H’mingling with the H’mong

Up in the mountains of Vietnam, right by the border with China, lies the little town of Sapa. This is the place to get your trekking on, whether you want to climb Mt. Fanispan (SE Asia’s highest peak) or check out local tribal villages. We took the night train up from Hanoi and were eager to incorporate some trekking back into our lives – the delicious food in Vietnam was wreaking havoc on our waistlines. Sapa itself is vaguely reminiscent of a ski town, but instead of ski bunnies strolling around, you have local villagers going about their business. There are a few different tribes but we mainly saw Black H’mong and Red Dzao decked out in their colorful garments. I’ll tell ya, when a smiling H’mong woman approaches you in full traditional costume trying to sell handicrafts, it’s hard to say no.

Our main goal was to sort out some kind of trekking excursion into the hills, so we could get a close up view of village life. Most of the guesthouses and agencies book the same tour which hit up three villages – we had already visited on motorbike the day before and it was a total tourist clusterfuck. Wanting something different, we asked around and settled on a 2-day/1-night trek northeast of Sapa. The biggest minority group is the Black H’mong, who live in the mountainous regions across SE Asia. We walked along beautiful mountain paths which led through various settlements where people still eke out a living on subsistence farming and producing local goods. Their lifestyle was very simple and basic, ignoring the fact that most houses had satellite dishes and TV’s tuned to Vietnamese soap operas (only one large pig for a year of service!) And the fact that dirt roads were being paved over to make way for more tourism, courtesy of the government.

Tui, our guide, was amazingly informative and helped shed some light on our understanding of both H’mong and Vietnamese culture. He told us how his father used to be a fisherman near Halong Bay but took advantage of land incentives by the government to settle in Sapa. This is a common practice to push out local people from their ancestral lands. China, for example, is doing the same thing by encouraging Han Chinese to move to Tibet, which is already diluting the culture there. The H’mong, by the way, have a very uneasy relationship with Vietnam and the feeling is mutual. To highlight this sentiment, I’ll leave you with a quote from a young girl who proclaimed, “I am NOT Vietnamese. I am H’mong. I hate Vietnam!”