Erik's Travels: sapa, skinny white man, mudlsides, and the best 12 dollars i have ever spent

pictures fixed, new update asap

this weekend we took a night train to sapa. i decided to let morgan the 17 year old from new york book the entire trip becuase i was too lazy to do it myself. she actually did an excellent job and the crazy stuff that went wrong on the trip was certainly not her fault. we barely made it to the train station on time, we had to pick up some stuff in town and we had to go back becuase morgan left her passport at peace house. we met two shady dudes who had our train tickets to sapa and nothing else. i was about 90% sure that when we actually got to sapa the hotel and tour would all be a scam. on the train they sold way too many tickets, so the locals were sitting in the eisles on those little plasics seats that are all over vietnam. they had to sit on them for like 12 hours!!! when we got into sapa our hotel and tour turned out to not be fake. the hotel was beautiful with a balcony and incredable view. when you go into town all of these cute little h'mong girls chase you around, ask you tons of questions and try to sell you the crafts that their mothers make. unlike the people on the street in tanzania who make you want to choke them as soon as they open their mouths, these street saleswomen are so cute and funny that you never seem to get tired of them.

we went into a small village near the hotel on our first day. our guide took us to a water fall and showed us how most of the traditonal people live off of the land. sapa is very hilly, so the locals carve steps into the hills to grow rice. they also grow lots of indigo which they use to dye the awesome traditonal clothes that they wear. the trek into the village was pretty light, so we had lots of energy left to hang around sapa town that night. a bunch of little h'mong girls were watching some people play pool through the window of a local bar and i made the mistake of pointing them out to my friends and refering to them little girls. they got real offended and started arguing with me. i told them that i was just a skinny man, so they shouldn't be offended. they thought that was hillarous and followed me around all night calling me "skinny man". another h'mong girl came up to me and kept offering to buy all of my clothes. i kept telling her that i didn't want to be naked in sapa, but she kept trying anyway. i think that she might have been drunk, or maybe just crazy. i got a few videos of her that i'll try to post when i get to korea.

the second days trek was pretty intense. we hiked up and down these huge slippry and muddy hills. everyone kept falling. i had a little old woman holding my hand half of the time so i didn't fall of a cliff and die. we went to the village that our tour guide was from first. they only got elecetricty two years ago. the villiage was like something out of a movie. a river running through hills filled with stepped rice paddies, water buffalo and chicken everywhere, and of course a posse of cute little h'mong girls chatting with you and trying to sell you stuff. i actually broke down and bought a ton of stuff. their bags and blankets are so cool and cheap that i could not resist. the one blanket i bought turned my hands and neck blue from the indgo. my tour guide thought it was pretty funny. when we got back to town we showered and got ready for our bus ride to the train station. it turned out that there was a huge mudslide that wiped out the railroad tracks, so we had to take a bus to the next station. as we were getting on the bus my favorite little h'mong girl ran up and gave me a free braclent to give sunni, and her gmail adress!!! the fact that these kids who only got power 2 years ago have gmail already is just mindblowing. i gave her mine too, so now i have a h'mong pen pal.

the bus ride was long, hot, and kinda scary. the roads were pretty bumpy and it was clear that they were nearly washed out from the storm. when we finnaly go to the next train station it was total chaos. people everywhere pushing and trying to pick up their tickets. it turned out that our tickets were purchased by the travel agent for the wrong day!!! we all started freaking out becuase the town was very dark, unfreindly and unsafe, there were no hotels, and no one spoke english. i tried several times to get tickets from the ticket window, but every time the staff would slam the window shut in my face and pull down the shades. after a ton of effort we were able to buy three scalped tickets for 200,000 dong each. i was about 60% certain that the tickets were fake and would leave us stranded in nomans land. after a 2 hour, blisteringly hot wait we were able to get on the train. an american couple that sat in from of me were thrown out by their bus driver and had to walk like 3 miles up to their wastes in mud. they were filthy, their feet were bleeding and look sooo depressed. i tried to cheer them up, but they were too far gone.

after the night train i got another massage and crashed a cool hostle in downtown hanoi. peace house was a mess when i got back, but í'll save my last two days in hanoi for my next post. i'm currently killing time at a hostle in hanoi, i fly out for korea in a few hours. i'll update when i get there.

night train