Trip to Sa Pa

Aaaaaaah, Sa Pa. We just got back from 5 days in the mountainous North of Vietnam on the border with China. Sa Pa is where many different minorities live. The main groups are the Black Hmong, Flower Hmong, Giay (pronounced "zai") and the Red Dao (pronounced "zao"). All the minority women colorfully embroider their traditional clothing and wear it proudly. The Black Hmong weave fabric and dye it with indigo. Then they embroider the trim with lots of color. The Giay are more reserved in their dress but all the women wear colored scarves on their heads. We noticed that the Hmong men are the only ones who wear traditional dress.

The older Dao women wear big beautiful head wraps with beads, etc. The younger women wear more simple scarves and one woman told me it is because the beautiful head wraps are heavy and hard to work in. The younger women work hard and therefore need more simple, light-weight head wraps. The woman on the left is younger and wearing a simple head wrap.


Here are some other minorities we saw at the market. On the left are the Flower Hmong with their beautiful bright clothes. On the rights are some Thai minority women.

We loved interacting with the people and seeing the incredible terraced rice fields, animals and mountains. Amazingly, it didn't rain the entire time we were there. We had cold nights and mornings and cool days with a bright sun. We visited 8 separate villages, including Sa Pa, and loved interacting with the people. We hiked all over the place and Emma kept up with us step for step - she is such a trooper! The Hoang Lien National Park had stunning terraced rice fields that covered the entire mountains on both sides - even up to the top. It was a beautiful example of man's coexistance with nature and harvesting every last resource.

Emma's and Xander's favorite parts were seeing all the animals. Everywhere we went, Christian and I were pointing out ducks, baby chicks, pigs, water buffaloes, goats, dragonflies, butterflies and anything else that moved or made noise. Xander had a particular interest in the machines used for road construction "Scoop!" "Dump Truck!" "Big Truck!" etc. We saw lots of water buffaloes, but not many people riding them.


We met a Giay minority woman (bottom right) and her family as we were exploring one village. We went off the beaten path and it was worth it. She was the grandmother and brought out all her family. She and Christian had a nice chat. She has 12 children - she doesn't look like it, does she? She was very nice and Emma loved running around the pathways in front of the house with the other little children. Neat family, good memory.

We rented motorbikes with drivers for a few of our trips out of town and I was able to catch this photo of Christian and Xander on the road. We would have tried to drive ourselves but the roads weren't remotely marked and we were traveling deep in the countryside. Our last day, we took a trip up to the Silver Waterfall.

The only trip we regretted was out to the Bac Ha market. We spent 4 hours on a bumpy dirt road squished in the back of a bus. Amazingly, the kids did really well. The trip should have taken 2 1/2 hours each way, but the entire road was under construction and there was even a landslide that wiped out part of the road and some busses were stuck deep in the mud. It was quite a site to see heavy-duty road equipment towing the busses out. We finally made it to Bac Ha and were told we had only one hour to spend at the market - what...that's all!!??! Afterward, we went inside a few people's homes. Then back on the bus for a 3 1/2 hour drive back to Sa Pa. This was our least-favorite trek. The market was good, however and we got to see many more Flower Hmong women shopping and living life. These women are carefully inspecting and buying thread to ebmroider with.

Back in Sa Pa many people sell their wares and textiles all day long. This is a family eating dinner as they oversee their blanket of goods for sale.

Others just walk the streets selling trinkets of all kinds. We were surprised to see so many Black Hmong children out selling on the streets, when they should have been in school. We didn't see many Red Dao children, but the Red Dao women were more tenatious and persistent with their selling methods...to the point of being obnoxious!

We loved our trip. We hope you enjoy the photos too : ) Here are some of our kids at some church ruins and our family at the Silver Waterfall on our last day.