Cat Cat Village

Today we went on a trek, or hike with May Linh who had to have been the sweetest Vietnamese person I have met. She helped clear up a lot of our questions and really by the end of the day I had a new girlfriend. 

Sapa was originally built in 1922 by the French and is now still a busy mountain town. There are many hill tribe people that live here, I believe May Linh said that there were 6 different kinds.

We entered into the Cat Cat village where we walked around and saw the villagers and learned about their hemp weaving, the indigo dying and the herbal medicine.  The government opened the village for the tourists hoping to help them financially. At first, the villagers were not happy about it, but now it is okay and normal for them to see. The kids try to sell you everything and it is so hard to tell them no. May Linh also told us that the Vietnamese love to eat dog (which we saw plenty of, along with pigs walking down the road)

May Linh was a lighter skinned most beautiful 20 year old girl who told us the story about the love market and how her people either have arranged marriages or are kidnapped for three days by a man who likes them. They know that they are liked because they play music to each other. It was a fun story. The reason why I mentioned she was lighter skin was because some of the other Vietnamese people made fun of her and I wanted to knock them out.

Anyway, as we walked there was also a herd of water buffalo swimming in the stream near the boys who use them to plow their land. 

I asked May Linh about Vietnamese’s opinion towards Americans and if we stuck out with our accent. She said that they know we speak English but they don’t know enough to know that we are from America. She said that they think all American’s are rich (I told her how untrue it is, but compared to their life, possibly we seem it) She said that some people still have an opinion about the war, but it is the same with the French from before and the Chinese. But most people, do not think about it anymore.

We also saw a beautiful waterfall which the French had used for hydroelectric power.

The scenery was absolutely beautiful. The weather wasn’t awfully hot…and it was just a perfect afternoon. Keep an eye out for pictures on the right, but we do not have internet in our room and it takes a long time to upload them all.