Beautiful Bac Ha

By Bea
27-31/03/2019
After our Ninh Binh detour we were back on track, heading to the north Vietnam highlands by overnight train.

We arrived in Lao Cai, the boarder town with china, in the early hours of the 28th. Lao Cai is the stepping off point for Sapa and Bac Ha, both well known for their stunning terraced rice paddies and weekend markets where the diverse hill tribes, H’mong, Phu La, Black Dao, Tay and Nung dressed in elaborate ethnic costumes, meet, shop or sell wares. Most tourists head straight to Sapa and take a 2 hour bus trip to the weekend markets of Can Cau (Saturday) and/or Bac Ha (Sunday). We decided to head straight to Bac Ha itself and get the drop on the tourists. (Still can't understand why people do it from Sapa!!!)

Our friend Cynthia recommended Huy Trung home stay and we are so glad we listened. Unfortunately the home stay was fully booked on the Saturday, gut instinct told us to book Thursday and Friday then move on Saturday, sometimes it really pays off to follow your gut!!! What a delightful place. Mr Trung speaks good English and very willing to help with everything, thoroughly recommended (and after the next hotel and hearing horror stories from other travellers, even more so)
We arrived mid morning on Thursday to a warm welcome and local tea, shortly after being shown our room, Mr Trung knocked and presented me with a lovely rose from his garden as he had just noticed from my passport it was my birthday!!!

We spent the rest of the day walking around and sussing out the town.
Bac Ha itself, is a quiet, sleepy town, small and little in the way of ‘attractions’. We did the few sites that were there and spent the rest of the day exploring the back streets enjoying watching daily life. It actually is a lovely place. We stopped for lunch at a little local shop house for a big bowl of pho (Vietnamese noodle soup with either beef, pork or chicken). Pho is ubiquitous with Vietnam with each region having their own take on it.

Although the home stay offered home cooked meals with the family, being my birthday, we opted to try our luck in town. Oh boy… this is where we found out how quiet it really is… and how touristy it isn’t. There was hardly a sole around. Not many places to eat and we didn’t want another bowl of pho, or fried rice. We found a place where the customers were jovial and calling us to come in. We could see pictures on the wall and we were confident we could communicate enough to order. There was always google translate or just point at what the other diners were eating. We sat and waited and waited until our patience was running low, we tried to get attention but everyone, accept the other customers, were ignoring us. I eventually cornered a lady and she waived me away. She didn't want to deal with us at all. We tried again but they weren't interested. Annoyed we just left. We walked around and everything was closed. One hotel tried to get us in but he was too pretentious and rude. We tried another place where the kitchen out the front was stir frying something that smelled delicious. Again we tried to get someone and they said “No! no cooking”. They just didn't want to deal with us. Patience had run out and hunger had set in and we were over it - some birthday!! ;-) Pete was so annoyed, so decided to go back to the first place and use Google translate to tell them they weren't being fair (he actually asked if they were racist). After a few more phone translations and the staff being scolded by the customers, they apologised and quickly and easily took our order!!! The food actually was quite good! The locals having dinner insisted we sit with them for a few “happy waters” (corn based moonshine!!!) to apologise for the staff behaviour, ended up being a pretty fun evening.

The next day, the ever accomodating, Mr Trung, presented us with a map of a great walk we could do to get the best views of the rice paddies. Being a photographer himself, he understood Pete's desire to get some good shots. He organised a taxi to drop us off at the start point and we could wend our way back to the home stay along rural tracks. The taxi driver got a little lost, but did take us to an incredible viewpoint high on a rock with a sheer drop that gave us both wobbly legs, before finding the correct start point

What can I say but wow!!! What a spectacular walk. Beautiful views of the surrounding area. It's incredible. Such steep mountains, full of terraced rice paddies and corn fields. People out ploughing their fields with their buffaloes, or loosening the soil with picks. Small villages and farm houses with their veggie gardens and family pigs. I still can't understand why people miss this town out. Anyway, it was a great walk though it took us longer than expected… too much scenery! so arrived back at the homestay just in time for a much needed beer before a delicious home cooked meal.

Another couple, with guides, had arrived during the afternoon and joined us at the family dinner table happily enjoying Mr Trungs cooking and drinking home brewed corn spirit that he infused with mushrooms and honey, very drinkable!!!

The taxi picked us up at 6:30am the next morning for the 30 minute drive to Can Cau and its market. Like most markets in Asia it's best to get there early but here it's even more important so you can avoid the tourists coming up from Sapa who arrive around 9am.

We were greeted with a great local market. Under the huge canvas structures you could buy almost anything. There were tables laden with fresh vegetables and ladies sitting on the clay ground offering herbs or spices. There were people walking around with live chickens tucked under their arm (ready for that weeks dinner) while others loaded their motorbike with wriggling piglets in hessian bags (for the farm not the table, yet!) or a bamboo cage full of ducks.

Ladies dressed in their traditional costumes haggled over the price of eggs or gossiped about Mr Wangs latest indiscretion. Initially we thought this was for the tourists but soon realised they were super shy and didn't want their photos taken. It was just their day out and time to dress up!

Elsewhere people sitting down to all sorts of delicious smelling foods for a hearty breakfast before they headed to the buffalo sales. There was a lot of discussions and inspections of the buffalo but we didn’t see any actual transactions.

We came across “moonshine corner” (our description). An area of steps where sellers with 20 litre plastic drums filled with their homemade corn spirit offer tastings to customers before syphoning some into their empty coke bottles. It was probably the coolest part of the market. They wanted pete to try and so of course he obliged!!

Needing breakfast we decided to sit down at a place where they were cooking curd and greens in an enormous wok over an open fire, we found out it was a local tofu and herbs. It was served with a very spicy dipping sauce, greens and rice and was delicious. The locals loved the fact we sat down to have some. Obviously most tourists just wander past looking at the food, taking photos…. But too scared to try!! That's not us! ;-)

The guy sitting next to us had a small bowl of clear liquid beside him as we sat down he got up and came back with 3 small cups. He dunked each one into the bowl and promptly offered both of us a cup each, yep it was his recently purchased moonshine! Great breakfast beverage!!! You can't sip this either - it's a shot. And try telling him no - that was impossible! After Pete had downed 8 and me 6, thankfully we finished our food and had the excuse to leave, it was actually a lot of fun!

Not quite full we opted for another bowl of something… yup you guessed it, it was pho! We found one that we could see a nice broth with lots of meat. So again we sat down to their delight and happily slurped our way through this bowl.
As we finished breakfast the first tourists from Sapa were arriving, many of them gawking at us, curious that we would choose to sit down, in this clay field of canvas structures, and eat local street food, cooked in well worn pots, over open fires. Yeah such daredevils!!!

By 9.30 the market felt flooded with tourists and cameras (yes… we are tourists.. and yes we have cameras… but we are different!, just ask us) so it was time to head back.
We casually checked out of Huy Trung Homestay over a lovely cup of Vietnamese coffee (Pete loves this stuff) then moved to the Congfu hotel in the town centre. Boy what a come down, and this we found out later was one of the better hotels of the town too!!!
We also discovered that the town was suddenly full of white people that weren't there before, they had arrived by the bus load and had filled the previously empty hotels and streets. By Sunday night they would be gone and the town would revert to its sleepy self

Starting out early again the next morning, yet again trying to beat the tourists, we walked down to the Bac Ha market which is very similar to Can Cau, similar produce, similar buffalo, in fact we noticed several of the same vendors. Again we also partook in some delicious delights, we thought we ordered a bowl of meats and vegetables but no... another bowl of pho!!!, and again we left as the other tourists started to fill the market. The markets wound up early afternoon, the buses headed back to Sapa and by evening we had the town to ourselves again.

We were picked up by a local bus to Sapa, the next morning. The girl at our hotel organised for us to sit in the front seat, driver took a fancy to Pete and kept putting his hand on his knee. I thought it was funny, Peter thought about his sexuality....