For those living in Hanoi few names carry as much romance as the names of the towns and roads of the Great North West: Sapa, Sonla, Lai Chau, Lao Cai, and of course the famous Route Number Six which was the great Colonial endeavour of French Indochina and the road French infantry took from Hanoi to their last stand in Dien Bien Phu.

We had already been to Sapa for the Tet vacation: three days in a freezing clouded city and one wonderful trek. This trek gave us a taste of the Montagnards,  the hill-dwelling tribes. In Sapa we shared a freshly killed and horribly cooked pig with members of the Dao (pronounced Zao) people. The Saturday market in Sapa can only be described by what we used to call in the sixties as ‘a gathering of the tribes’.

Wonderful clothing with wild designs compete for our attention as Black Muong, Flower Muong, Black Tai and Red Tai tribes get together and rattle through the market place buying and selling, eating and spitting, pushing and pulling. Sapa has some major advantages and disadvantages. It is an ugly urban sprawl with horrible weather. On the other hand it has good hotels and the tribes-people speak English. Also, it is the place to stock up on all kinds of ethnic wear. And so we bought bed covers of dazzling blue, skull caps that look like rainbows and very groovy shirts with brocaded motifs. 

Back in Hanoi I was able to read a fascinating book about the lives of H’Muong refuges from Laos in California called The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, by Anne Fadiman. To make a long story even longer, I was ready and ripe for another wild foray into the world of the hill tribes.


A diversion in which other actors are discussed


Actor number one: East of Eden.

In all of this I have not yet forgotten our old and faithful car, our 1987 army-green Range Rover, East of Eden. She has been parked for the better part of a year at my school collecting dust. If dust were all she has been collecting! Her motor has become a very cosy home for rats and her battery has been slowly dying. I haven’t given her an oil change since Bangkok and her air filter must look like the Marlboro Man’s left lung.

Knowing that our trip to the Great North West was coming up I tried to get her started but the petrol pump had died. So out I went and bought a new petrol pump and installed it in the car. I bought a new battery and she fired up, as sure as life. And so, East of Eden, un-oil changed and smelling like rat shit was ready to go. Basic security checks confirmed that she had enough brake fluid and motor oil, a few centimetres of brake lining and a petrol filter that looked, well, not too filthy.  But she kept her secrets to herself and only later did she inform us that she was not happy with my neglect.

Actor number two: Marc Ricard, Webmaster for East of Eden.

One of the unspoken heroes of our trip has been Marc Ricard, our Webmaster. Let’s face it, the site is beautiful. The colours are alive and the whole thing is user-friendly. I take full credit for most of the texts and the photos and Marie-Do is a great and patient translator, but the aesthetics of the site, the finishing touches which make it a pleasure to look at, the million and one details which go into the final product you now have on your screens…well, that’s Marc Ricard.

And Marco finally took some time off work and came to Vietnam to visit us. This was the first time that all members of the East of Eden team were united and we were looking forward to showing Marco the pleasures of the open road.

Thanks to May Day and Ho Chi Minh City Liberation Day on Tuesday and Thursday and the fact that no one in the country wanted to work on Monday, we had 6 whole days of fun and adventure before us!