Market Mayhem

     They say, 'Make me happy'.  They say, 'You buy from her, now will you buy from me?'  They say, 'I worked so hard.  You don't like it?'  They grab your hand and make you pinky-promise to be their friend for the afternoon.
     Entering the market, we were swarmed.
     Sa Pa is a touristy town but we were among the first to wander into the stalls and were set upon by a half dozen women, three sticking with us while we walked through the market and the other three not the same but rotating as we moved on.  They talked to my parents.  She asked, 'Where are you from?', 'What is your name?', 'How old is your daughter?'.  Very friendly.  After a couple minutes she changed to taking pillow covers and wallets from a plastic shopping bag.  This was a cue for more women to walk over and start arguing about whose prices were lower.  Everybody is smiling, friendly, but in your face.  We just want breakfast and tell them that we might buy later but this was such a mistake.  They become even more eager to sell things to us now because later maybe there will be too many people to find us, later maybe we will forget.  It's hard to say 'no' when they seem so nice.  I might like to look at something but I can't ask because then they want to sell it, and they tell me that if I don't want to buy it they have wasted so much time making it because it must be ugly.
     The only one of us who has dealt with markets like this, my dad, steps in and says no firmly to everyone.  This deters all but two or three who talk to us until we make our way to the food section and sit at a table.  They have delicious veggie soup here (since I didn't take any soup pictures in Hanoi this is the model for my last entry), with lots of noodles, fresh mint, the kind of chili sauce that is spicy but not really salty, tofu, mushrooms (that's what kind of looks like meat), and a clear vegetable broth.  I made a point of not looking at the kitchen where they prepare the food.

The food court

     When we sat down we thought we evaded our retinue but about halfway through breakfast I looked over towards the center of the food court and noticed the first woman who spoke to us watching me.  She must have left partway through eating because we didn't see her again until we were almost to the safety of our hotel.   I saw her a few feet away as we left the market and thought maybe she didn't see us, but she started walking in our direction.  There was a rather large group of people between us and her but she drifted determinedly at an angle to intersect.  Luckily she starts the banter up from the beginning again and we made it to the hotel before she started guilt-tripping us.
     It was still early after breakfast because our train arrived three hours before we expected.  My parents had some warning but I had about a minute between 'Wake up, Anna!' and standing on the platform in which to wake up, stuff my pillow and book in my daypack, put on shoes and coat, and negotiate my way off the upper bunk.  There are three Cat-Cat hotels in Sa Pa but a car from ours met us at the station.  From Lao Cai where we were left to Sa Pa was a little less than an hour in the car, on narrow, twisty road hugging the mountain.  Originally we planned to leave the day after we arrived to hike for three days and then motorbike back on the third but revised the plan once seeing the lack of barrier between road and drop-off.  Instead we hiked for two days and walked a loop, Sa Pa to the village where we homestayed the night, through a couple of other villages, and back to Sa Pa.