Roundtrip back to Sa Pa

      Something weird is going on with the format.  I think this is what I want to post, but please pretend that the water buffalo is at the end instead of after the sugarcane paragraph.
     Our trekking guide was a Black Hmong girl named Zaa.  She learned English by speaking to tourists but was very fluent, and very helpful in answering all our questions about houses, marriage, food, and clothes.  For a couple of hours we hiked through cloud and couldn't see much more than the road and a few feet beyond but by the time we rounded the mountain and came near our destination, Ta Phin, the clouds were being burned away.  Apparently we were lucky in the weather because often it doesn't clear up at all this time of year.  We had views of rice paddies and mountains and trees, and lots and lots of pigs.  
      In the Hmong culture New Year's is the traditional time to meet your future husband/wife.  It's the only time of the year where nobody has to work.  They make new clothes for the holiday and dress up to go the markets and chat and mingle. As I understand it, a boy can give a girl a gift and if she accepts it then a few days later he and his friends will kidnap, 'xij', her and take her to his family where they will get married soon after.  Traditionally she can only refuse the marriage if no gift was offered or if she didn't accept it but I think that's changing.  Many weddings take place a couple of weeks after the holiday.
      Zaa told us that she and her husband met in church, which is very unusual.  Her family is Catholic and her husband's Christian.  She's nineteen and been married a year, and wanted to know when I was getting married and if I would be allowed to choose my own husband.
     Overnight we homestayed in the house of a Red Dao (pronounces 'zow') family.  We had sandwiches on the veranda for lunch before walking around the town.  The house had two large rooms inside, a loft, two rooms outside for guests, and a porch with table and chairs.  Inside one room was lined with wooden beds and the other was a kitchen.  The mother and father lived in the house, and their son lived with them, and while we were there their daughter and her son came to visit.  They seemed like a close family, and were very friendly helpful even though they spoke no English.

The house we stayed the night in

     In Ta Phin there are the Black Hmong and the Red Dao tribes as well as some Vietnamese.  We walked the length of the village and stopped on the way back to buy a stalk of sugarcane.  It looks a little like a large piece of bamboo but the woman selling it took of the outside with a machete and cut it up into smaller pieces, and on the inside it was pale and fibrous.  We bit off pieces and chewed on them until the juice was gone, then spat out the leftovers on the side of the road.  The juice was sweet but not cloying, and really thirst-quenching but after a piece and a half I'd had enough.  
     Before we ate we played cards with Zaa for a while, modifying 'spoons' to 'chopsticks'.
     For dinner the hotel which we planned the trip from sent a cook because we were vegetarian and we were treated to a feast.  We put a huge dent into the tofu, spring rolls, carrots, cabbage salad, cooked Chinese cabbage, and fake prawns but were ultimately unable to finish them. 
     It got dark early and we went to bed soon after, but due to the pigs, two-month-old baby, cat-which-sounded-like-the-two-month-old-baby, and roosters our sleep was a little interrupted.  
      For breakfast we were adeptly made pancakes over the fire.
      It was misty and cold and damp when we set out but, after a brief round of pouring rain which vanished as soon as the ponchos appeared, cleared up nicely.  It wasn't as muddy today as yesterday until we got to the paths through the rice paddies but our shoes stayed cleaner overall.  
    When we reached Sa Pa we were amazed at the size of the town.  We had driven through it on our way from the train station, but who knew there was a lake?   The low cloud had effectively hidden everything more then ten feet away from us.  We walked through the market again and were barraged.  
      Instead of eating on the way we waited until we went back to our hotel and had warm noodles for lunch before saying goodbye to Zaa.