The morning of our departure, we packed our bags (fewer diapers, more suits), took a sad bike ride to return the rentals, and picked up a couple of banh mi sandwiches for the road. We had elected to skip the train this time, since flying was actually a bit cheaper in this case. It also didn't require us to pack four adults, one baby, and a half dozen suitcases into an 8x8 cabin for 17 hours.
Sue, being Sue, arranged for a van to take us to the Da Nang airport. The flight was easy, and both the Da Nang and Hanoi airports are small and easy to navigate.
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| A couple of happy campers |
In fact, the airports are probably a bit too small. Like the rest of Viet Nam, the major airports are still catching up with the country's rapid growth. There aren't enough jetways to serve all of the flights, so the planes just park right on the tarmac. Busses bring everyone from the terminal to their flight, and passengers walk up a staircase to board. It's a charming throwback to the golden age of airplane travel, even if it does mean getting a little extra sweaty for the flight.
Observations from our first in-country flight: 1) There sure are a lot of kids on this plane, and 2) I think our pilot is French. Nothing profound. Just a few notes that I wrote down in my journal.
As is now our custom, we arranged to have a van pick us up in Hanoi. Our eventual destination that day would be the north Viet Nam highlands, but our Hanoi stop-off allowed us to drop off most of our bags at the hotel that we would be staying at in a few days. We grabbed dinner at a restaurant that the hotel staff recommended, and took a taxi to the Hanoi train station. We only got a brief look at Hanoi, but it was enough to see that this city is booming. My research-free gut feeling was that Hanoi will soon be nipping at the heels of Singapore and Hong Kong for international relevance and economic power.
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| Just a few of Hanoi's four million motorbikes. |
We were taking an overnight train to Lao Cai, a small city on Viet Nam's northern border with China. Lao Cai has the only train station in the region, so the town is a popular destination with certain tourists. I say certain tourists, because aside from Sa Pa, a former French Hill Station, the main draw of the region is an extensive trail network running through stunning mountainside rice paddies.
The trail hikes aren't for the faint of heart, so most the people sitting in the train station were leathery 20-somethings. Many of them were carrying expensive mountaineering backpacks, and they clearly enjoyed pretending that this was some sort of epic trek. But this isn't Mount Everest, guys. Dozens of Hmong women with babies on their backs climb this mountain every day, without even a single Swiss multitool or titanium spork.
It probably goes without saying, but I took quite a bit of satisfaction in parading my ten month old baby and Aimee's 72 year old dad through the train station.
The overnight train was surprisingly easy, and all of us got a decent amount of sleep. We would be hiking for most of the next day, and I was really glad that we got some rest. When we arrived in Lao Cai, a bus was waiting to take us and the other hikers to Sa Pa, where we would meet our guides.
Aimee had found a wonderful guide company called Sapa Sisters that, like the name implies, is owned by a small group of local women. It's not uncommon for remote tourist destinations like Sa Pa (and the people in it) to be slightly exploited by travel companies, and it was nice to see a potentially marginalized group of people taking a leadership role.
Sapa Sisters customizes each hike, so every group has its own guide. We would be accompanied by So, a friendly and upbeat woman with a young daughter of her own.
We were pretty proud of only bringing two small suitcases for the four of us, especially since one of the suitcases was mostly just diapers and Mimi's roll-up travel bed (essentially a 3 foot camping pad inside of a tiny tent). But So took one look at them and told us to just bring what we need. "Um, wait a minute, So. We only brought what we need."
After So explained what we'd be doing for the next two and a half days, Aimee and I realized that we had accidentally signed up to hike Viet Nam's Grand Canyon. Seriously. Each day's hike would cover at least 8+ miles with several thousand feet of elevation changes. It was almost exactly what we did when we hiked the actual Grand Canyon, except that we didn't have a baby strapped to our chest on that trip. We suddenly realized why everyone had brought the mountaineering gear. You win this round, leathery 20-somethings.
What were we thinking? I guess we were imagining day hikes from a central town that we could leave our luggage at. Nope. Not this trip. We would be hiking straight from Sa Pa down a steep trail to the bottom of a valley, up and over another mountain range, and then finally back out again. Aimee and I had a brief, slightly panicked conversation about what we should do next.
Ok. We got this. Let's see. We have a Camelbak that we can use to carry our gear. It'll do. Tom has a similar sized backpack for him and Helen. Check. Shoes? Crappy, but they should work. Mosquito spray? Definitely. Cardiovascular capacity? Hopefully.
Our guide, So, read the panic on our faces, and gave us a minute to repack. Of course, the Camelbak forced us to consider the difference between "need" and "need".
Extra clothes.
Nope.
Deodorant.
Nope.
Mimi's bed.
Definitely nope.
Ukulele.
Why did I even bring that?
We ultimately decided that it would be reasonable to do a one day hike into the valley, spend the night down there, and then see how everyone is doing. So we packed 5 or 6 diapers and a backup onesie for Mimi, and prayed that the blow-out gods would be kind to us for the next 24 hours.
No turning back now.
The northern highlands are much wetter than the rest of the country, and it happened to be raining pretty hard that day. All of the guide companys have rain boots for rent, but they're all made from thin-plastic and have no tread to speak of. We decided that our gym shoes would be the least bad option, and set off through Sa Pa to the trail head.
As we left the city and turned the corner to the trailhead, we got the first glimpse of what we were about to hike through.
The stunning beauty was the only thing masking the non-trivial amount of terror that we were experiencing. No hiking gear. No park rangers in helicopters. No escalator back out. Just us, our baby, and a Camelbak full of diapers. What could go wrong?
