All aboard the Nightmare Express

Taking our bearings

Carving Buddhas from tree roots

We recovered for a day with proper sleep and restocked our packs with food and water for the trek. The next day at 9am we met Gom, who would be our guide for the next two days. She was one of sixteen of the "Sapa Sisters", a collection of young Hmong women (Hmong was one of the major tribes) helping each other to empower themselves and to be financially independent. Apparently in the past, they would earn a mere pittance from hotels or booking agencies, and the need for money used to be so great that they would be lured to China for work, only to be drawn into human trafficking later on. This way, they could cut out the middle man and be able to make a proper living from their work, and even possibly become the breadwinners in their family.

Gom herself was a very sweet and petite woman, and not much older than myself at 21. The difference was that she already had a nine month old daughter, and despite coming up only to my chin she proved to be incredibly more adept on the mountains than the three of us combined. Even with our cockiness from asking her to "go where the tourists don't go" and to trek paths "as hard as possible", it  was all easy going for her. Early on the trail, we hooked up with her cousin Mei, another Sapa Sister, and Michelle, a med student from Amsterdam.

Gom teaching Felix how to eat the stem of a plant (tasted sweet)

A wild buffalo appears

Family portrait

These ladies followed us for the first half of the trek, and then wanted to guilt-trip us into buying their trinkets when we stopped for lunch

Can you see the little piggies?

Village girls

The trek overall did prove to be as awesome and inspiring as we were hoping it to be. Surrounded by rice terraces on all sides, we clambered from peak to peak, encountering bamboo forests and timid buffalo along the way. The terraces were like thin layers of a green cake finely cut so that only a bit of each layer was exposed, and when you peered into them from the summit you could only see the sky reflected in their unstirring waters. Just like in Phong Nha, the paths were steep and slick with mud which took a lot of concentration and time for us to conquer, only for locals with baskets on their back heavy with firewood to leap past us into the distance. At the places where we had to descend, it was almost like skiing to get to the bottom, and if you didn't land on your backside somewhere along the way then you could be sure that the mud would somehow be able to suck your shoe off and swallow your feet into the ground.

Bae caught me slippin

The Hmong tribeswomen made these for us

Stopping for lunch

Gom and Mei were very genial and sweet, and would hold hands at the front when the path leveled out. They would teach us the simple games they used to play as girls by using only the surrounding flora, and they explained to us that contrary to our belief, all the plentiful hectares of rice being produced weren't intended for export but just to feed the family of thee tribespeople. To make the hike even better we would be accompanied by excited dogs from the shacks of villagers, and they would also prove to be consummate in leaping up the defferent levels of the terraces like some sort of four-legged acrobat. I was saddened to hear though that a pup with a name should count itself very lucky, as pets were often left unnamed so it would be easier to eat them afterwards.

Gom showing us how to shave sugar cane ...

... and Felix having a go

Actually tasted pretty good!

Mei

The basket carriers were sprinting down the mucky mountain

All hands put to use

Teaching us how to make headdresses

Lenny after a fall

We arrived at her cousin's house at around 6pm, if "house" is even the appropriate word. We'd been told that they lived in a village in the valley, and my mind must still have been preoccupied with the European version of a village because I was stunned to see what it was in reality. It was a collection of five shacks assembled vertically on the slope of a steep hill, with a little creek that was their source of water running down the centre of the mud path which you can call the main street I guess, even though you could only walk down it single file. The house was built on a lower foundation of brick, and then covered up with wood. It was mainly just one big central room that doubled as living and dining area, and wasn't much larger than the size of my bedroom back in Australia. There was a small room tucked in the corner about the size of a bathroom, which housed the beds of Gom's cousin's family, and then a kitchen was annexed off the side where the meals were cooked over burning bamboo twigs. There were no toilets or showers, and the floor was the natural stone of the valley smoothed over by coutnless feet walking across it. One lone lightbulb swung from the ceiling in the central room, and alter that night we would sleep in the loft where they normally stored rice in the cold season. This was about as far a cry away from what I've taken for granted at home, where even windows and your own room are so commonplace that I had to really get my head around the fact that a family of five would be sharing a double bed in a room the size of a walk-in wardrobe.

We cooked a dinner of pork, tofu and bamboo shoots over steaming bowls of rice, and the twelve of us (including Gom's little girl and her cousin's young family) sat around trying to take in the actuality of our surroundings and how tasteful the food was. The baby was soon put to bed and the cousin's kids also retired, as they had to get up at 4 in the morning to go to school. We cleared the table for card games and Mei brought out a 1.5L bottle of what appeared to be water, but what we soon found out was a putrid homebrew of rice wine. Mei strictly enforced that we were not to go to bed until the bottle was completely finished, so it was a torturous night of trying not to be the loser who had to take shots after each round of spoons (except we used chopsticks). Michelle had trouble being on the ball, but we found out later that Felix was in double conspiracies with both Mei and Lenny so that was why he was getting the upper hand. All in all, it was an enjoyable night and the rice wine managed to keep us warm as the cold settled in, and made sure that our sleep was deep and uninterrupted after an energising day of hiking.




Writing this now makes me think about our two guides, and the extraordinary lives they must be living. Mei was the boisterous one who kept blathering the whole trip and boasted of all the different boyfriends she had every night. But under her free-spirited rowdiness was a tenacity that amazed me. Mei was only 19 and could be making enough from being a trekking guide to rent an apartment for herself in Sapa, where she could have a hot shower and heating every night. But instead she entered an agreement with her parents when she was 15 that she wouldn't be given away in an arranged marriage, and in return she would pay for her older brother in the city who was attending university. Most of all though, I think about Gom, and her smile that lit the path the entire journey. As I fell asleep that night, I thought about what her life would become, and if she would always remain among her Hmong tribe for the rest of her life, or if she would seek something else for her future. My last vision before I fell asleep was her baby girl strapped onto her back high up in the mountains, with big smiles spread across both their faces, pointing the way up to the top.

The view from their front balcony

Breakfast

On the second day, we woke up an hour late thanks to the Happy Water. We were keen to hit the road because of our delay, and so with a breakfast rice, potatoes, and vegetables in our belly we set our sights on Gom's cousin's place (another cousin) down the valley, where we would be lunching. Maybe half an hour into the trek, we had to cross a mountain road where there seemed to be a hold-up, with a hauler and a bulldozer going opposite ways trying to squeeze past each other on the narrow, unpaved path. The bulldozer was on the outside edge of the road, trying to flatten the path while behind it waited a convoy of motorbikes with firewood tied to their backs. I was taking point and chatting with Michelle behind me, followed by Gom and Mei, and then the two boys taking the rear. Slightly amused by the truck acrobatics being performed, I led the group up the path on the rim of the road with paddies cascading below to my left, while the dozer descended parallel to me less than a metre to my right. With no warning at all, my conversation with Michelle was interrupted by a loud explosion, and I felt rocks pummeling into my arm. There was a loud scream and I turned around to try to work out what had happened, and my mind immediately thought that one of the truck's engines had exploded, and I started inching back trying to orient myself and surveying the scene. Gom and Mei ran past me, and Michelle's hands were covering her face trying to wipe stuff from her eyes. To my surprise I saw Lenny and Felix two steps down the rice terrace, bent at the waist. Felix was trying to inspect Lenny's head, which was covered in dirt and blood. I checked myself for any injuries and, finding none, joined the others in trying to regroup.

The bikers waiting for the trucks to pass

We worked out what had happened: the dozer's treads had clipped and pierced the back tire of the hauler, releasing God knows how many psi and bursting rock fragments towards us. Felix had foreseen this, and was yelling at both Lenny and the dozer's driver to 'Watch out! Watch out!'. Lenny had turned to see what the fuss was about when the impact of the blast blew both him and Felix off the precipice of the road and down the rice terrace. Michelle had also suffered cuts on her face and arms despite her long-sleeve shirt, and the two guides and myself were for the most part unscathed.

We rushed to find the next stream where the injured started clearing their eyes, trying to rid them of the dirt. Adding to our confusion, what was infuriating was that the driver of the dozer neither stopped to acknowledge us, nor the driver of the hauler. We took stock of the total damage: Felix and Michelle seemed to be alright aside from cuts and irritants in their eyes, but we were alarmed to find that two small pebbles had embedded themselves in the white of Lenny's eyes, and that his vision was obscured by shadows.

Rupture caused by shooting stones

These bad boys have served me since high school in 2008. Will actually be really sad to leave them behind. A loyal pair.

Facing off

Amending our plans, we hurried to arrive for lunch at Gom's cousin's place, which was an even more basic shack with a stone ground, a bed, and a couple of thin benches. A pit had been dug in the stone for the fire, and the place was vented through a large opening in one wall through which cold wind and rain could easily have entered, but my mind didn't dwell long on those thoughts. Our goodbyes to our guides was rushed, but in their poise they were able to call for motorbikes to speed us through the mountains back to Sapa before the fog made visibility even more difficult. We found a large and empty local hospital after the fog had already set, making the scene as macabre and eerie as possible. But aside from squirting water in his eyes, in very broken English the doctor explained that there was nothing more she could do and that no one else in the surrounding villages could either speak English or was qualified for the procedure.

<3

At the Nightmare Hospital

We decided that this was crucial enough that we had to go to Hanoi as soon as possible. It's now five in the morning and we're sitting in an empty hospital having arrived here via sleeper bus. Despite being one of the major hospitals in the capital of Vietnam, the electricity would randomly all shut off and then flicker on again. The last fourteen hours have gone by in a haze of stress and exhaustion, and it's unfortunate that things had to end this way after what could have been an otherwise amazing trekking experience. But I'm sure all of this will blow over and there would be nothing to worry about. We've postponed our cruise in Halong Bay until tomorrow, so hopefully things turn out well for the future, but we just can't see that far ahead yet.

Here we go again ...

Hanoi, 5am