Day 6: Shopping in Sapa (Wednesday, July 2)

I haven't mentioned one of the real pleasures of Vietnam: the coffee. Here's a picture of a Vietnamese coffee maker. The grounds are held in the upper cup between two filters. You pour a little hot water on them to wet them and then pour boiling water enough for your cup of coffee. But what makes it special is that in the cup, you've already put a dollop of sweetened condensed milk. It makes a cup as sweet and as bitter as life.

Most of this day I wandered and shopped for the lovely embroideried pieces that the women make in the villages. I don't have good pictures of the shopping or the displays, mainly because it was all I could do was to do the shopping. A crowd of women pulling on my arms, showing me goods, wheedling, "Buy from me. Buy from me," is very overwhelming. I got what I wanted, and only what I wanted, but it took some concentration and I didn't have a hand free for a camera. The hardest people to buy from were the women who hung out on the streets to accost any tourists walking by. But even in the markets where they had individual stalls, the women were really demanding and would come and pull on my arm. I wouldn't say it was intimidating, more just overwhelming. Twice such a crowd had gathered around me that I had to duck into an internet cafe or into a regular cafe to get away.
By mid-afternoon I'd spent all the money I'd planned to and was tired of the work of bargaining. So I took a walk down to Cat Cat village. It's about 3K down into the valley. There's a set stone path all the way down to cut erosion and keep the tourists out of the rice paddies. There are also men offering motor scooter rides back up all along the way. The kids were cute but horribly reckless around there. People were drying their indigo-dyed hemp cloth on railings all over.

The stuff that they can make is just gorgeous, as is the scenery. The people are terribly poor, though during this high season, they do make some money from tourists. I don't think I've ever been to a place that people still wear traditional clothing, and I wonder how long it will last. Usually I don't buy enough of the beautifully-made things I see on my travels. But this night backpack was full and I had three extra shopping bags as I went to the train station.