Our hotel host said it was a good one-day trek with interesting village and it was downhill. I almost didn't book it, worrying that it might not be challenging enough, but that fear proved to be unfounded in spades. It started out innocently enough on a paved road, but once we started climbing down off the road onto muddy surfaces, the fun began! We had a leader (I sorry, I forget name) and a posse of Hmong women who walked with us. I thought they were somehow getting paid when one of them began helping me through the mudslides. My shoes, fabulous on rock, proved to be akin to a sled or skates in the mud -- the tread immediately filled up (as did the sides, top, and the bottom of my pants!). One of the young ones slipped down the hill first...butt covered with mud. I wanted to be graceful and get down the hill on my feet. One of the Hmong women, ZuZu was older -- 57 or 52 -- and had very strong hands indeed. She took it upon herself to help me down the trail as we went up and down, across streams, up rice paddies (they are high!) and down again. I fell once breaking my fall on my previously broken wrist. Oops! Think it's okay though. Our guide, useless, ahead of us, not helping anyone, continued to lead us through 6 miles of muck and gunk! Once we arrived at our luncheon place, a black Hmong village, it was time to pay the ZuZu. She had stood by me, she was not young, she had a firm and confident grip. I do what she says. I hope this was not exploitive, but I wanted her belt. The black Hmong costume includes several layers of indigo and embroidery and I fell in love with the belt, which is indigo and embroidery. The place I saw it required that you buy the whole ensemble...which is TINY....and I just wanted the belt. Was it exploitive to turn down the pillow covers and request her belt? She ended up unwrapping it and handing it to me for 500,000 dong, maybe $23. I also brought a money belt for less -- as a tip I guess. During this transaction I had an audience -- Zao ladies -- or were they Zha? One of them spoke great English and I kept telling her -- ZuZu my sister, she helped me climb through mud...I need to buy from her. Of course, these other two stayed with me, seeing I was a soft touch.
ZuZu
In the end, I ended up buying from them, too, things I did not want at all! After their exorbitant asking prices, I negotiated a 50-50 deal where I got one small item from each of them for a ridiculous sum.
At the end, one of the guides explains to me that we were on the easy trail -- oh yea, tough mudder easy...if I hadn't had ZuZu I would have been crawling through the mud and would have been covered head to toe instead of below the knees.
Close up paddies, planting begins in May
Also, met some sweet people -- a coffee trader -- kiwi -- who lives in Hanoi and is a coffee trader, two young female Korean travelers, and some very sweet Malaysians. There were also a French couple, but kind of nasty compared to the others.
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