Vietnam 2013 Day 10 – Dong Van surrounds

A chicken pho breakfast at 0730 and we’re off by 0800 to a market 22km away, at a small village we passed yesterday. The market is at Xa Phin and it opens only on snake and horse day.

The local market was quite nice. Full of colour of the local dress. Most of the items are from China. Including mobile phones. Fake Samsung Galaxy III, only 90,000 VND.

But the local stuff – pigs, pork, cows, tool sharpening, farming tools, vegetables, corn wine, people ripping sugar cane with their teeth (the kind of stuff I used to do when I was a kid) – were more interesting.

The cost of a cow is 7 million VND. About US$700.

The market is just outside the king’s palace. A king named Vuong Chinh Duc who was Hmong, but his palace is made in Chinese style. He made his money off opium. The house is quite basic with three courtyards and most with two levels. But some rooms have these really thick walled rooms for defence, gun storage, valuables and so on. And one of the thick walled rooms is devoted just to protect the opium.

By 1150, we had also done two walks. The first was right after the market. We walked through the stony landscape we’d whizzed by the day before.

The  second, was just slightly further down from where we’d finished our walk. My guide spotted some Hmong working in the hills. We decided to walk up and see what they were up to.

The first lady was doing her laundry. The second group, comprising an old woman, a younger woman and a young man were clearing the weeds and preparing the ground for planting.

We walked up beyond where they were to have a look at the valleys on either side of the hill.

Then we headed back into Dong Van for lunch, which was an omelette, fried lean pork with ginger and chilli (done to the guide’s specification, a lot more spicy than they’re used to here), a vegetable boiled with ginger, and a bowl of yellow soup, which turned out to be the water in which the vegetables were cooked. Why they didn’t put it as one dish confounds me. Suffice to say, the cooking here is basic and not inventive.

In half an hour, we were done with lunch and off again, at 1245 to a village just outside Dong Van called Ta Lung. On the signboard it says 5km there, but the road was very difficult to manoeuvre as it was winding and the road conditions were very poor. Muddy parts, loose rock. A road subject to landslides. The road was so bad there were times I wondered how we’d get help if we had a tyre puncture. Probably we’d have to go on foot, like the ethnic people. The driver, Luc is a good, however.

At Ta Lung, I met villagers and even entered some of their houses. My guide, Zu gave them a tip when we went into a house. Since she is Hmong, but from Sapa, it helped that she could speak the local dialect as well. And once she spoke to them, there was immediate friendliness for her. For me, however, they were rather shy and tended to look away when I looked at them.

1515, we were back at Dong Van and we begin our ascent up the limestone hill. Atop this hill is a French lookout built when they took over this area. Twice. In fact, this is why the men also wear the beret in these parts. It was a steep climb but I was rewarded with excellent views of Dong Van below. It was not as small a town as I’d thought

Looking down at Dong Van from the old French fort.