencing at the hands of our anti-malarial tablets and the results are predictable. We sheepishly packed up our things and left the beach knowing we would be in for a few days of vaguely resembling lobsters.
But we didn’t head back to Phuket town and our hostel immediately. Oh no. When you know that you are within walking distance of a Dinosaur-themed mini golf course and you are me, your day is not finished. It doesn’t matter if you’ve been rotating on a barbecue spit for a few hours, you’re going to putt some balls!
And truly, this course was excellent. My traveling companion Sam in Singapore had urged me to seek out a fantastic sounding venue for our new favourite sport when we had been denied the opportunity to go there on his last night in the city, but I was never able to find it’s location. So, in his honour, I made damn sure I was not going to miss a mini golf course that featured a smoking volcano, an animatronic T-rex and a series of Triceratops droppings that took the place of course obstacles.
The match was hard fought, but I managed to beat the gracefully-losing Sarah by a few strokes and I now have a two-game undefeated streak going (you cling to such victories when your favourite basketball team is the perennially underachieving Toronto Raptors). I consoled Sarah that there was no shame in losing to the best.
Once we got back to the hotel, we nursed our wounded skin and proceeded to rest for the next couple of days. We sported skin-covering long shirts and went shopping and to the movies (V for Vendetta was good fun by the way) or watched the hostels DVDs while not thinking about words like ‘ultraviolet’ and ’stupid tourist.’
Really, my shoulders still hurt a few days after the fact, but I still wouldn’t trade in the fun we had in the ocean. But I may regret that decision because tomorrow, I actually have to don my pack for a whole day.
We’re now in Ayuthaya, a small city North of Bangkok where ruins a plenty await our exploration tomorrow. I’ll certainly be bringing my cameras along for the day since I took almost no photos in Phuket. The only photos I shot were a couple of Sarah and I in the hotel. I felt like I had to take at least one photo while on the island, so all I have is a close up of the two of is in front of our hotel room’s blue walls. Good thing the memories will last a while.
March 15th, 2006
Dear Luang Prabang,
I’m coming back. I hope you’ll have me.
Love, Darby
What a wonderful time I’ve had here. This has been one of my favourite places I have ever visited. Within days of being here, I felt like I was a part of a community.
On my second or third day here, I found myself hanging out in the room of a couple novice monks in the area. One of them was attending English class later that day and invited me to attend. I was soon reprising my role of assistant teacher. The class ended with some of the girls of the class requesting a song in English from me. I don’t know if this is a common request for their teachers or not, but being the fan of karaoke that I am, I obliged.
In the interests of fairness, however, I requested a song from them in return. I decided to just go with the Canadian national anthem so that they could reply with an anthem from Laos. They opted for Luang Prabang’s city song instead. After merrily exchanging melodies, they had made a new friend and I had made twelve. I guess perhaps the exchange wasn’t fair after all. But, equality be damned - I’m not giving any of them back.
Teaching English has made up a good portion of my visit. Almost every one of the novice monks is eager to chat with passing foreigners so that they might practice their English. Much like the monks at Angkor, they put themselves in spots where they have a good chance of catching the attention of a tourist. They sit near the entrances of the many monasteries in the city and either study or chat until they can catch the attention of a passer by with a quick ‘Sabaidee’ (’How are you?’ in Laos). They’ll launch into as many questions as the foreigner is willing to answer and will cheerfully answer any queries in return just so they can get a better hold on a language that may one day provide them a stable income.
I have stocked up on so many excellent memories while here - too many to share. But, since I would like to note a few, I’ll revert to my point-form recollections to try to allow me to go to bed at a decent hour.
- The cheeky boys at Wat Sop have to be my favourites. I’ve spent a good amount of time there and had a blast talking to them all. I had already once sat in at the chanting at another temple when I was invited to sit with them at Wat Sop. At the first temple, each monk reverently went through the ritual and there was only one moment of giggling when every monk simultaneously forgot their place in the chant.
But, here at Wat Sop, the boys were chatting with each other, occasionally taking leave of their position to step outside, and writing text messages on their cell phones. The second time I sat with them, the abbot of the monastery lectured for them a good half hour after the chanting about their recent conduct, but that didn’t seem to have any effect on them. The next day, they were back to their old ways.
Their worst habit was their flirtatiousness. Not with me of course, but practically every girl that passed received particularly enthusiastic exhortations to come practice English with them. Some of the girls, unfortunately, didn’t have much knowledge about the customs and precepts the monks must follow, one of with is that they are not to touch members of the opposite sex. Handing anything to them is forbidden for women (that’s why they accept their morning alms in the bowls at their side, not in their hands) and even sitting next to them is pretty much off limits.
It fell to me a couple times to try to educate a girl or two about these taboos because the novices themselves are far too eager to push the limits of what they can get away with. Some of them strictly follow the rules and vanish when a woman appears, but at this temple, the troublemakers are plentiful. Once the rules are known, it’s usually okay and English practice/flirting continues.
For some reason, at this temple, I happen to have the nickname, Mr. Paracetamol. I’m not sure if it’s because I gave them a headache or because I was medicine for their ills. I’ll go with the latter since they seem to like me. They’re a charming bunch really.
One of the boys, (who gave me my nickname) got his own nickname from me: De (pronounced like the French de with an exaggerated d sound). A woman who had also spent some time with these young men said his previous nickname was ‘canned fish’ (his favourite food) but when he tried to explain that to her, it came out as catfish. Being an English teacher herself, she had him exaggerate the d sound at the end of ‘canned.’ Whenever he did so, he stuck his neck out like a pigeon walking along. So, I just shortened his nickname for him. I hope that it sticks and he will forever remember how to pronounce that sound.
- The flare and love for language that some of the novices have is ridiculous. I met one monk who happened to the son of a doctor from China. He had the fortune to travel and study in a few countries in Southeast Asia. What was most remarkable about him, however, was his level of English. It was as good as anyone I had met in Laos. But what was astonishing was that he claimed to have learned English in the span of two months. He locked himself in a room and did nothing but study English.
He also happened to speak Chinese (Cantonese, if I recall correctly), Laos, Thai, two or three Laos dialects, Japanese, French, and he was learning something else (I can’t even remember everything he speaks let alone remember that many languages). By the way, he was 18.
Obviously, he is an exceptional example, but the rest of the monks were tremendously eager to learn. They sponged up as much of any language as they could and helped each other learn at every turn.
- I made a couple worthwhile excursions outside of town to the Kuang Si waterfalls and to the Pak Ou caves. The former consisted of a series of impressive waterfalls where bikini-clad beauties and dirty hippies alike frolicked in the turquoise pools at the base. The latter is a cave about 29km up the Mekong river where Buddha statues no longer needed or wanted by the areas temples have been discarded. A miniature forest of Buddhas sits placidly in the darkened caves. I wish I could have spent more time there, but I only had a half hour. I’ll have to go back sometime.
- Today I almost got run over by the motorcade of the King of Cambodia. Well, not really run over, but it makes for a good introduction. Really, I just had to step to the side while his motorcade passed as he went to visit Wat Xieng Thong.
A good 20 vehicles passed including numerous police motorbikes, a media crew and an ambulance. Once inside, enough handlers surrounded him that you’d think he was liable to turn into the incredible Hulk and start smashing temples. A couple of doctors in lab coats trailed behind this healthy looking man and rounded out the strangeness of the scene. The kind himself seemed like he would be an incredibly friendly guy. He was all smiles and seemed extremely reverential in the temple. He was also more than happy to shoot smiles and waves to the onlookers who had been shooed to the side by security. I snapped off a few shots of him in a moment that will probably be as close as I will ever come to being a part of the paparazzi.
- Speaking of the paparazzi, stupid photographers really irritate me.
Every morning, the monks and novices of the monasteries in Luang Prabang sling a bowl over their shoulder and walk in precession down the street to receive alms from the locals and these days, from tourists as well. Without making the walk each day, the monks will have no food - they depend on the generosity of others to be able to survive.
It’s a genuinely humbling scene, but a beautiful one. The robed monks become an orange river slowly flowing down the street. It’s no surprise that the spectacle attracts photographers. The city is well aware of the tourist attraction the precession has become and they have posted signs all around town asking for the cooperation of the spectators so that the sacred spirit of the ritual might be preserved.
But a couple days ago, I saw a photographer do his best to break as many of those guidelines as possible. He was obviously a pro (or a very spirited and experienced amateur). Two cameras and the camera vest (even though it didn’t seem to contain much of any use) gave him away.
Since he was probably a pro, I would have expected him to maybe try to respect the ceremony a little more than he did. Among the guidelines he broke included standing in the way of the monks as they passed, using flash right in their faces and standing above them as they walked by (he got on a chair to try to get a different angle of the scene). I watched him get right up in the faces of the people there and fire off his flash and hardly move out of the way at all when a monk was trying to proceed along the path. I suspect if he had been a woman, he would have run up to the monks and rubbed his boobs in their faces just to finish off the list of don’ts.
It’s photographers like him who make my job harder. No wonder there is a lot of distrust of photographers around the world - a lot of obnoxious jerks have blazed trails that every subsequent traveler has to navigate.
Maybe he got some good shots from his insensitive technique. Maybe his flash did a better job of capturing the scene than my high ISO settings. Maybe he got a good angle from standing on a chair. But I don’t want to be that guy. I don’t want to be the photographer who makes himself into an arrogant fool to get a shot (I mean really, I look silly enough with my two cameras around my neck). I mean, isn’t part of the challenge of getting a good shot to do it while respecting your subject and the people around you?
- Luang Prabang itself has been a wonderful break from the pace of the rest of Southeast Asia. The pushiness of the Vietnamese wore on me after a while, so being here and being able to brush off an offer for transport or goods with a simple ‘no thanks’ was a relief. The streets are almost devoid of traffic and what little there is doesn’t believe in the all-powerful horn like the Vietnamese. The result is a relative silence that makes my thoughts sound loud after being drowned out by Vietnam’s din.
The people are friendly, the food is good (though I’ve been hanging out at the Indian restaurant a lot to give myself a break from fried vegetables), the weather is pleasant even in the middle of summer and the prices are cheap. I could easily see myself living here a while if the opportunity ever arose. I truly do want to come back here and use it as a base to explore a bit more of the country. As it stands Laos may be one of the least touristed areas in Southeast Asia, but Luang Prabang is very much on the tourist trail. I would love to get out to the areas where the rut is not quite so deep. With the pace at which this place is developing, I better get back here soon.
March 11th, 2006
I know it’s been a while. Sorry about that. But i have a good excuse.
You see, I write all my journals on my laptop before posting them online. That’s why a couple weeks worth of writing will suddenly appear en masse - that means I’ve found a good Internet cafe where I can plug in my Powerbook.
Unfortunately, right now, that Powerbook doesn’t really like working. Sick of its job, it has decided to take a bit of a leave of absence and now won’t start up unless I boot in safe mode. And even then, it still takes a good ten minutes.
Since I’ve tried every solution I know with no results, the next step is for me to wipe the hard drive and hope that I don’t have a disk problem. Everything’s backed up, so I’m not going to lose any photos. And once everything is somewhat fixed, I should be able to update this page to give some details about my time in Vietnam.
For now, I will bid you fond greetings and some apologies for my e-absence from Laos. Luang Pranbang is a fine place and I hope i will be able to tell you a bit about it soon!
March 2nd, 2006
This is the journal entry where my parents start to worry about me in earnest. They shouldn’t though - I didn’t break any bones and other than a minor bruise or two, some muddy clothes were the major results of my first (and hopefully last) motorbike accident. My driver wasn’t hurt either. And the bike wasn’t damaged as far as I know, so really, it was the mud that won the contest between riders and road.
By the end of my second day in Sapa, I had tired of the relentless barrage of hard sell tactics by the local women, particularly those of the Black Hmong tribe. Following you everywhere with endless supplies of useless souvenir garbage no one would want to buy if their arms weren’t twisted to the breaking point by these women. I acknowledge that some of the embroidery is fine work and the effort involved in creating it is phenomenal, but it has little practical value and ornamentally, it would be out of place in most wardrobes or interior design schemes.
The penetration of the tourist trail into the area has fostered this ubiquitous entrepreneurship. At the same time, it’s tourists who started paying people for each photo they took and thus another cottage industry was born. The result is that few people in the area are willing to have their photo taken without some exchange taking place first. Usually, they are interested in selling you one of their many handicrafts and afterwards, they will let you snap a shot of them. But other than that, finding a willing subject is ridiculously difficult. With my supply of purchased bracelets growing while my wallet shrank, I decided to try to get off the tourist trail a little bit and see if I might have better luck with a tribe who hadn’t had so much contact with the Western world and its rampant capitalism.
The plan was to hop on the back of a rented motorbike with my guide and spend about an hour meandering down the mountains into the valley where a lovely village full of warm and gracious people would greet us.
Plans started going awry when the clouds covering Sapa extended much further into the valley than we had expected. The mists had moistened the road and my guide was letting out frightened sounds that indicated clearly she wasn’t an experienced driver. You know that stereotype about bad female Asian drivers? Well, she was giving it credence as we weaved along the slippery street.
I optimistically continued on with the ride, but continued my firm grip on the back of the bike despite my freezing fingers. The cold of Sapa’s heights was also migrating downhill and with it, my spirits. I kept having visions of the bike slipping out from under us and my leg being trapped, crushed beneath.
Mercifully, we stopped briefly at a boarding school where kids from the local tribes come to learn Vietnamese. I played with the kids for a while who were more than happy to see their own images on the display of my camera. Yes, some of the young kids were the exception to the rule of prohibited photography.
Strength briefly renewed, We left the misty, run-down school and continued the downward road. But the fear returned when the paved road ended and we hit the mud that would lead us the rest of the way down. Deep, slippery ruts proved to be far too much for my guide to negotiate and so I often found myself hopping off the bike when the way became too difficult. The bike then got pushed down through the mud and we re-boarded the bike when the way seemed safe enough.
This made for some slow going. And the whole ride was terrifying. When we hit the dirt road, there was not a single moment where I was not on my guard, ready to have my body thrown down the steep cliff beside us (as ready as one can be for that prospect at least).
A kilometre or two of this sluggish, frightening journey, we nearly fell off the bike and only our panicked legs planted into the mud saved us from toppling into the brown, pasty road. I had been imploring my guide to put an end to the madness and have us walk the rest of the way and this scare finally seemed to get through to her - she was in over her head.
We parked the bike at a roadside stand and left it with an old tribal woman then started trudging through the slippery mud. Walking wasn’t much quicker. Each step sent us sprawling sideways on the verge of splaying and falling headfirst into a slide down the hill. Only having slid about 50 metres of the way from the bike, my guide had convinced herself she could manage the rest of the ride. I have no idea what gave her that impression, but somehow, she managed to convince me to give it another go.
Everything told me not to do it: Her nervous yelps every time the bike threatened to escape her clutches. The low visibility. The incredulous looks of passers by who seemed confused that we had defied gravity up to this point. But still, I hopped on and said I was ready to go.
We probably made it about 100 metres. We were slowly negotiating a turn and the ruts were not so deep that we had to walk. But before I could determine what the horrified yelping from the front of the bike meant, I was sprawled face first on to of the bike and my guide was beside it with one leg underneath. Shocked, I had no idea what I was doing there. In the middle of my internal assessment of whether or not I had been hurt, she starts barking at me to move from my position. I had no idea what was going on, I rolled to the side and she freed herself from her spot.
I stood, covered in mud and continued my self-diagnosis. I was standing, so that was a good sign. My arms and fingers seemed to work though my wrists hurt a little. A couple other small but insignificant pains. Nope. I was all right. My guide was standing and seemed okay. I asked and she was fine.
The fall wasn’t really that hard, so I didn’t suspect anything would be wrong with the bike, but I was finished with the thing. I was ready to turn around and start walking the 18 or so kilometres back to Sapa while trying to hitch a ride that would get me there in time to catch the bus to Lao Cai so I could make my overnight train.
I turned to look uphill and a convoy of Vietnam War-era military jeeps was heading down the mountain. This could only mean one thing. Tourists! I had never been so happy to see a tour group in my life. They stopped when they saw our overturned bike and before they had finished offering a ride, I was on board. My guide wanted to walk the rest of the way down after she had parked the bike at the side of the road, but I didn’t really care about anything but being on four wheels instead of two at that point.
This group of German tourists seemed pretty confused to have me in their midst, but I happily rode the rest of the way down with them hardly saying a word and inspecting my mud-covered clothes. Even these extra durable jeeps were having a tough time navigating the slippery roads, but I seemed to fatalistically accept each slide we took. If I was going to die today, the best I could hope for was not to suffer much. I exaggerate, of course, but any ride would have seemed peaceful after that bike.
We reached the town in the valley and the German tour guide started speaking to his charge while I stood there wondering what the rest of the day had in store for me. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to spend the night in this village and try to find a way back the next day, catching another train, or if I was somehow going to find my way back to Sapa for dinnertime.
I just decided to pull out my camera and try to have some fun for an hour. Just on hour. I’ll explore the town a little and see what I can see. Just on hour, then I’ll figure out what to do with myself.
No sooner had I made this decision than my guide wandered down the path. Incomprehensibly fleet of foot was this little Vietnamese girl. She soon led me off to her cousin’s home where we ate lunch. She then sent me off for a while alone in the village where I soon discovered that the people here weren’t exceptionally more friendly than anywhere else in the valley. In fact, higher up, the people will be more friendly to you in the hopes of selling you something.
In Ban Ho, I was just invisible. Invisible of course until I asked to take a photo. At that point, I was waved off by every single person I encountered except for one happy farmer who was happily sawing some bamboo. It was again only the kids that wanted to have anything to do with me. Them and the dogs roaming the town. Kids and dogs - the only folks out there who seemed to understand that I’m actually a pretty good guy.
My favourite kids were the ones who invited me into their modest wood house for a game of pool. More to the point, we were just smacking a few billiard balls around. These youngsters (maybe around six to nine years old) had enough trouble seeing over the crooked, worn table let alone accurately aiming a pool cue. But they didn’t care. They were elated whenever I managed to hit a shot (pure luck on this ridiculously off-kilter table). We laughed and giggled with each other then they happily shook my hand when we parted. Their only English was ‘Hello’ and ‘Bye bye,’ but we got along famously.
Unfortunately, one of the nearby residents had to try to spoil the encounter by trying to get me to give him money for playing pool with the kids. I thought maybe it should have been the other way around - after all, I was playing babysitter for a good while there. I shook my head and wondered to where the spirit of sharing disappeared.
I know these people are impoverished, but I have been in far poorer places and there, generosity reigned. So many people in Ghana, for example, were ready to part with everything they had, even though they had next to nothing.
Until a dozen years ago, I’m not sure that the people in this valley were unhappy in their ways. They had not changed their lifestyle for hundreds of years, so perhaps they were content. But I think perhaps the outside world changed that. I’m not going to try to formulate a theory about what happened here to cultivate the area’s changed demands - I really don’t know the history well enough - but I’m almost certain that ten years ago, my experience here would have been entirely different. Perhaps it would have been less comfortable, but I’m almost certain it would have been more rewarding.
After meeting up with my guide again, she told me we would be able to get a ride back with the German tourists at 3:30. That left plenty of time to get the bike and head back to Sapa. But at 3:00, I was just about to make my first friends in the area (I had been playing with some kids and the adults seemed to be warming up to me) my guide came around the corner and suggested we start climbing the mountain. The German group had not yet returned and she was sure there wouldn’t be enough time to get back unless we started off now.
The next hour or so was a power trek up steep and slippery slopes. Lacking traction on my worn-out shoes and lacking breath in my unacclimatized lungs, I sweat my way up the mountain. My guide bounded up the hill with unexpected energy and repeatedly committed one of the cardinal sins of leading a trek - she let the last person get out of sight. Good thing I never twisted that bad ankle of mine or anything. Of course, along the way, with my camera packed up, I passed a plethora of gorgeous, photogenic people. But that’s just me deluding myself into thinking that they would have allowed me to photograph them.
Covered in sweat we reached the bike and renewed the hop on hop off dance that described the last few kilometers of our ride. We finally reached the paved road and since the mists had abated, the rest of the ride wasn’t quite as treacherous.
Back at the hotel, I did my best to stay warm until the bus was set to take a group of us to Lao Cai.
After all that, I would still happily return to the area. It’s a gorgeous place to be. If I’m lucky enough to return, I will most definitely come during the summer to avoid the cold and bad weather. I would also like to be able to stay for a longer period and not do it as part of a tour. If I stayed for a couple weeks and was able to meet more of the people, there would be much more of a tendency for them to know that I wasn’t there to buy their goods. So, the vendors would be more likely to leave me alone and those interested in having a making a connection would be the ones that approached.
I know this because of a French couple I met on my second day. They were a week into their 12-day stay and were just talking with everyone. They had quickly insinuated themselves into the community. And I managed to make a few friends too in my short time there. There was a group of four girls who were cute as could be and spoke good English. They were happy to talk for a couple hours and only once in a while reverted to their habit of asking, ‘You buy?’
So, Sapa, until next time. I hope maybe you can find a bit more of what you probably used to be in that time (unless you prefer it this way).
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