In my previous post, I wrote about my itinerary for the Vietnam trip with my family. This one is a continuation of that where I will tell you interesting insights about the ethnic minority villages and tribes of north Vietnam and how their life has grown or changed over the years.
We visited some minority villages near Sapa, which is a small town in the northern province of Lao Cai (pronounced as Chai) bordering China. You start noticing that the features of the people in these areas are slightly different from other Vietnamese towns and cities. They have a lot of overlap with Mongols and other northern communities. The two names I remember are Black Hmong and Red Dzao tribes.
We got to Sapa after a long drive from Hanoi, stopping at some auto-stops which offered local tea and smokes for tired travelers. Here we tried smoking the long pipe (it looked more like a musical instrument than a pipe for me) that people in Vietnam smoke everywhere. You can see them in shops, streets everywhere. I tried it after the guy selling it showed me how to smoke it. I pulled a puff but didn’t get anything. He showed me again and it make a weirdly cool fluttering sound. So this time I took all my energy and pulled so hard that I replicated the sound he made with the pipe. But at the same time the smoke went directly to my chest. It was so strong that I started coughing like crazy and felt light headed for quite some time after I tried it.
The tea was really nice and gave me a feel-good sensation. Making me feel better at my failed (or not) attempt at smoking. I walked around the shop to see what they offered and found several cool/weird looking snacks (Onion and garlic crunches, spicy-salty biscuit sticks, milk flavored corn-snacks what not!) and stocked up on them for the rest of the trip. Being a huge addict for salty/spicy snacks, buying these came as a no-brainer. There was also roasted green peas which is something we have back in my hometown too. So that came as a pleasant surprise. Another thing I picked up at one of these stops were bamboo rice cakes. These are sticky rice cooked inside bamboo sticks. You would peel off the bamboo bark and eat them. They were nice.
Reaching Sapa by midday, we checked in to our hotel and had lunch at a nearby restaurant. The food was really good. But we always made mistakes in ordering soups because there are noodle soups (Pho) which are eaten as a main course and starter soups which are small in portion. And each restaurant we went to, we made the mistake of confusing both and ended up with too much or too little to eat. Not everyone spoke good English, so clearing these doubts were tricky. It was always a mystery what we would end up with Haha!
Then we started our trip to a village called Cat Cat. There are several minority tribes in these regions. The main ones are Black Hmong and Red Dzao tribes. The Black Hmong people can be seen wearing elaborate traditional wears with colorful designs and the Red Dzao people can be seen with their red headdress. The place is beautiful but as we reached there and started walking around we understood that the place had changed itself to accommodate the needs and the likes of tourists. It wasn’t a traditional minority community sticking to their own way of life. It was a village that had adapted to having tourists around. People were selling handmade bags, trinkets and lots of things and they would crowd around us trying to get us to buy something from them. At one point they were too many and we felt as if we were being escorted wherever we went. These ladies even spoke English. Over the years they have picked up questions and phrases that allowed them to communicate with the tourists. They kept talking to us with giggles and laughter.
“Where are you from? Inliaaaa? Are you marrieed? Do you have a girlfrieeend”
Inliaa is India for those of you who didn’t get it. It was fun listening to their questions with the dragged out last words. Not everyone would enjoy this pushy kind of sales work but it was different and this is how things are done there. You just move along and ignore if you don’t want to be bothered.
The guide told us to not respond to them after some time because if we do, they would follow us till we bought something. It was a unique experience.
We walked through huge paddy fields and saw some farmers and some kids playing around. Beautiful landscape all around. It was so blissful. Some families also make a livelihood from textiles and indigo which they use to dye the textiles made here. You can see some homes where they work on these as you walk through the village. There were shops all along the way to make money from the tourists. Also the place had lots of backpackers hostels and home-stays which would have been a nice experience if I was traveling alone or with friends.
Here we got to learn about an age-old tradition these communities follow- Love Markets. Because they are located in remote areas and there weren’t proper ways of communication or ways to meet people, Saturdays in a month were dedicated to events called as Love markets. These were events were people would go to find a life partner. Guys would sing or play music to woo a girl in such events. These practices still exist but not to the extent as before because now people have smartphones and whatnot. Crazy right! Maybe not! After thinking about life in such conditions I couldn’t say that it is that crazy! There was (or still is, I am not sure) also this custom where the guy could stay with the girl for three days and decide whether he wants her as a life partner and if he decided not, no one would question him! I had my mouth wide open out of shock when I heard this.
If you think this is crazy! Then I have one more shocker story for you! They have a special day once a year when someone who is married can go visit their past lovers and do whatever they want with them!! And… wait for it… and if they get the lover pregnant, the real partner will accept the baby as their own!
Thud!! That’s my jaw hitting the ground. How much more open-minded can they be!
We made our way back to our hotel to reflect more on these and to relax after a nice day of trekking through the villages.
Everyday Mischief 
Very nice description of their lifestyle.Halo Unni v have not rec’d.bammboorice cake.the rare thing.