Buy from Me

Lao Cai train station at six in the morning. The place for us, and indeed the rest of the train, to disembark and head for the hills. We had just spent 8 hours on an overnight train from Hanoi, all that was needed now was a mini-bus transfer to the hillside town of Sapa - one of the tourist hotspots in Vietnam. It was not difficult to find a bus, there are loads of them ready and waiting as the train pulls in, however if the bus is not rammed full of people (or anything else that can take up space) you find yourself circling the area looking for customers. This is what happened to us and at 7.30am we had still not left Lao Cai. Patience and tempers where wearing thin with the woman in charge, her aggresive tones suggested we too were angering her. We had had enough after countless promises of "we go in 5 minutes" but our attempts at getting out of the bus were met with shouts and a defiant slamming shut of the door. Ridiculously she was keeping us hostage in her bus in fear of going to Sapa half empty. Two minutes later, as we were preparing our escape, some goods finally arrived and off we went.

Now that should have been the end of it but foolishly we pointed out that she would not be getting paid the agreed 30,000 Dong per person for this debacle. The brakes came on and we were at a sudden stop in the middle of nowhere. The door was forcefully opened and we were ordered to get out. By now we were glad to make her lose business but as the bus sped off into the distance we realised that we too were going to suffer from this. Due to our earlier time wasting most other buses were already on their way up the mountainside, we needed to find any form of transport to get us there so Shannyn and I headed back to Lao Cai hoping to find an answer while Steve and Karen waited by the roadside with the bags. Our first solution came fairly quickly when a guy stopped and offered us the back of his mini-van for the same 30,000 Dong per person. The thought of bouncing around in the back with huge sacks of rice did not appeal at all. Just then a local bus came round the corner giving us a much better option. No English was spoken, only some yelling in Vietnamese as the conductor waved the appropriate notes needed if we were to catch a ride. We agreed and after picking up Steve, Karen and the bags we were on our way once more, this time as the subject of much amusement from the locals on-board. Tribal ladies haled down the bus and enjoyed conversing with Karen and Steve, albeit in different languages. By 9am we had made it to the tourist capital of the highlands, time to find a place to check in to.

One of the older ladies warned us that she would cry if we didn't buy from her and sure enough true to her word she managed to produce the tears as we were leaving

There are many hotels to choose from ranging from the cheap "backpackers" to the expensive "suitable for oldies". We found a clean decent place called Lotus Hotel in the lower price range, good enough even for Steve.

Our first two days here were spent exploring the nearby area and sampling the food and drinks on offer at the many restaurants - apart from several hours at The Red Dragon English pub and some tasty food at the overpriced Baguette & Chocolate we did not enjoy our eating experience, any attempts at tasting Vietnamese food ended in us wishing we were back with the culinary know how of Hanoi.

On day one we trekked 3km down to Cat Cat village, a fairly mediocre place to visit but a nice walk in the countryside none the less. The steep walk back to Sapa seemed a little too challenging so we hopped on the back of some motorbikes... much easier. Day two and we decided that the bikes were so much fun we'd do it again, this time to Ta Phin, a Red Dzao village 20km away. The scenery was fantastic as we made our way firstly through the Black Hmong village of Ma Tra and then past the many rice terraces and green fields that scaled the mountainside. Ta Phin was an interesting experience as we were invited in to one of the villagers homes. We had a cup of tea and a chat here and it was nice to see how they live. We got to see the real modern way that they survive however when we showed signs of leaving. About a dozen of the local ladies beseiged us with embroideries and jewellery to sell with "Buy from me" being a particualrly over-used phrase both here and in Sapa. One of the older ladies warned us that she would cry if we didn't buy from her and sure enough true to her word she managed to produce the tears as we were leaving. The hard sell is all too common in the Sapa region but is just something you have to put up with if you want to see the beautiful countryside and colourful ethnic minorities on show - at least they maintain their tribal appearance unlike many other places we have visited.

Sadly we said farewell to Karen and Steve at this point as they took a minibus back to Lao Cai for their return to Hanoi. It was great having them with us for this leg of the journey. After a well deserved rest day we spent our final day in Vietnam going to the famous sunday market at Bac Ha, 3 hours away. The brightly coloured Flower Hmong women featured here along with quite a few tourists, a multitude of offal chopped into the food and some puppies for sale - sadly not to be taken home as pets! One of the more interesting markets we have been to.

This is the second time we have been to Vietnam and again we were really impressed with it, especially Ha Noi despite other travellers negative comments about the pushy northern Vietnamese. All that was left now was to cross into China - our last land border of the trip. We were a little unsure of the bus times for our onward connection into Kunming (China) so decided to book the whole journey from our hotel in Sapa, they assured us it was straightforward and a helper would cross into China with us to get us safely onto the Chinese connection bus. The journey started well as we left Sapa and drove back down the mountain to Lao Cai (the Vietnamese border town). From here things got a little heated as our helper gave us tickets for the Chinese bus and pointed us in the direction of the bridge into China. Not quite the molly coddled crossing we had paid for and to make matters worse the tickets were for a bus six hours later. We had paid extra for the earlier connection and were not happy. He had done his job apparently and was preparing to walk off. Not being happy at this outcome we were forced into grabbing him, taking his mobile phone and shouting - in these circumstances it was our only option.

Five minutes later and he was on the phone to the hotel trying to sort it out. A non-existant early bus meant that we had to accept an even longer day of travelling but at least we got some of our money back. As for the helping hand crossing the border, we weren't on the friendliest of terms with our helper by now and were happy to go it alone, we had plenty of time after all. If you're going this route you may as well do it yourself and take the 6pm bus from Heckou (the Chinese border town) to Kunming. I'm sure it would be just as easy but with less scope to be ripped off. The less middle men the better.

As we trudged off towards the border we stopped at a cafe to experience one last conversation - just right for reminding us of the communication problems that lay ahead:

Do you speak English?

Yes.

Can we get a Coke?

Cheese.

No, a Coke!

Ok, hot or cold?

Oh dear me, what are we in for... Gary