But when I open my eyes I am greeted with the most unimaginable beauty. A shame as it is very misty so colours are dumbed down and visibility is not great, but here I am in this town on the side of a hill, bigger than I expected, a beautiful lake in the middle and the most amazing scenery.
Hmong ladies meet the busses, no doubt wanting to sell stuff.
I get to the hotel, eager to get moving but I am told there is a complimentary breakfast, so I choose French Toast with grilled bananas and a local honey that is unbelievably good. Ed Bee, sorry you and your honey are off my top list. I finish breakfast grab my backpack and I don the woolies I have there and I'm away exploring.
Turning left I walk straight into a market place, where I immediately find a pair of walking shoes to replace those are a hurting my feet. I pull on a pair of thick sockks and bury my feet in the warm shoes. My top half is warm with a t.shirt, merino, cardigan and a polar fleece. My legs with trackies under travel trousers. And I have a hood for my head. Gloves not needed as I have deep pockets.
It's different from what I expected. Quite a large town set in the side of the hill, full of tourist shops and many restaurants, mainly western/vietnamese but western style. The scenery that I came to see is obscured by mist and everyhing has a grey hue. Shame.
Nevertheless I walk on and wander taking in the sights as best I can in the mist. I pass many food stalls with delicious food ready for BBQing, immaculately clean and no flies. Later I say.
A young Black Hmong (I can tell from her outfit), with a baby on her back joins me and starts hastling me to buy buy buy, or come to my village. M neither of which i wanted to do. She tells me she has embroidered all the bags she is selling which I know not to be true as I see the made in china labels on them. Same handcrafts as the Hmong do in Lao but not of the good quality that much of the Lao stuff is. There are Hmong all over the place, mainly selling or wanting to be a guide, but other ethnicities are not so obvious. Shame I was hoping to see some of the others as well. I eventually get rid of the Hmong girl and all the others that have tagged along by telling her that I wil buy one thing from her and only her, tomorrow, but only if the price is right. Lets see what happens.
I wander on and suddenly I hear my name being called. I look up and there are the girls from my carriage on the train last night. We chat a while and they show me the first group of kids that are going to receive warm clothing. They range from about 2 up to around 10, all homeless and most without jackets and wearing plastic shoes, flip flops or barefoot. It broke my heart. We talk for a while and I keep staring at the wee cold feet but like the wee kids in Kenya see the huge smiles as I look upwards from their feet. These smiles though don't come with the sparkly eyes and most the kids look sad. I couldn't look.
I bid my goodbyes and walk a wee way. I look back over my shoulder then turn back. I couldn't walk off without helping. So spent part of the afternoon helping to distrubute clothes to these poor kids. Some have been abandoned, some orphans due to war, accidents and illness, some of the older ones caring for wee siblings and all looked after by the HOPE group who provide them with a clean but basic bed and meals. The two wee girls in th ephot are sisters. The elder one looks after the younger who has never had proper shoes or a jacket. Just broke my heart. How can wee mites like that not have anyone to care for them and nothing to keep them warm.
Seeing the smiles on the faces of the children and feeling their bodies warm up as I wrapped them in their jacket was indescribable. Here they were getting some pretty cheap items of clothing, in a red plastic bag and they were so so so happy. They knew warmth for the first time in many weeks since it snowed here unexpectedly. As Impulled eaxh wee hand into the jacket sleeve I couldnt help noticing the layers of dirt on their skin and their clothes, caked on. The darlings, they need a hot bath, drying with warm fluffy towels and a night in a warm bed wearing fluffy pjs. Heartbreaking. But their smiles, their sparkling eyes I will not forget in a long time.
When I saw the kids in the street later on they were waving and calling out to me. Wow. The two beautiful girls that organised this deserve a medal. Amazing to be doing all this for kids they didn't know, in a country they didnt know and using their precious holiday time and money. They fundraised in their homelands (1 from Thailand and the other from Taiwan) before coming to the markets in Hanoi and buying all the stuff. To see more about them search on SHOES FOR SAPA on facebook. They deserve support and will still accept donations so they can ensure that their idea continues beyond this season.
When I leave the kids it is still misty but my day has been so great I have lost my enthusiasm for much else. It is very cold and the place is swarming with tourists.
I pass a stall that was BBQing in the sidewalk. They had a wee suckling pig on the spit.
An Austrlian guy tels me it is just $7.50 so I hang around to try. It took ages to make them understand what I wanted and I had to keep reminding them that I was waiitng but eventually they cut a piece off the pig and put it on the BBQ to finish cooking it. I also asked for a rice in bamboo and a skewer that had rolls of beef around some green veg. He pulls out a not so clean plastic plate from under the counter and puts my rice and skewer on it and tells me to go sit down while the pork cooks. Both the rice and skewer were yum and then He brings the pork, chopped up nicely on a cleaner plate. Well, $7.50 was a total rip off for some crackling, fat, bone and the tiniest piece of meat that was so
tough I couldn't chew it. I nibbled on a couple of pieces, nearly choked on the fat, paid my bill $8.00 in total and left. The rice and skewer for .50cents were the best patt amd not just because of the price.
Not my scene. I think of doing a tour or trek tomorrow to fill time but find out that my choices are limited because I am a solo traveller. I have to check out by noon and dont leave Sapa till 5pm so just hoping that the mist clears so I can at least go out and enjoy the scenery.
My feet are sore, my back is sore and my throat is sore so I am thinking an early night is in order. I return to my hotel and shiver when I walk into the room.. Despite the heater working in my room it is stil cold and the dehumidifier is obviosuly not that good as everything feels damp. Another night sleeping in these same clothes I think.
For dinner I walk down to a nice place where I had a coffee earlier today. By day it should look down onto the rice paddys, by night across to the lights of the town which I can only just see because of the mist. It is full of tourists, western and asian, but then I suppose in a tourist town thats what to expect. I order BBQ pork with lemon grass which comes with steamed rice and is exceptionally tender and tasty. The pork sits on one of the BBQ thingies that are supposed to be eexclusive to each of the four countries I have been to, and was very very good.
To finish it off I order rum flambeed banana. I know that everyone would hate it but maybe if you could just have a wee whiff you might change your mind. Sweet soft bananas, slightly charred giving off a smoky taste sitting in a subtle buttery rum sauce. To save my friends I ate it all and nearly asked for seconds. And to top it off, my meal, desert and a coke cost less than the pork rubbish I tried to eat for lunch.
I leave with the intention of having a hot drink at the hotel before going up to bed. Alas the one and only staff member (who barely speaks English or any other language other than Vietnamese) tells me 'no tea' so now I sit at "the Hill Station patiently waiitng for an earl grey. They have some neat seating here. Round glass tables about 18" off the floor with round coils of rope acting as seats. Cute.
Feeling better with a hot tea inside me I return to the hotel and uplift my hotel key. The hotel has rather eclectic furnishings, very tasteful but who ever came up with the idea for the keys needs a lobotomy. It is a small hotel, old, with creaky floors, creaky doors that dont close properly so you have to whack them into place. The key hangs off a large wooden cow bell which also has dangles hanging off it. All make a noise. So when opening or closing the door you get the knocking of the cow bell, the tingling of the dangles, the clicking of the noisy lock and the whacking of the door for each open and for each close. Duh!
As I am getting ready for bed (and listening to,someone trying to open their door complete with doorbell, door scraping on the ground, squeaky hinges and hacking cough) I am trying to find something in my bag and then trying to find the light switches! Easy you might ask, but almost every hotel room I have been in over the last two months (and there have been many) has "mood" lighting. So,e have been bright enough to have a bed side lamp as well as the "mood" lighting but most have not. I always wonder why it is called "mood" lighting because most times it is so dim that all it does is get me in a very bad mood because I can't find things, can't read and can't even put makeup of anything on. It's not an Asian thing as it happens all over the world.
In my current room there is an uplight above the TV set and it shines on the ceiling. Another uplight shines on the ceiling in between two windows. There is no light anywhere near the bed, the mirror or the wardrobe and the light switches for bedroom and bathroom are in the bathroom which is round the corner from the bedroom.
The bedside table sits under the window by itself and the hairdryer hangs on a hook miles away from anything including the power plug. But there ate beautiful ornaments. No room for my things. I just trod on my specs which had fallen off the toilet bag which was using the only possible bit of bathroom space. Maybe I shall start designing hotel rooms.........
I just heard scuttling noises and look out the window to investigate. I could see a truck with whatblooked like huge baskets. Then one of them moved, then a tail waggled and I realised that therewere probably 60 huge pigs on this truck, all lying down in large bamboo baskets, all grunting and wiggling. It made me realise that this corner is the closest road entry to the market opposite. Bugger.
The pigs start to squeal, loudly. Oh no, please stop I do not want to be put off pork for life.
I am complaining too much, time to go home to my quiet house, my mad cat, my warmth, amazing shower and tidy clothes.
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