Extreme pleasure and excruciating agony all rolled together!

Beth and our local guide Lo May.  Terraced rice patties that were recently harvested in the background

It was a very pleasant five and a half hour trip from Hanoi to Sapa.  With the exception of the last 25 miles or so the road was a very modern highway with minimal traffic.  It was mostly through rural rolling hills that were covered with tropical trees and plants.  The valleys were rice patties, about half of which had already been harvested while the remainder will be harvested in the next few weeks.  The last 25 miles were on a narrow winding road that steadily climbed higher into the mountains until we reached our destination of Sapa.
Sapa is a small market town of around 9,000 that is located in Northwest Vietnam. The province in which it is located borders China.  Before the 1990's Sapa was primarily an agricultural village.  Since that time it's seen a steady increase in tourism, mainly due to it's mountain scenery along with numerous hiking trails that have been developed in the area.  It's altitude and northern position in the country make it the only area in Vietnam that gets snow during the winter.
Sapa

We checked into the hotel around 12:30.  After a few minutes in the room I realized that my phone was missing.  I quickly realized that I had left it in the seven passenger van that had brought us and five others from Hanoi.  After a few panicked minutes we were able to get ahold of the good people at Tonkin Travel.  They, in turn, were able to contact the driver who was still in Sapa.  He brought the phone back to the hotel where we were reunited!  I have quite a track record of forgetting or losing things as we have traveled about.  A camera in South Africa, clothes on two different occasions in Spain and now a phone in Vietnam.  Amazingly in every case everything has been retrieved fully in tact.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record already, we had another delicious lunch at a restaurant attached to our hotel.  We then headed out with Lo May (my spelling may not be correct) for an afternoon walking tour of the area.  We were taken by van just a few miles out of town and dropped off for a walk through the village of Suoi Ho.  As we walked along Lo May shared a little bit about the village as well as the different ethnic groups that live in the Sapa area.  According to her there are six main groups (Kinh 35%, Hmong 22%, Dao 13%, Tay 14% Thai 9% & Nung 4%)    Interestingly, although they all speak Vietnamese as a common language they each have their own unique dialect. The dialect is used when they are speaking with others of the same ethnic group.

A house in the Hmong village of Suoi Ho

Lo May is from the Tay ethnic group.  The people of the village we were walking through were from the Hmong ethnic group.  Both groups migrated from different regions of China more than 300 years ago.  The religious following of the Hmong group is mostly Catholic, while the Tay group are Buddhist.
She shared a bit about marriage in both groups which was quite interesting.  The way she explained it, in the Hmong group the women marry very young, around 14-16.  There really isn't  a courtship, but there is what she called a "kidnapping".  The young girl is abducted by a boy.  He tells his parents that "this is the girl I want to marry".  The boys parents then get in touch with the girls parents to work out the details of the marriage.  It involves the exchange of money (around $1,000 US dollars, which is a very significant amount of money for them) and food.  The young girl can say no and leave but there is often times pressure put on her to say yes because of the windfall of money and food her family receives .  From what I've read, thankfully this practice isn't as common these days!
In the Tay group the marriage is arranged between the two families in a manner that is similar to what is commonly practiced in countries such as India.  First, the astrological charts are consulted using the young man and the young ladies birthday to assure compatibility.  There is then a negotiation process between the families, again involving money and food.  If everything is worked out the young girl then takes up to a year to make not only her wedding dress but the grooms clothes!  Making the grooms clothes will give her at least an indication of his size.  Traditional customs were that the two would not see each other until the wedding ceremony.  She did tell us that is now changing and the couples do usually at least talk by phone to one another before the wedding.

In addition to all the wedding talk she told us a great deal about the clothes that they wear.  They are all hand made.  Although the women's clothes are far more detailed, the men and boys have some elaborate stitching on their clothes as well.  It all starts with a white fabric that is purchased and then dyed (using leaves from indigo plants) multiple times until it is a navy blue/black color.  Then the hard work really begins.  The art work is all hand stitched into the fabric.  She said it took her 7 months to make the outfit that she was wearing.  The garment is worn for about a year before they are replaced, so there is constant work being done on making new clothes.  She even pulled out a small piece of fabric from her bag that she carried with her and worked on during the day as time permitted.

I'm holding the leaf of an Indigo Plant.  These leaves are gathered and boiled to make a blue dye.  Fabric is purchased and then dyed multiple times until it turns navy blue/black.  That is fabric that has been dyed hanging in the background.  Lo May said it will be dyed several more times, getting darker each time.

This was all hand stitched and took seven months

The front of her pants.  Again, all hand stitched and everything has symbolic meaning

Showing off the sleeve of her jacket

The sleeve of a new jacket she is working on for herself

This young lady, from another ethnic group, was walking and stitching at the same time.  She was proud to show off her work.

Lo May asked a nice older lady along the way if we could go inside her house.  The lady smiled and happily opened her home to us. Because of the cold weather, the houses here have no windows, whereas the houses in Puluong had numerous windows to allow in cool air and natural light.
We've done a lot of walking in our time.  Today's walk was as enlightening as any that we can remember.
But the day wasn't over yet!  After we returned to our hotel we decided to explore around the city a little bit.  As we made our way down the narrow streets lined with shops and restaurants it started to sprinkle.  Within a few minutes it started to come down harder and even with umbrellas we were looking for shelter.  Low and behold we found ourselves standing next to a large sign that said "MASSAGE"!  For a mere $7 we could indulge in a one hour foot and lower leg massage!  I immediately thought to myself, "I wouldn't dare touch those gnarly feet of mine for $7", but if someone wanted to risk their life massaging them I was happy to fork over the cash.  For the next hour Beth and I laid back while our feet and lower legs were rubbed, pulled, pushed, twisted, turned, slapped and punched.  We marveled at these two young ladies abilities to find trigger points in the bottoms of our feet as well as our legs that in a flash would change extreme pleasure to excruciating agony over and over again.
Afterwards we made our way back to the hotel through streets that were now filled with water from what turned into a heavy rain.  Our feet and our faces smiling the whole way!