Vietnam November 2022

When going down from the mountain, the hardest part is done for that day. Phew! We then walk down and pass some buffaloes and cows hanging in the mud to cool down. We walk by villages and observe villagers, their outfits, their habits.
While walking, we also take the opportunity to ask questions and learn from Sai as she is herself a Hmong woman and we are going into her culture.
She explains usbtraditions regarding marriage and funeral. Villagers get married really young, around 14, 15 or 16 years old. She even mentions that some young men can kidnap a young girl to get her to marry her. If she says no she is abandoned and would not be able to remarry as she declined a man already. Sai herself got married at 16 years old and has 2 children, 2 boys. Her husband was just 2 years older than her when they got married. Young girls need to learn how too cook, how to sew and how to make clothes in general by the age of 12/13. As they are responsible for these tasks later on in the household. Clothes are very colorful and can be very intricated. Their outfits are indeed very beautiful and are a sign of wealth and skills. So men usually choose their bride based on how well year outfits are, which represent how good of a wife they would be. She explains that most women like her grew up to become tourist guides or tailor, if they work.
We stopped at a village to have lunch. As soon as we sit down on a table to eat, 5 to 6 kids run towards us and show up to sell us some things: little bracelets, little bags,.. it is quite heartbreaking. As it happens, it is also the village of the 2 teenage girls with us and we told them we would buy them a little something which we did. The 3 other girls are younger and we decided to buy from them 1 bracelet each. As if you buy from one, it would be too cruel not to buy from the other 2.
After lunch we continue walking and now it really goes down! So much so that Sai taught us a trick: to walk backwards while facing up to go down. Otherwise it is too hard and painful on the knee. What a great trick we wish we would have know sooner.
We learnt that to grow pumpkins they weave the leaves into a net so it then functions as a roof to hold them.
She also showed us a flower that is poisonous if you drink or eat it. And added to it that some people commit suicide with it. We spotted a very big spider also at some point and asked Sai if they sometimes have problems with bugs. She replied to Niki: "we don't know, we don't touch them". Which we thought was funny as yes duh no one should touch such a big spider 😅
Around 3pm, we arrived at our homestay for the night in the village of Su Pan, a Black Hmong village. We will be stating with Mama Mao, our host for tye evening. 2 other foreigners (German) also happened to stay in the same house as we did and we chatted with them a bit.
We rest a bit in the hammoc, take a nice warm shower, relax and at sundown, Mama Mao tells us 4 to go at the dinner table inside as dinner is ready. She had home cooked lots of different plates for us, all delicious. Even French fries made from scratch! All from local product. Mama Mao and her sister in law, Mama Cho, join us for dinner. And what a  gift it was! Wow those 2 women !!! 😍 they brought a local homemade liquor that they call "happy water". It is pretty strong so you drink it in a shot glass, one at a time. And we exchanged stories tye entire evening until 22h30 with them. Mostly we listened to their stories as they spoke quite well English.
Mama Mao tells us that she has 4 kids and the last one, a baby, was not planned at all and she does not want more anymore! She explains the birth of her children which was, from our European point of view, quite insane. She always gave birth at home. One of them she was working in the rice fields and started having contractions. She started walking home with her husband but he had to leave to go home on the motorbike to bring back some things to help as it could not wait anymore. While her husband was gone, she gave birth alone on the side of the road and managed to walk herself and the newborn home. Another child she said she had her in 15 minutes at home. No break no rest or anything. Once the child is born, on to the next thing: work, cooking,  or being at the ricefield. Luckily none of her births had complications as she said otherwise some women die from that sadly. This was quite extreme to listen to! Mostly as to her this is completely normal and she explains these stories in a very casual way. So Niki joked saying that if I should one day give birth, I can not complain as he would bring up Mama Mao and her stories! 🤣 let's see about that ..
Finally they also showed us pictures of how the Sa Pa Market looked like 20 years back when they were children/teenagers and had to walk there to get some food supplies (see picture before last).
Mama Cho really liked Niki and I. Niki was sitting between the 2 Mamas which was really fun. Mama Cho explained that she also befriended a French woman who stayed at their house overnight. This woman later on invited her on a trip to visit Hanoi and hosted her there, which was a very nice memory to her. Those 2 women were absolutely kind and fun and really badass! We had a great evening with them and it was definitely a highlight of our trip so far.

Vietnamese in Hmong village is different than in rest of Vietnam. Example with 2 words:
Gonjohai - hello
Ochao - thank youRead more