Despite the problems mentioned in our post, Sapa is undeniably beautiful. In this 3 minute episode of BTBtv, we check out the natural scenery, complete with background noise – from waterfalls, to birds chirping, to truck horns. Enjoy!

Instead, Hanoi sports a fairly similar level of craziness and chaos to Saigon. The streets are just narrower and shadier, yet the scooter traffic zips by with the same orderly chaos and noise. The old quarter, where we based ourselves, has nearly impossible noise levels. We changed hotels here more than anywhere else, constantly searching for a place where we could sleep uninterrupted until a reasonable hour. If it wasn’t the scooters and the traffic, it was construction on a nearby building. Or it was the Voice of Vietnam, the national radio network, being blared at ear-splitting levels at 7:30am from a speaker across the street.

Irrational expectations and sleepless nights aside, Hanoi is pretty cool. The old quarter is always bustling, and is packed with shops. The further from the main tourist center you get, the fewer tour offices there are and the more interesting things get. The nearby lake is also really pretty, and is a relative oasis of calm. It’s a great place to sit, or walk, just about any time of day.

Hanoi is where you can visit Ho Chi Minh’s Mausoleum, complete with his embalmed body lying in state. We never made it, due to an increasingly strong feeling of tourism fatigue. Rather than hitting the sights all day, we prefered to find a good place to watch life go by, and sat around enjoying Vietnamese coffee or some “bia hoy.”

“Bia Hoy” means “fresh beer,” and is just slightly chilled beer that comes out of kegs. It doesn’t have preservatives, so it really is (and must be) fresh. There are places all over the city to sit and drink it, for as little as 2,000 dong (about 12.5 cents) a glass. Most spots consist of an elderly person and a few kegs, some glasses, and lots of red plastic chairs. Several street corners in the old quarter are packed with people in the evenings, chatting and drinking lots of bia hoy. I’d have to say it’s easily my favorite feature of the city.

We planned a visit without getting our hopes up too much though, for a couple of reasons. Some of our friends (tomo) and other travelers warned us of a lack of tourism regulation, resulting in things like dirty water, overdevelopment, and just plain too many tourists. Also we’re often weary of tours in general, and we hadn’t given ourselves enough time to plan out a visit (way to get there, way to sail around, place to stay, etc) all on our own.

So after talking to some other people and looking online, we settled on a two-day/one-night tour of the bay. When we got to the dock to find our boat and set sail, it was hilarious. There were dozens and dozens of boats all crammed together with little or no organization to be seen. We were led to our boat via climbing on and off two others. Then, as we pulled out, we watched all the boats (ours included) bumping into each other to start their tours. We wondered how much normal wear and tear accelerates by doing things so haphazardly. And of course, when we got back the next day, it was the same deal but in reverse. Priceless.

The scenery was as stunning as I’d hoped, and it never disappointed as the hours went by. I got very excited sailing in between the huge limestone karsts. The bay is so huge that all of those other boats were somehow able to spread out enough so that all the romance wasn’t sucked out.

Unfortunately, a couple of things about the tour were disappointing as I’d thought they might be. We were rushed through each “activity” – 30 minutes of sea kayaking (instead of the promised hour), a 15 minute hike through a cave and up a hill, a lot of fried food, etc.

But the other people on the tour were a lot of fun to hang out with, and as I said the scenery was fantastic, so all and all it was a pretty good trip.

Nature’s Air Conditioner

The small town of Sapa, high in the mountains near the border with China, was built originally as a French hill station. You can find such hill stations anywhere the European established colonies. Before the time of air conditioning, it was the only way to escape the oppressive heat and humidity of the tropics.

Sapa’s cool climate is only one of the draws, although it’s fantastic. After sweating our way through most of India, Thailand, Cambodia, and the rest of Vietnam, it was our first cool weather since leaving Nepal. It can heat up a little during the day, but if the clouds roll in and swallow the town, the temperature drops. In the evenings it can get really cool, even in summer, requiring a fleece. It was heavenly.

They Grow Stuff Up Here?

Another reason people visit Sapa is for the beautiful green mountains and valleys, cut with thousands and thousands of terraces. For some reason I never tire of looking at them, marveling at the ingenuity and difficulty in building such things. From any vantage in town, or even out your window, you can see misty mountains, lines of terraces growing rice and other crops spilling down toward the flattened valley floor below. It’s quite a sight.

Hello! You Buy From Me?

One of the biggest reasons people visit Sapa, however, is to catch a glimpse of some of the interesting and colorful ethnic minorities living in the area. The area around Sapa primarily supports peoples of the Dzao and H’Mong minorities, whose distinctive dress makes them visible even as your minibus defies physics and sanity on the way up. The Dzao women are easy to pick out because they wear red scarves around their heads. The H’Mongs (subdivided into several different groups) wear navy blue garments and flat-topped cylindrical hats, all woven with plenty of colorful embroidery.

Most of the tourism options in the area center around guided hikes and trips to the surrounding villages, often with a homestay or overnight stop in the village. This sounds like fun, and I’ve heard good reports, but it’s not really our style. Allow me to explain.

From the second you set foot in Sapa, you are hounded by groups of women selling souvenirs. They sell blankets, bracelets, headscarves, bracelets, shirts, pants, etc. It’s all handmade and some of it is quite beautiful. The problem, however, lies with the way they go about it. They stalk tourists around town, peering against restaurant or shop windows, waiting for people to come out or trying to interest them while they are still inside the restaurant. During breakfast alone we had to say no to half a dozen or more women, from age 8 or so up until who knows, all hawking their wares.

It gets really tiresome, especially when they try to pretend to be your friend first. They all have a well-rehearsed script. The first time you hear it, you might be slightly fooled into thinking they have a genuine interest in some sort of cultural exchange. Fifteen times (and usually about fifteen minutes) later, you know it exactly for what it is and it’s frustrating, annoying, and a little sad. Here’s the standard exchange:

“Hello, what country?”
“America.”
“What’s your name?”
“Kevin.”
“How old are you?”
“25.”
“How many brothers and sisters you have?”
“2 brothers.”
“Are you the oldest or youngest?”
“I’m the middle.”
“Oh. You buy this from me?”
“No thanks.”
“Maybe later?”
“No.”
“OK, you buy from me later. OK?”

At that point you ignore them. This might not sound so bad, but it’s difficult to know what to do. Our last day we wanted to take some pictures of the clouds moving in over the mountains, so we went to the edge of town. A little old lady stood there, obviously lying in wait for us. A car flew past and then she crossed the street, and we could hear her shuffling behind to catch up. We’d been through this countless times before, so we weren’t in the mood. But when they won’t start with the sales pitch, ignoring them completely just comes across as rude. With a big smile on her face, she followed us around to our vantage point, then asked, “Name?” We looked at each other and decided to ignore her. She kept asking over and over again, “Name?” Then I said, “Sorry, no buy. Only picture.” “Yes, picture, picture!” We took our pictures, walked away, and she followed. “Hello, you buy from me?” We continued to ignore her until she disappeared.

As we walked down the road, we tried to come to grips with the fact that we just ignored and were rude to a little old grandmother. Not that we acted improperly, she just wouldn’t take the hint.

We were also followed for about 20 minutes by a group of five women. They asked us all the questions, then asked if we would buy something. We were going on a long day hike, heading out of town. I made the mistake of saying, “Maybe later.” That’s polite talk for, “Leave me alone, thanks.” So they kept following us. We kept heading further and further out of town. Our tempers were on the verge of flaring up. The problem was, we knew they had to live somewhere, so maybe they were just heading in the same direction. Incredibly unlikely, but not impossible. So we said nothing. And what could we say, anyway?

Every once in a while we pulled ahead a little bit, and they lagged behind. Then they would notice, we’d hear some talking, and then five pairs of feet all shuffled to come back within a few feet of us. Eventually, just when I was about to lose my cool, one of them popped up on either side of us, asking if we wanted to buy something. “No, we don’t want to buy anything!”

“But you said maybe later, you’d buy something.” I wanted to scream. They’d hounded us for twenty minutes, pissing us off and preoccupying our thoughts, for that. “No, I buy NOTHING!” And they vanished.

In Conclusion…

Sapa is beautiful. The surrounding mountains are great, and the weather is fantastic. The local peoples are colorful and no doubt interesting. But the place is truly spoiled. We didn’t take any tour operators up on their offers of homestays, etc. We didn’t feel like any of it was genuine. You only see them going about their lives from a distance as you walk down a trail, toiling away in the fields, or as you fly by in a minibus and they hang out by the side of the road. Everything else is just a big sales pitch. And an annoying one at that.

For the record, it’s not incorrect to call it Saigon. The official name for the whole metropolis is Ho Chi Minh City, but there is still a district of the city officially called Saigon. Apparently government officials don’t much care to hear it called Saigon, but many of the locals would prefer it that way. The old name, the one that conjures up all kinds of images, is still very much alive all over the city.

City of the Scooter

Scooters are a popular means of transportation all over Asia, particular in the southeast. Taipei is packed with them, Bangkok has more than its fair share, they share the road only with tricycles (or tuk-tuks) and jeepneys in the Philippines, and double as single person taxis all over. But no country has more scooters per capita, I’m convinced, than Vietnam. I have no empirical data to back up this claim, i simply believe it to be self-evident. As it is to anyone and everyone the second they set foot in Saigon.

Without very many cars or buses, the traffic in Saigon flows like water. There are very few traffic signals, or rules even. Everyone is pretty much responsible for not crashing into things. Crossing the street takes a little getting used to, but is no problem once you get the hang of it. I’m not sure which is more daunting, or actually dangerous, crossing the street in Saigon or in Cairo. It’s all cars in Cairo, so when you are standing in the middle of somewhere between six and seven lanes (a “lane” is a very ambiguously defined and fluid concept), you’ll have cars doing forty miles an hour on either side of you. But it’s easy to watch out for cars; they don’t appear from nowhere like scooters do. In Saigon, as long as there are no cars or buses barreling towards you, you can just step out into the street. You just walk slowly, giving the scooters time to pick their path around you, and you make your way across. But frequently you’ll look both ways and step out, only to be buzzed back to the sidewalk by a scooter that just appearead out of thin air.

This kind of pedestrian activity would never work in a big Western city. You’d be killed or cause a huge accident, because the drivers would freak out and do something stupid. But in many places in the world, the drivers are expecting pedestrians to step into the street at any and all times, and don’t make unexpected movements, and therefore traffic and pedestrians peacefully coexist, for the most part, without pesky things like traffic laws, crosswalks, and stoplights.

Liberation

Many of the tourist activities in Saigon revolve around the Vietnam War (or American War, as it’s called here). We visited the Reunification Palace and the War Remnants museum, and found them to be pretty interesting.

The War Remnants museum is pretty one-sided, as you might imagine. There is very little mention of the South Vietnamese fighting in the war; they make it sound as if it was all of Vietnam against the Americans. The exhibits are pretty moving, however, because from any perspective it was a terrible conflict.

Moving On

Not everything to do in Saigon is war-related. It’s a pretty fun place to spend some time. If you can get used to the zany traffic, walking around the city is a great way to explore. The old French-style architecture and wide, tree-lined avenues are almost peaceful when there aren’t hundreds of scooters streaming past. There are lots of places to grab a steaming bowl of pho on the street, or sit down and sip some excellent Vietnamese coffee. And of course, the bar scene is always jumping.

In short, Saigon rocks.