There isn’t a market for love anymore

We woke to a modern arrangement of Fur Elise piped in through the PA around 0530. There are worse ways to be woken up. Our arrival into Lao Cai (next to the Chinese border) was uneventful.

We found the shuttle desk for Sapa easily and bought our tickets. We waited briefly for the van to fill; we’ve heard horror stories of people waiting for hours. The drive to Sapa was less than an hour; it was scenic with beautifully green rice terraces cut into the mountains. Again, Vietnamese transport is great; we were dropped at our hotel driveway in the middle of town.

As our hotel was full, we had to wait till around midday for the room to be available. Time passed quickly with breakfast, a long walk around the town square and markets and some coffee.

The town square was busy with many craft sellers from the Black Hmong tribe. They wear largely black and the women’s legs are covered with black leg warmers. Some women seem to have their hair shaved off too. The nearby market was busy too as Saturday is the market day for Sapa. The Black Hmong come in to bring their produce and craft for sale, and also to do their shopping.

I was surprised by the amount of English spoken by people in Sapa by both the town folks and the hill tribe people that come in. They can converse well and are very understandable; even more so than some of Kim’s Auckland-based cabin crew friends at Air New Zealand who have been recruited for their other language skills (either Asian or European languages).

Saturday night traditionally was the time for the “love market” where youngsters come to find their match. As each village is quite small, marrying within the village would be within a small gene pool. Girls used to sing in the dark to find themselves a nice man. Sadly, I don’t think it happens anymore … we didn’t see such romantic advances. There isn’t a market for love anymore!