VIETNAM NORTHERN HIGHLANDS - Bac Ha Market and goodbye to Hanoi and Kha

Another busy but brilliant day. Left the hotel in Sapa at 8am with luggage in tow as we weren’t coming back and set off on a three hour drive to the Bac Ha market. As we were driving through Lao Cai enroute we passed a square with hundreds of people. We stopped to see what was going on. It was a celebration of their independence since 1945. There must have been at least 500 middle aged to elderly line dancing to Abba but in an incredibly milatary but Tai Chi type way. It was incredibly moving and made you realise how and why Vietnam have won so many wars. 500 young children, each with two red flags then performed in front of the dignitaries. We didn't stay for it all but the teenage group followed them and the police in their smart green uniforms were also marching. It was quite a spectacle.

On we travelled to Bac Ha where there is a large Sunday market. It's equally as high as Sapa, around 1500m and where the various hill tribes come once a week to buy and sell or just to socialise. Some will have walked 5-10 miles or more. It was such a wonderfully colourful affair as many of the hill tribes here are called the Flower Hmong. The girls have such healthy and beautiful faces compared to the Black Hmong we had seen in Sapa, plus they wear very colourful clothes and headscarves.

The market was huge with hundreds and hundreds of people and children. The men were gathered in certain areas. They were either buying and selling buffalo, dogs and pigs, having a haircut or testing the tobacco from the mounds in front of them before they buy. Women were selling clothes, embroidery, spices, silver jewellery and ornaments, lacquerware, all types of vegetables,fruit, meat, fish and lots of rice. And then there was the eating area. Very large with probably about 100 tables with men, women and children all sitting on the familiar low plastic stools or crouched together, sharing their stories of the week, smoking pipes and eating a lot of food we wouldn’t recognise. Kha bought us a rice pancake wrapped in banana leaf which was pretty safe looking and tasted surprisingly delicious. David’s was green and had a slight seaweedy taste to it but equally delicious.

As we drove away back down the hill we passed people on their way back to their villages. We passed a couple of men on a motorcycle with a horse they had purchased tied to the back. You wondered whether the horse would still be alive by the time they got to their destination as it was miles to the nearest village.

It was getting close to lunch so we stopped in a nearby town where Kha bought a picnic and some ice-cold beers to take on our longtail boat for our journey down the Chay River. The water was incredibly low and periodically we would need to sway from side to side so we could slide across the pebbles below. After about an hour we pulled over to the bank to where a buffalo was having a nice soaking until its owner pulled him out of the water and harnessed him to a little rickety cart for our next part of our journey and then he lumbered off despite the fact that we weren’t yet on board. David and I just about managed to clamber aboard but Kha had nipped into the bushes for a pee. By the time he emerged we were 100m down the muddy track and he had to run like the clappers in his smart shoes and pinstriped trousers to catch us up. (This was a new option so he wasn’t very suitably dressed). It was hysterical.

Buffalo are very important in this area as it has such intensive farming although on this day they seemed to just be wallowing in the mud having a day off. Probably why our buffalo was rather grumpy and we had to sit in silence as he was getting a bit agitated and when you’re looking at that big bum and huge horns you don’t argue. But it was such fun bumping through the village as we were right in the centre of things. David and Kha were beginning to wish they had my rather more plump bottom as we bumped and bumped along the track. Finally we stopped, waved goodbye and jumped into our air-conditioned and cushioned taxi all three of us giggling and trying to decide whether the boat and buffalo is still a good new option for Kha to present to his future clients.

Back to Lao Cai for the train which we realised is literally on the Chinese border – across the Red River just a 100 meters. A clickety clack journey back to Hanoi, again. Today we leave Hanoi for the last time, Phew. Kha picked us up and whisked us off to the airport, via the post office so we could send a bag home. They say it will be there in two weeks, we’ll see. We drove out through the sprawling dusty suburbs of Hanoi. Kha helped us with our bags and checked us in and then it was time to say goodbye.

In the few days we’d known Kha he’d become a trusted friend and it felt like we’d known him for many years. Everything we’d asked for he’d made happen. Even when it came to changing money he came back with more than the highest rate we could find. As we waved goodbye we both felt quite sad but off we go again for the next part. We’ll miss his funny stories, infectious smile and energy and pin-stripe trousers!

Today's interesting observation: Because we were back in Hanoi so early in the morning we saw a very different side to the hustle and bustle we had only seen before. Much quieter streets and the open spaces, particularly around the lake were filled with people of all ages - keeping fit: Tai Chi, exercising (they like to wave their arms a lot, we tried it and it's quite therapeutic)badminton, and most amusingly two women in their 70's with their own music and huge loud speaker who were ballroom dancing. No wonder they're all so slim and fit looking.