Vietnam the third: Day 5, Hanoi to Sapa

“Smile, you’re travelling!” is what my alarm would have said at 6.15am had I not already been awake.

For all the mumbling I make about early starts, and we’ve had a few on this trip, to be able to just get on a plane with a minimum of paperwork and fly to another country, spending money hard earned through many long hours of work, is a privilege. So many people in the world will never know this, instead are focussed on their next meal, or maybe even next week’s meals. So for all the mumbles and whinges and minor inconveniences — and they are all exactly that, minor, I mean does an extra travel requirement or having to wear a mask or have an early start really matter? — I know that I am damn lucky, one of a privileged few who can get a passport and earn a decent wage and hop on a plane.

Sermon over, today is heading to Sapa day. Sapa, or Sa Pa, is a place in the mountains to the west of Hanoi, one of those places that the travel guides recommend, and somewhere in Vietnam we’ve never been before. It’s an area that is home to a number of Vietnam’s minority cultures, the Hmong especially. It’s was also briefly occupied by the Chinese when they invaded Vietnam in 1979 (my 5 second take on this is that China got upset that Vietnam went and kicked their buddy Pol Pot’s arse in Cambodia, something for which Vietnam should be forever praised and Henry Kissinger should be flayed alive for, so China invaded Vietnam; Vietnam then refused to fight a fair conventional war, threw in their local militias and reserves, and made China pay in blood for every centimetre gained; like all of these bullshit wars, no one really won).

I’m guessing that in future posts I’ll have more to say about the Hmong way of life, right now all I really know is what can be googled. It seems that, like all minority populations, especially ones who were possibly here first, they’ve had a less than optimal experience. Sapa provides opportunities to understand more about these peoples, so let’s see how that goes.

The drive from Hanoi to Sapa takes 5-6 hours, depending on traffic. Fortunately L did the booking, so the luxury coach actually turned out to be about a 12 seater minibus with plush reclining seats, working aircon, as well as some weird touches like a mirrored ceiling (but at least wasn’t like the “luxury bus” experience I had in Cambodia). Last night’s deluge turned into some steady drizzle, but at least the roads weren’t too busy. We did have to stop for a while due to encountering our first serious accident: it looked like a lorry and an articulated truck met in a bad way.

The drive did give me a chance to reacquaint myself with the marvel that is Vietnamese rural driving, which is a bit less chaotic than city driving but at the same time comes with it’s own bunch of rules about overtaking. Indicators are still optional, but there seems to be an understanding that it’s ok to put on the hazard lights when bombing along on the wrong side of the road. I think there’s also something else going on that I don’t understand, in that there were a number of times I saw drivers had the opportunity to overtake, they had acres of room, all they had to do was pull out and plant the foot. No idea what stopped them.

I also had an idea for maybe a future themed post about travel and how much i love being in resilient countries like Vietnam, places where the people have gone through so much crap, and still have a lot to contend with, but are generally just nice and down to earth. A post for someday.

We had a couple of stops for stretching of legs. The first was a big shed next to a petrol station (diesel at $1.85L), with various stalls and coffee and hot food. IT looked pretty much like most marts in Hanoi, just bigger. The second was just outside of Cao Lai, a few k’s from the Chinese border, and while similar in being a collection of stalls and marts, the products on offer seemed a bit more Chinese influenced: big bags of weird herb mixes, unusual products, just a different feel to almost everywhere else in Vietnam (FYI Vietnam and China hugged it all out in the last 25 or so years and are generally okay most of the time, except when it comes to the South China Sea).

The last 40 or so k’s to Sapa took an hour, as it’s mountain driving, avoiding buffalo, navigating roadworks, deciding whose turn it was to drive on the wrong side of the road, that kind of thing. The views are pretty awesome, so was glad not to be the one driving.

Sapa itself is a bit of a sprawly town, there’s the eastern end, which seems mostly locals, then if gradually becomes more touristy as you go west, which basically culminates in a faux-European behemoth called the Sun Plaza. This building would be out of place anywhere in the world, but I don’t think it actually cares. It probably feasts on the souls of the local peoples, it’s just totally over the top. Appropriately enough, given that it houses the train that goes up part of Mt Fansipan, Vietnam’s tallest point. Inside at the moment it’s a total ghost town, L and I took a wander through and there was almost no one but staff to be found. It seems that even though there were many coaches on the road heading our way (beware big yellow coaches especially) there aren’t many western tourists in town right now to do all the tacky things. Apparently a lot of the current tourists are from within Vietnam, and don’t spend money the same way westerners do (at least according to our very persistent Hmong streetseller source who followed us for about 1km today to try to get us to buy “locally made souvenirs”).

Once we’d checked in, we had our first experience with the local Hmong, a number who follow tourists and try to persuade them to buy “local hand made souvenirs”. With so few westerners in town, pickings are lean, so they are very persistent. We checked out the sights that the Sapa tourist town has to offer: an incredibly photogenically quaint church, the Sun Plaza behemoth, some nice parks and an amphitheatre that houses weekend markets and other events. Then it was food time, so we picked a random bun bo hue place (one that was definitely above any flood levels) and I had Banh Mi Sot Vang, a wonderful mini-baguette with a rich beef stew that was heavily flavoured with aniseed. The whole point of the dish is ripping up the banh mi and dunking it in the stew, gotta like that.

Then it was foot massage time, and my calves needed it as they have started reminding me about yesterday (my knees, quads and hamstrings are similarly not impressed). I mentioned that Sapa is very quiet at the moment, so much that we had to wait a few minutes while the massage manager called around to find a second masseuse. She arrived and just as we started, a family of five (four women and a boy) came in, with the women wanting massages, so then it seemed that all the staff were on their phones calling anyone in town they could to do the massages. My masseur did a good job, especially as I was squirming a bit with very tender calves — hopefully ouch translates from English to Vietnamese.

Back at the hotel, we checked out the Skyview restaurant on the top floor, as it’s fairly well reviewed, convenient, and figured some drinks and snacks after a late lunch would be good. I should add at this stage that, while everyone says “come to Sapa for amazing views of mountains and valleys” we’re pretty much cloud-bound right now, the clouds did part a little around sunset, so we could at least see lights a few hundred metres down the valley, but that’s it for now.

Tao meo, a Sapa “must try” beverage. All the websites say so, but none will actually say what it is or how it’s made, it’s a wine/whiskey made with local assam apples is as far as they go. So I ordered some, a 60mL glass for 20k VND. It was a very generous pour, quite easily 120mL. On the nose is definitely a strong industrial spirit, similar to bai ju, but with hints of fruit, some light esters perhaps. The liquid definitely has strong legs clinging to the glass. It has an okay, lightly fruity flavour, and is quite pleasant in the mouth. Maybe a hint of bitterness, but not overpowering. On swallowing I got a big rush of that industrial spirit, a wave of alcohol straight from the back of the throat into the brain. Fortunately/unfortunately the finish is short, which at least makes it easy to drink a little more. Paired with chips (wonderfully crisp, just how we like them), Hanoi spring rolls (Skyview does some pretty good ones), and the local bamboo steamed rice (interesting, need to try more before I judge) it works okay.

If I had to guess, based on that taste mao teo is either Sapa hooch, distilled in a back yard somewhere, or assam wine heavily fortified with a cheap spirit. I’m leaning towards the latter, based on no evidence whatsoever. A wild guess. But never underestimate the power of my wild guesses, as I sipped my mao teo, with a Bia Hanoi, I mused what the bottle looked like, with my almost exact words being, “95% chance it has a proper bottle, but I’m holding a 5% chance that it’s a recycled plastic bottle.” As we left, I asked the server for a look at the tao meo bottle, and, who would have guessed, I rolled a 20 as she held up a La Vie bottle filled with the golden liquid.

If I feel google inspired I might see if anywhere in town does tours of making tao meo and try to score the good dirt on this interesting beverage.

I’m gonna end on a cliff hanger, remind me tomorrow to tell you about the hotel and our room’s toilet.