Sapa Day 3: Saturday

On Saturday morning I woke up at 6:00 am, even before my alarm went off. I lay in bed and couldn't go back to sleep because I was so excited for the oncoming activities. My roomies got up with me at 6:30 and I got dressed and packed my bag for the day. Of course the weather was as perfect as the past two days- about 75 degrees Fahrenheit with almost no humidity at all. We all got breakfast in the hotel's restaurant at 7:00 and I had my usual Lipton hot tea with condensed milk with an omelette, bread, and a banana. I met everyone in the lobby at 7:30 and we then had to wait for the latecomers for 20 minutes. People have to learn to get their act together and not make 15 other people wait for them. Anyways, we left to walk down to the center of town and made it there by 8:00. We were told we had thirty minutes to shop at the market and I did just that. I also helped my roomie, Jill, haggle for better prices for her purchases. It's a fun game I like to play, even though I've just recently mastered the art of haggling.

At 8:30 I met our group right outside the market and we saw five army jeeps drive by. I was instantly nervous and even more so when I realized that our day trip was going to start and end with these army jeeps. I refused to think about the murderers and their weapons that had most likely been in the very seat I had to occupy. I was in a jeep with Tica, Jackie, Brittany, and Cathy. We talked a lot as we drove out of the town on the same twisty mountain roads astride steep cliffs and valleys filled with rice paddies and villages. We also changed seats a few times so that we could all get a chance to sit in the open back of the jeep. There were only a few motorbikes and villagers going by the back of the jeep and it was beautiful and peaceful.

After 45 minutes of riding as a part of the jeep caravan, we stopped at a seemingly random spot beside one of the valleys we were just riding alongside. Our guide, Long, led us all on this sun-hardened dirt path to the bottom of the valley. He led for the first part but then I led for the last half of the hike. I was hopping down into the rocky and dirty ravines and led the group for about half an hour. After a 45-minute scenic jaunt down to the village, we stopped at a hut on the outskirts of the village and rested, found a squat toilet, and rehydrated ourselves. After a 15-minute break there, we continued on down the road and after only five minutes found our intended lunch spot. I went in and sat with some of the H'Mong men as they cooked their own lunch. After ten minutes I joined the rest of our group as they ate our packed lunch of hard-boiled eggs, bread, chicken sausage, and Coke. It was basic and exactly what I needed. I rested, ate, talked, and then changed into my bathing suit.

All of the students left the lunch place at 11:30 and were led by our guide, Long, through the Flower H'Mong village. They wear the extremely bright (almost neon) head scarves and longer skirts. It was only a ten minute walk through the tiny village and over a hill before we saw our final destination- a small waterfall that emptied out into a crystal-clear lake. This lake was also surrounded by cliffs on almost all of its sides, so of course I jumped into the icy spring water and hoisted myself out of the water in order to climb the rock face on one of the sides. Cliff jumping is always a must when standing on top of a 25 foot rock face, so in I went. I then spent the rest of the time swimming around or encouraging people to jump instead of climb down while sunning myself on a nice flat rock adjacent to the jump site. At one point, Bryan decided to take DiDi out to our sunning rock, but she can't swim. I watched as she swallowed a lot of water and it was pretty scary. It was quite the real-life trust exercise to get her to be passed from me to Bryan in order to get her out of the deep water.

At about 2:30 we were told we had to leave fairly soon so I changed out of my wet bathing suit behind some bushes. We walked back to the lunch site and on the way two older men motioned for me to come and sit with them and have some tea. At first I declined but then I reconsidered and backed up to sit with them. I spoke to them in Vietnamese and choked down the burning hot and extremely strong tea. I then continued on to the lunch plane and had a Coke while we waited for a broken-down vehicle to be moved out of the middle of the road. At about 2:45 pm we got back into the same army jeeps and headed back up to the main road. This time, though, we were told we could sit on the back tire with our legs in the back of the jeep and Tica and I did that for a good 20 minutes before we retreated to the back of the jeep when we hit the main road. It was another 45 minutes back to the center of the town of Sapa, where the jeeps dropped us off at 4:30 pm.

Jackie and I decided to walk down the street and took our time before turning around and walking back up the street to Baguettes and Chocolate. I got an apple pastry of some sort and then sat and talked for a long while before DiDi happened to walk by and see us. We paid, left, and walked the short distance back to the hotel, arriving at 5:00. I showered, packed up my things, and went to meet the group in the lobby while dressed in full Black H'Mong traditional garb. Instead of going to a restaurant in town, however, our professor surprised us with a catered dinner on his giant terrace outside his VIP hotel room. It must be good to be a professor. The food was amazing, especially because he somehow managed to order all of my favorite foods- Coke, fried rice, peanuts, my xao bo, and cucumbers and tomatoes.

After thanking our professor profusely for the amazing food and time to be together, our group walked into the center of town to see the "love market at 8:30." There used to be a large group of villagers who would save up their money and come into town on Saturday nights in order to meet and woo the opposite sex. The tourists, however, have driven this "love market" a bit more underground. They meet later and not in the center of town. Instead, our group was allowed to disband and I went shopping with DiDi, Brittany, and Jill yet again. After a while we got very cold and decided to find a nice cafe in which to sit, talk, and warm up. We found one and I got a nice big hot chocolate. We had a full-blown heated discussion about everything from abortion to gay rights to evolution from 9-10:00.

Afterwards, Jill went back to the room and DiDi, Brittany, and I walked up the street to the bar from the previous night. We found Sarah, Dale, Oliver, and Will playing pool with some of the Black H'Mong friends we had made. I was pretty tired and only stayed for about 15 minutes before walking back to the hotel with Oliver. We had our own debate concerning abortion, but he agreed with me more than the girls had. By 11:00 I was cleaned up, in bed, and fast asleep.