In early December, Yen and I spent two days in Sapa with Shing and her mom (Mrs. Kong). One of the must things to do while in Sapa is to go on a trekking tour, which are hikes into the countryside to see the landscape, villages and interact with the ethnic minority groups. We spent both days trekking. Sapa is known for its rice terrace landscape, but all the rice had been harvested by the time we were there, so the landscape was probably not as vibrant as it is in the spring or summer but was still quite beautiful.
On our second day, our guide was a local Hmong girl. As we started our walk from our hotel, several of our guide’s friends started accompanying us, so we ended up with a company of five young Hmong ladies and their babies guide us on our trek. The Hmong girls were very friendly and told us about their families and lives as we hiked through the rice terraces and villages. We really enjoyed the trek and having the Hmong girls with us was really enjoyable and enhanced the experience. However, when we stopped for lunch, our guides transformed into aggressive sales people pushing their handicrafts and jewelry onto us pleading us to buy their stuff. We ended up buying several items out of obligation, but it left somewhat of a bad taste in our mouths as we had viewed them as friends up to that point. In the end however, we understood that the girls were just trying to make money. We just wish they were more upfront about it because we were planning to tip them anyway for the experience they gave us during the hike.
You might notice that most of my photos below are of women and children. We did not see many men among the ethnic minority groups during our treks. One of our Hmong guides told us that the men go out gathering wood to heat the homes and stoves this time of the year. We were also told that most of the men do not dress in their traditional clothing because they get discriminated against when they do.
Our guides and Yen taking a brief break.
Mrs. Kong and Shing getting a ride at the end of a hike. Shing is behind Mrs. Kong on the bike, but you can't see her.
