Sa Pa

Walking on the thin strip of soil at the edge of a mountainside rice paddy, before the terrace drops to the next level, is like tracing one step on a living ladder that connects the earth's bounty to humanity's kitchen. On our recent trip to the alpine town of Sa Pa, that's where Scott and I found ourselves – hiking the steep and recently harvested slopes where the rice we'd eaten the night before had first emerged from the soil.

Traditionally, Sa Pa is a trading post where inhabitants of the surrounding ethnic minority villages gather to sell crops and to search for a spouse at the weekly "love market." The vibrantly dressed minority people, especially the Black Hmong with their calves wrapped in intricate leggings and Red Dzao with their elaborate headpieces, often still walk the better part of a day to hawk their wares in Sa Pa, only now they're more likely to be targeting tourists for a sale than fellow villagers.

As a result, the hill people, who only recently started having to learn Vietnamese in school, speak amazing English, through which we could glean tidbits about their way of life. A 34-year-old mother of five showed me how she walks around running hemp through her fingers all day, preparing it to be woven and dyed with indigo into a traditional Hmong jacket. We saw the way they'd siphoned water from a waterfall to power a see-saw like rice husker and watched a rowdy group of boys take turns riding down a hill on a bicycle made all from wood.



We also saw the way tourism is changing the area – making it common for women who must have been in their sixties to offer to sell us hashish, but also providing young Hmong girls an opportunity to push marriage back from the customary age of 14 to 16 to allow them to work as tour guides for a few years.

Not far from the Chinese border, Sa Pa is also located near Tram Ton (Heaven's Gate) Pass, Vietnam's highest mountain pass at nearly two kilometers tall. Promised a decent road, we rented motorbikes to drive across it, only to find the road under construction that stopped all traffic for half hour periods while impatient drivers revved their engines ready to roar out in a chaotic pack as soon as we were let through.

Driving between wobbly minibuses and a precarious drop off was worth it, however, for the views of mountains that alternated between being bathed in a honey sunlight that showered glowing beams over the trees and being swallowed by a looming fog that hid the crags and made the scene seem so big that surely our little motorbike would be lost in the eternity of dips and lifts of earth forever.

Because we went late in the year, the fog was a constant presence in Sa Pa. For our final day hike, we traveled down into the valley and finally saw the river cutting through the rice fields and the villages tending them that had been sunny under the fog layer the whole time. While we carefully picked our way up and down the terraces, next to tiny women in plastic shoes skipping down the slippery trails with no problem, life went on around us. Children danced to music blaring from loudspeakers in schoolyards, women pulled bamboo three times their size down impossibly narrow paths and waterbuffalo grazed.

And as we came back chilled from the day, we'd open a bottle of wine, light a fire in the hotel room fireplace and then open the windows to let the smoke billow across our room and out into the night.

Street Food Thursdays

For the past month or so, we’ve been having weekly street food nights with a group of friends, where someone picks a new, delicious-looking dish to try and we all meet up to check it out. It’s turned into a nice way to sample Hanoi’s cuisine, which is really built around street food – and the tiny little stalls with child-sized plastic stools that sell it. Last night was Alison’s turn to choose, and she picked a place that specializes in cháo cá, or fish porridge. It’s basically creamy rice porridge with chunks of an unknown white fish, scallions and dill, and it’s surprisingly delicious. We had it for dinner, but it’s also a breakfast food (sort of like cream of wheat…except with fish…and MSG).

The first street food night was an outing to chicken street, which, like you’d expect, is a street that’s lined with giant charcoal grills that the vendors use to grill up skewers of chicken wings or feet (gà nướng), along with sweet potatoes (khoai) and baguettes (bánh mỳ). All the food is coated in this sugary glaze before it’s grilled, so it’s deliciously sweet – and then you dip it in a chili sauce that makes the whole thing taste like spicy barbeque. Mmm. Unfortunately, we recently learned that some of the chicken they use isn’t the freshest, and they scrub it down with laundry detergent to clean it up. So be it.

Some of the other things we’ve tried on street food Thursdays are: sticky rice (xôi) with various savory toppings, assorted fried dumpling-like things (bánh gôi, bánh rán mặn) and BBQ pork ribs (sườn nướng). Of course, this doesn’t include all of the street food we’ve had on our own: phở bò (beef noodle soup), bún riêu (sour tomato and crab noodle soup), bánh cuốn (rice flour pancakes rolled with mushroom and pork), bún chả (grilled pork with noodles and broth), phở xao (stir-fried noodles with beef and some vegetables), bánh chuôi (deep-fried banana) and bánh mỳ trứng (scrambled egg sandwich on a baguette), just to name a few. It’s absolutely amazing the variety of dishes that are available on the streets, and it’s been a great way to see the city and experience the culture. The deliciousness is a plus too.

If you’re curious about what some of these things look like or want more of a description, this website has a great street food section – just move your mouse over where it says “Street Food” at the top left, and you can click on any of the categories to see some examples. Careful though, it may make you extremely jealous. And hungry.