Sapa

From Laos, as planned, we returned to Vietnam by road.  Several hours of bus ride on the agenda. Armed with patience, off we went. The boarder was out in the boonies! Nothing was close to it either side. We knew we had to have our visa’s ahead of time since there is no visa delivery here. Between the Laotian border and the Vietnamese boarder, there is an approximate 2 km of No Man’s land.

It is worth mentioning that, until now, the Coronavirus had served us well… no Chinese were travelling and so tourism was low everywhere we went. Who can complain about that! But here and now, things were slowly catching up to us. Here, out in the boonies, not only did we need to have our visas in hand, we also had to show body temperature under 38°C (in 40°C weather under the pounding sun… no stress). First, on the Laotian side where English language is non-existent, the border officers would simply «point» a thermometer to the middle of your forehead. I have to say that even knowing they have a thermometer in hand, having someone in authority and uniform point anything between your eyes comes with an uneasy feeling! That said, everyone was free to move on to the Vietnamese side of the border. Well, here they don’t mess around with pharmacy grade thermometers. They have an army grade machine you have to stand in front of as it scans your full body for temperature! Seriously we were quite impressed to find this technology out in the middle of nowhere!!!

4 hours into Vietnam, we had a pit stop/ sleep over in Dien Bien Phu. Only to take yet another bus the next day - direction Sapa. Several hours of minivan brought us through beautiful scenery but I have to say that the road was ever winding! Seriously, although I do not usually get car sick, this ride was not so easy and some concentration was necessary to keep everything down where it should be! The boys sat up front with the driver and so managed a bit more easily.

We were looking forward to reconnecting with the Vietnamese and discovering the northern part of Vietnam. We read soo much about the beautiful rice field covered scenery around Sapa. Once we reached our destination, we were a bit thrown off by the fog! Thick fog covered the city and absolutely no views were to be had… and the city seemed to have fallen asleep with it . Restaurants closed, no one walking the streets. It was late, we found our guest house, put our bags down and after finding something to eat we called it quits for the day. 

Next morning we woke up to yet another day of fog, but the best news is that the guest house was well above that and so out we sat on the terrace, having breakfast and basking in the sun up above a beautiful sea of clouds! It was magical!!

We took this opportunity to kick back and get some school work done.

Another reason we were looking forward to exploring northern Vietnam, was to head out and meet with the ethnic minorities that live out in the surrounding hills. For this, we planned 2 excursions. 2 days one night each. ​

We set out on the first one. On the agenda here, trekking (as usual) in the rice fields and discovery of the Red Dazeau people with a home stay.  Our host, Mia Kieu, spoke fair English and was very welcoming of us in her home. We spent the afternoon just hanging around with her and her family as they went around their normal activities. 
​The family owns several farm animals (pigs, chickens, ducks, dog , cats) that all need feeding. The kids were happy and eager to participate. Although this is not the right time to see the rice terraces in full crop, just seeing them was quite the interesting sight!
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Alex and Olivier also set out to explore a small cave as Éloïse and I stayed back to watch the ladies sew their costumes. They are extremely patient and stitch every detail of their fabric to create lovely designs, by hand and stitch by stitch over months... occasionally using their same stitching needle to perform some acupuncture on a family member as if it were all the more natural to do so, resuming the stitching once done.

Mia Kieu with her warm smile leading us through her country side in the search for some herbs

​Alex and I were mostly looking forward to heading out to collect herbs in the forest. These would serve for our herbal bath that evening. The Red Dazeau use traditional medicine in many ways, one of which is herbal baths. Mia Kieu was telling us about how as an example, 1 week after a woman delivers, she is back out in the field with her baby on her back, helping the family with the chores of the rice field. They attribute this possibility to the herbal baths the women take daily after the baby is born. The herbal baths are prepared with the fresh herbs they gather, picking the ones they need to serve the intended treatment. They boil them for hours (3-4) before pouring the boiling hot water into hand made wooden tubs. 

Day 2 with Mia Kieu was all about walking through the country side and the rice terraces from her village back to the main town of Sapa.

Once back in Sapa, we regained the guest house for the night before heading back out for a second homestay trek this time with the Black Humongs. This trek started out somewhat differently. 2 young girls with their babies on their backs were there to great us at the set meeting point (rather than the lady we booked the trek with). Off we went following them as we slowly hiked up the mountain. The elevation gave us great views of the surroundings which we had plenty of time to contemplate since we stopped often giving them time to breastfeed their little ones.

A few hours of walking brought us to the family home we were supposed to stay overnight. One look around and we knew we had to change our plans... we are really not very picky (actually not at all) but this was just not going to work. We thanked the ladies and went on our way. We knew we could walk down the other side of the mountain to a small village we had seen in the guides and that we could find a small guest house for the night. 
And this is when Covid made a serous entry into our trip....
Arrived in the small town, we quickly identified a guest house that had vacancies according to booking.com. The usually welcoming Thai people only just opened up the door a crack to see who came knocking. They asked for our passport and nationality and then closed the door. We could hear some whispering but couldn't tell what was being discussed. The timide lady came back and uncomfortably said they were full. We obviously argued that we knew they were not and she finally told us that the government had stated that no guest house could take in tourists... how weird??!! But then the next one , and the next one and the one after that all said the same thing... what in the world was going on?? So we decided to taxi back to Sapa and hopefully take the overnight bus that we originally were booked to take the next evening. Oddly, we had a really hard time finding a taxi...
Arrived in Sapa just after dark, we were faced with a totally different town than the one we had left that same morning. Thais were not willing to let us in to their shops and would run to the back with their face masks and saying "no tourists, Covid!". Some of the small businesses had signs up on their doors stating the same thing. 
What in the world was going on... we made it to the bus shop and managed to find out from the very scared owner that all buses and ferries to Halong were cancelled starting the next day but that we could try to get on the bus that evening although he could not garantee that there would be enough room on the bus. Panic had struck... apparently 3 German tourists we in the region and had just tested positive for Covid. All tourists were identified as a risk. 
So cutting this story short, we managed to get on a very overcrowded night bus with who knows how many people piled up on each other in between the rows... and so that was that, we hoped we could put this Sapa craziness behind us as fast as we could. Sauve qui peut!!