Posted Nov. 26:
The highlight of our third day in Ha Giang was the visit to our guide’s house. We traveled alongside a river about 5 km from the Chinese border, and eventually stopped just off the main road. The trail to his village was unsuitable for driving an suv, so we got out of the car and my wife sat behind our guide on the motorbike and they took off for the village. 15 or 20 minutes later he came back for me. We rode uphill, through mud, rocks, trying to avoid buffalo pies along the way. All the while I had my GoPro running. Eventually we got to his house, a two room building where he lives with his parents, 2 siblings, wife, and two children. The view from his home was stunning as is so much of Ha Giang. We enjoyed steamed corn from their field, roasted corn as well, and sweet potatoes, also from their field. Oh, I mustn’t forget to mention the “happy water”, hard liquor made from... corn, of course. We sat, ate, and visited for an hour or two, very much like family. You could say these people are poor, but in a setting like this I had to re-evaluate my definition of “poor”. Maybe “rich” in a different way than I’m used to thinking!
Oh, lest I forget an interesting part of this story... as we left the house our guide first took my wife on his motorbike back to the main road. I began walking, to make up some time. About 200 yards from the house I came to a fork in the road. Hmmm... I didn’t recall seeing a fork on the way up! Well, one fork went down, and the other went up . I knew that most of the ride had been uphill from the main road. But was that 95% up, or 100% up? Clearly the odds favored the left fork going down, but I wondered, just a little, as I started down the left fork. Just then two young Hmong boys came walking from the village and took the right fork. I called to them and asked in Vietnamese which way to Quan Ba. They didn’t speak Vietnamese, and they probably had never seen a white guy before. Eventually they understood that I was going to Quan Ba, and they pointed down the left fork. Whew! Relieved of that little nagging doubt! Then the boys started laughing. Hmmm... laughing at seeing a white guy? Or at playing a neat little joke on a white guy? I continued down the left fork, and finally thought to pull out my GoPro and iPhone to review the footage from the ride uphill, and from this determined without a doubt that the left fork was the right fork (you might think now that I’m confused?). After walking a couple of minutes I noticed a small herd of unattended buffaloes heading my direction on the narrow path. Oops. They’re docile creatures, until they’re frightened. I swallowed hard, took the hard right side of the path, and then to my great relief our guide arrived on scene and I was saved from the terrible beasties. Happy ending! |
