Dong Van – Live Life Epic

December 5, 2017December 5, 2017

Day 35: Karst Life

Breakfast was enjoyed on the outdoor patio of Quang Dung restaurant where we could watch the daily life of Dong Van.

We like Dong Van. Incredibly quiet, friendly people and a few restaurants and hotels that cater to Westerners. It’s been an enjoyable place to vacation for a few days. It has also given us time to explore the area by foot and reflect on our time in Vietnam.

While enjoying breakfast we watched as a tiny, young woman struggled to carry a bag of rice that had to weigh at least 30 lbs. She was carrying it down the street towards a scooter where a man impatiently waited for her. He didn’t lift a finger to help her. She loaded the rice onto the back of the scooter and they drove away.

After breakfast we headed out for a morning of trekking. As we made our way to the start of the trail that would lead us to an old French fort, we witnessed a man hitting his wife. He punched her in the face. I was shaking with rage as Shawn reminded me of all the reasons we couldn’t get involved. Although Shawn seemed calm, there was an edge to his voice.

The man kicked her.

I started to walk over to them, wanting to give this small coward a fair fight. Shawn, always the rational one to counter my impulsive personality, held me back. His reasoning getting through to me. A caucasian woman embarrassing this man would only make matters worse for the woman, and would likely land us in jail in a foreign country. As I turned to walk away, tears of frustration in my eyes, I noticed the little boy who was with the couple. Maybe 5 or 6 years old. He was clearly used to witnessing this behaviour. He calmly collected books off the ground, books his mother had dropped when the first blow struck.

We weren’t the only onlookers. A group of local men hanging around the market square watched intently as the scene unfolded, but they too failed to get involved.

I cannot comment on how common domestic violence might be in Vietnam, and it’s certainly a problem we also face in North America. This is, however, the first time we have witnessed anything like this in Vietnam. What we have also witnessed is how incredibly hard the women work, while the men do very little. A female guide confirmed for us that the woman is fully responsible to raise the children, cook and clean, tend to the livestock, walk miles to the weekly markets, walk steep mountainsides carrying wood and feed for the buffalo, tend the gardens and crops and tend the businesses. We have rarely seen a man do anything besides drive trucks, drive supply chain scooters or work as bike mechanics. None of these physically strenuous. We were told the men are lazy, and from what we have seen this appears to be true.

After our solemn morning we set off on a trek to burn off some of the frustration. We climbed to a 100 year old French Fortress that overlooks the town of Dong Van. From here we could see numerous winding roads that climbed away from Dong Van and disappeared into the valleys beyond. Shawn pointed at one for us to explore after lunch.

After the short climb to the French Colonial Fortress we decided to attempt one of the steep tracks used by the ethnic village women to haul their wares. Slippery, steep and rocky. The path led us to incredible views of the Karst mountains and Dong Van below. It also helped us appreciate the agility and fitness of the women, young and old, who climb this path daily, weighed down by bamboo baskets filled with wood, feed and numerous other items.

After our trek it was time for lunch and time to get back onto the bikes to explore deeper into the surrounding area. We took a back road through Tu Lan towards Meo Vac. We came across women hauling large rocks to a crusher, and then wheelbarrowing the resulting gravel to create a road.

Dinner was once again at Green Karst. The owner takes great pride in her restaurant and the food and drinks are great!

December 4, 2017December 4, 2017

Day 34: Exploring Dong Van On Foot

Aka Laundry Day.

You always want to pack as light as possible when living off the back of a motorcycle, and in Asia it’s inexpensive to get your laundry done, so we brought minimal clothes with us. Most of the time laundry is an overnight service, but you usually have to wait until 10:00 am or so to get your laundry. We like to be on the road by then. Furthermore, they don’t have clothes dryers in Northern Vietnam, they hang dry. In the high humidity that means it can take a few days for your clothes to fully dry. After several days of wet and muddy riding, and wearing the same motorcycle pants every day for a month, it was time for a break from the road and time to get our laundry done. We decided to get a nicer hotel in Dong Van (clean, good sized and has heat) to hunker down for a few days.

Today we had different thoughts on what to do. I needed some exercise and wanted to explore the area by trekking. Shawn wanted to try some of the incredible off road tracks. So after breakfast and a short walk to explore the town’s Old Quarter, we set off to explore Dong Van each in our own ways. This was after we tried a trek together and got lost, a man on a scooter returning us to town with directions on where he thought we should go. It was the original route that Shawn decided to tackle by motorcycle. This was the correct route after all.

I headed off on a soil and rock track towards Thon Si Fai village. After several days of riding the trekking was a wonderful opportunity to be a part of the landscape, not just a tourist whizzing through it. I became just another woman climbing the steep landscape with a bag on her back. It was fantastic. Once I overcame my fear.

Fear.

We needed a day off the bikes. The last few days of riding had been overwhelmingly nerve wracking. The constant fear of the presence of an oncoming vehicle through a blind corner, the special sing song sound of the bus horns. A pleasant sound that once known will strike fear into the heart of every other driver. Even the trucks will hurriedly get out of the way for a bus driver. They are beyond crazy and usually drunk off rice wine, and they rule the road. I was sick of being scared. I needed a day of trekking to relax and calm my mind and frayed nerves.

But first I had to overcome my fear. I had to overcome my fear of the dogs. While motorcycling in Peru years ago, a crazed and potentially rabid dog chased us. And when I say chased, I mean he was lunging at our throats, determined to make a kill. Since then I have become deathly afraid of the seemingly stray dogs that roam freely in foreign countries. As Shawn and I were walking this morning a large dog lunged at us. Luckily he was on a chain and Shawn was present, so after my initial terror I calmed down. But setting off to go trekking alone, I was on full alert. Every dog I saw set me on edge. I wanted to turn back, but kept forcing myself to walk just another 50 feet, just to the next house, just to the top of the next hill. In no time I had forgotten the threat of the dogs and was lost to the surrounding beauty and buzz of daily life in the most remote areas of Northern Vietnam. Scooters buzzing in the distance, just barely visible, on an incomprehensible network of dirt tracks leading to small pockets of villages, a few houses in each. Old women, no taller than 4 feet, busy at work in the fields. Carrying heavy loads larger than themselves up and down the steep valley walls. Kids playing a game much like hacky-sack. Drifts of smoke rising from the fields as garbage is burned. A pack of men, a dozen at least and reeking of sweat and rice wine, swarming me to help me find my way. I turned back after two hours of trekking through remote roads. There was an incredible boom as the ground shuddered. It sounded like an explosion, and I couldn’t help but wonder how many unexploded ordinances there might be in Northern Vietnam, and if this could be one either deliberately or accidentally set off.

Dinner at the friendly Quảng Dung Restaurant. An English menu with prices, and a certificate on the wall! We had the honey chicken (something we missed out on in Sa Pa) and stir fried vegetables. Both were great – the best chicken we’ve had in Vietnam. Sadly this isn’t saying much. Usually a “safe food” when travelling, the chicken in Vietnam has largely been inedible for Western tastes. Bone, gristle and cartilage with little to no meat. We’ve learned to only order chicken in restaurants that cater to tourists. The rest of the time, pork, beef and fish are our “go-to”.

Back to Green Karst for hot chocolate and Chum Vang. While there a young man (who was dipping his fingers in other tables side dishes of MSG) offered us a shot of the rice wine or “happy water” the locals drink. It was poured from a repurposed water bottle. Shawn is pretty sure that with the quantity of happy water this guy drank, he must be a bus driver. Likely the “sleeper bus” to Hanoi that left in an hour.

This shit may make you happy, but it definitely lacked the smoothness of the Chum Vang. I’ll stick with CV!

Note: Featured Image is of the town of Dong Van, with triangle flowers / buckwheat flowers in the foreground. The Triangle Flower Festival is held every year in the province of Ha Giang and runs from October through the end of December each year. The festival features the beautiful, soft pink buckwheat flowers which add a beautiful contrasting colour to the otherwise brown, green and gray of the Karst mountains.

December 3, 2017

Day 33: Take A Picture With Your Mind

“Take a picture with your mind, Christine”. I am young, maybe six. I can still hear my mom’s voice as she sits in the passenger seat of our van. I’m in the back seat, admiring the most beautiful sunset over the foothills of the Canadian Rockies. I still have these pictures from my youth. Mostly just memories of memories by now.

My mom taught me a lot. This is one of the lessons I’ve held onto very tightly my entire life. In this lesson my mom taught me how to live in the moment and to really see what I was looking at. She also taught me how to hold onto the perfect moments and shed the rest.

Today I listened to my mom’s voice as we cruised by incredible beauty. Today’s beauty wasn’t just the Karst Mountains, which are truly spectacular, but the people who inhabit them.

It’s Sunday. Sunday market day. The women of the villages dress in their most beautiful and colourful traditional clothes and walk for miles and hours through incredibly challenging terrain to visit the Sunday market. Here they will buy, trade and sell the goods required for their households to survive another week. Every larger town has a Sunday Market. Today as we rode we were witnesses to the many women walking along the roadside in their most beautiful rainbow skirts and colourful head dresses, carrying their bamboo baskets full of wares.

As we cruised along a particularly beautiful green valley, set between two of the rolling limestone hills, we saw an older woman carrying an impossible load of wood on her back as she climbed a steep path set up and over the valley. I took a picture with my mind. I don’t want to forget her. Her beauty and grace in the face of a tremendous challenge.

First stop was a cultural village where we were swarmed by children looking for candy. I had some of course. Although not usually keen on giving candy to kids – this is their shtick at this particular village, so candy they got. In return I got smiling faces of amazement as we took a selfie video. The kids thrilled to see their own angelic faces waving back.

Next stop was the H’Mong King’s Palace. A touristy and busy attraction that I couldn’t wait to leave.

The Ride:

We left Yen Minh at 10:00 am this morning, headed for Dong Van with an additional loop to Lung Cu, Vietnam’s “North Pole”. This voyage is popular with young Vietnamese tourists who wear t-shirts with the flag of Vietnam and travel in large groups on scooters, waving and cheering us as we pass.

The ride to Lũng Cu is spectacular. The road winds around the Karst Mountains, providing glimpse after glimpse into the various valleys below. Riding along the steep side slope is both nerve wracking and exciting, until the sing song tune of an oncoming tour bus forces you out of your reverie to concentrate on the hazard that is about to mow you down.

Lũng Cu itself offers a staircase to a large flagpole with the flag of Vietnam proudly snapping in the breeze. You gaze over the valley into China, only 2.5 km away. Here we were offered “sweet and sour” candy buy two beautiful Vietnamese women. I couldn’t decide if I loved or disliked the candy. Sweet and incredibly tart, I couldn’t stop eating it.

After non stop riding for several days, we needed to hunker down somewhere long enough to have our laundry done and recharge our batteries. The Hoang Ngoc Hotel was the perfect place to call home for a few days. Modern and clean in the cute and glitzy town of Dong Van. Dinner at Green Karst, a wonderful restaurant with pictures of every dish! Karaoke music in the background and Chum Vang rice wine topped off another great day.