Friends in High Places

On Saturday, February 14, I took an overnight train to Sapa (elevation 4,500 feet), a small mountain town in Northwest Vietnam, which is popular with tourists (so I wasn't expecting much). I had intended to stay 1 week, which included time going my car to surrounding, less-visited towns. Most people only stay 2-3 days, stepping off the train to have a quick look around, then off again, the box being ticked. I ended up staying more than 10 days I was so enchanted. While I spent 4 days with a guide and a car, going by myself to see the sites of Dien Bien Phu, Son La and Muong Lay, this time was not a highlight. The remaining days I spent exploring the local villages around Sap, home to Tay, Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, and Red Dao minorities.

My guide for the days around Sapa was Lang Giang, a Black Hmong girl I met in the market when I stopped at her family’s handicraft stall. Noticing that she spoke very good English (the Hmong have less of an accent than the Vietnamese), we started talking and I found that she works as a freelance guide for many tour companies in town (many Black Hmong girls do this). For some reason, Lang befriended me straightaway, taking me to her humble apartment for dinner on my first night in town. Through Lang, I came to know a lot about Black Hmong people, and the plight of minorities in general among the Vietnamese. We went on a couple easy treks to villages near Sapa, staying at “homestays”, which are local family homes, slightly modified to accommodate tourists (some with up to 40 mattresses laid out in sleeping lofts). However, the largest crowd we ever had was 7 other tourists at one.

Lang also invited me to visit her in-laws in Pho Lu, south of Lao Cai, and I spent one night with them, observing much with little interaction since no one spoke English. I was treated so graciously, it was embarrassing. I was struck again and again by how people with the least to give are the most willing to do so.

While I paid Lang for being my guide (she left it to me to determine how much, if any I would pay her), her time with me went beyond being simply a guide. In all, I felt a new immediate friend in this girl who could not have come from a more different place. I stayed in Sapa longer because I wanted to develop that friendship and think of ways to help her get an independent guiding business started. Lang is only 20, but is very responsible and determined. She never went to school. Until tourists starting coming and paying trekking permit fees, minority villages didn’t have schools. She taught herself to read and write Hmong and Vietnamese, and to speak English. She is working on learning to read and write English.

The Vietnamese-owned tour companies that hire local Black Hmong girls to take tourists on treks (since they know the trails better than anyone), pay the girls poorly, sometimes as little as $4 a day, making a healthy profit on the packages bought by tourists. These girls teach themselves to speak English from talking with tourists (some have Australian accents, which is funny), but are otherwise uneducated and unable to start something themselves. During my time there, I was humbled and reminded of how lucky I am to have been born in the U.S., to have the opportunity just to go to school! Traveling usually brings that message home, but staying with these families, using the facilities they use, cleaning as they do (cold water and a bucket, squat toilet, etc), brings a whole new perspective.

Photo: me and Lang saying goodbye at the train station in Lao Cai