Vietnam Bound

A woven flower given to me as a present
by a H'mong tribeswoman

Our arrival to Vietnam was shaky at best. The swerving sleeper bus that carried us for seven hours from Kunming to Hekou, a border town in southern China, was infested with an ceaseless army of miniature cockroaches that would continuously appear without warning and scuttle over your arms, legs, feet, and god knows where else, no matter how many you attacked and crushed to death with a deftly wielded flip-flop. This glorious ride also happened to arrive four hours early, so there we were stranded and homeless at the Vietnamese border at 2:30am; the bus driver, far from being a helpful guide, refused to acknowledge our English-speaking presence and took off with a prostitute on his motorbike. So there it was- my first ever night spent as a vagabond, sleeping on the cold grey concrete floor outside of the Customs building.

Once we managed to cross the border, we promptly got hustled for our ride up to the mountain town of Sapa by a tight, lime-green T-shirt toting, slicked back and buffed up Vietnamese man who insisted on showing us his (topless) bench press pictures and tried without hesitation to hijack our iPhone. However, as the minibus swooped and swerved up the mountain roads, the scenery hidden from view by a thick mist that stuck to the lush foliage, my apprehension and exhaustion gave way to wonder as I squinted my eyes and began to discern shapes in the horizon... Rice paddies ebbed and flowed away beneath us in steep steps whilst huddles of villages, conical straw hats and wandering children would emerge from the seemingly impenetrable mist and towering green hills.

Local farmers wading through dewy rice paddies
(notice the three tiny heads bopping out of the wicker baskets)

Vietnam took me surprise- the French legacy could not be more apparent in both its delicate mix of cuisines and in the architectural heritage. The colonial buildings, small pastel-colored doll houses with balustered facades, charming balconies and narrowed dimensions, visibly eroded away by time and the damp weather, were interspersed with capillaries of foliage and a mix of evergreen trees and tropical plants. It felt strange to be in a place in which the surrounding scenery resembled a mountain resort in the Swiss Alps, yet was decorated with stucco flourished Havana-esque buildings above and Asian store fronts and lettering below with a tangle of cables and mounts of hanging laundry. I couldn’t quite place myself. Interestingly, I later learned that the government used to collect tax revenue according to the width of the commercial shape and so "the slimmer the cheaper" when it came to construction.

Charming Vietnamese architecture

Mastering my first ever motorcycle ride, we surged up and up the mountain roads and managed to escape the enveloping fog, rising into the warming sunshine, clouds clearing right before our eyes. Valleys soared beneath us, now illuminated by the sun with colors coming out in full splendour and trees turning silver in the new light, each bend holding unknown surprises and breathtaking views of the fertile emerald landscape. I loved Vietnam at that moment, with its friendly welcoming people and an atmosphere that somehow felt like being back home. In the local villages we passed through we were greeted with smile after smile, animated waves and hellos, old ladies and women and children looking up at us with kind acknowledgement. I instantly felt accepted and welcomed. Although this may be just one face of the country, tucked away in a northern corner famed for its outgoing inhabitants, Vietnam is growing on me fast.



View from the hilltops once the mist cleared