Tiny Women and Happy Water

On the sleeper to Lao Cai, I share a room with a sweet, happy Vietnamese family of four, including a precious two-month old baby (the baby is sleeping the whole time, which presumably means he is happy too). They invite me to join a makeshift Tet celebration before we all go to bed, which consists of cheap beer and beef jerky, and we chat for a while as best we can. I go to sleep in good spirits, but get woken up by a loud knock on our door at 5:00 the next morning when we reach Lao Cai, and sleepily walk outside to a cold, heavy fog. Needless to say, my mood wasn't so good anymore, and only worsened by the fact that a visit to the spectacular hills in the northwest corner of Vietnam is only worthwhile if you can actually see the hills. ___________________________________________________ After breakfast in nearby Sapa, my tour group--a decidedly unhappy bunch at the time--is taken on a van ride and then led on a short walk down a muddy hill to a small village, where we all try to keep our shoes and pants as clean as we can. On the way down, tiny women from the village pair off with us and begin asking us questions about where we're from, our families, etc. This is all exceedingly confusing to us all until we realize that our "short walk" is actually a ten-mile hike, most of which is along a narrow, slippery, hilly path along the hillside across from the village. It is absolutely impossible to keep your footing on the path, especially when you're wearing old, worn out New Balances, and every step feels like a disaster in the making--at least after my first fall, straight on my rear, I don't have to think about keeping my jeans clean anymore. At one point, as we're crossing the tiny ridge of a water-filled rice terrace, I'm being held up at the hips by our guide while my tiny woman is gripping my front arm, which is all that can be done to keep me from falling face-first into the water. I'm seriously wondering at this point if I should just turn back, get on the next train to Hanoi, and fall back asleep. ___________________________________________________ After a while, when our bodies warm up and we start to find both the challenge and the humor in the whole sort of surreal hike we're on, the mood brightens a bit. And, although during the hike itself I was too busy watching my shoes and finding God to stop and look around, we do pause occasionally at little landings to regroup, and the fog has cleared enough to see our surroundings--it really is as breath-taking as advertised: a long, green valley with seemingly endless rice terraces in both directions, big rolling hills above them, a rocky stream flowing at the bottom, and a few scattered homes along the ridge. When we get moving again, it's still impossible to get up the hills of the path alone, but the women are shockingly strong--even though they couldn't be more than 4'6" and 80 pounds, they are able to hold or pull the entire weight of their comparatively inept partner without slipping or stumbling once. I was too in awe of my tiny woman to feel at all demoralized that a tiny woman was holding my hand in order for me to survive the hike. When we get near the next village, the women pull out the bags they're carrying and transform into saleswomen--so I guess they weren't just helping a bunch of tourists out of the goodness of their hearts. We all buy things, in essence to pay them for their services, and they head back to their village with their spoils. ___________________________________________________ After a lunch break, the rest of our walk is pretty easy--a dirt road, and then a steep (but thankfully dry) path down a long hill to the village where we'll be spending the night. On the way down, the view of our destination and the valley/hills stretching behind it is again really spectacular--at times we just stop and stare for a while. When we get to our homestay, we are treated to an array of really good dishes, and after we are done eating, our guide breaks out a Aquafina bottle filled with potent "Happy Water" (i.e. home-brewed rice wine, which is much closer to vodka than it is to wine). Our tour group (five Germans working in Beijing, two middle-aged Israeli-American couples, a pair of cheery young Australians, and myself) relaxes and chats while downing shots to the traditional cheers of our various homelands. Shockingly, I end up in a long and frustrating debate about Israel/Palestine with one of the Israeli couples, but for the most part, everything is really relaxed and totally enjoyable, no doubt due in large part to the perfectly peaceful setting. It ends up being one of the nicest nights of my trip. When the Aquafina bottle is polished off, around 8:30 PM or so, the group slowly shrinks as people head to the row of mats in the homestay house and fall into sleep. ___________________________________________________ The next day is much warmer, and everyone is decidedly more well-rested and happier than on day one. The village is filled with farm animals (it seems to have embraced the economic benefits of tourism without losing its foundation as an agricultural village), and when I walk downstairs, the first thing I see is a male and a female pig walking towards each other down different streets that meet at our guesthouse, almost like businesspeople on a weekday morning. The pigs meet at the intersection, the male sniffs the female's behind, and they each continue on their way to to their respective destinations, the female wagging her tail vigorously. I love animals. After a breakfast of crepes, we head on a nice hike along the rocks beside a stream, eventually reaching a small waterfall, and then after lunch, back up the hill to the main road, which is a tough but rewarding climb. A few hours back in Sapa to eat street food and rejoin the mass of tourists, and then we head back to Hanoi as a dirty, foul-smelling, and pretty content group of folks.