Among Hmong Mountains

Fog rolled into the valley the way a horse gallops. It blew in thick and billowy and sudden, enveloping the world before my eyes. I hadn't had much of a view before, but now my world narrowed into a white mist tunnel. There was the narrow track I was following, a low stone wall to one side, and the vague impression of the packs on the backs of my friends strung out in front of me.

Marveling for perhaps the hundredth time at the beauty of the landscape before me, I kept walking. It was day two of a five day four night trek my friends and I were doing in Sapa, a small town far north in Vietnam. It didn't take long for the mountains to steal my breath. Riding in a van along a bumpy and windy country road from the Lao Cai train station to Sapa a few nights ago, I'd stared out the window, enchanted by the steep green mountainsides and the great terraced rice fields molded into the slopes.

But right then, I couldn't see any of that. It was just me, my pack, the rocky mud track, and the fog.

I'd set off that morning from the small house of our trekking guide, host, and how near friend Mai. Upon arriving in Sapa, we'd met up with Mai and her mom, finalizing our plans for a 5 day trek. The next day, we'd shouldered our newly lightened packs, having left most of our things behind and taken only what we'd need for the next days, we set off. That morning we walked up, up into the mountain tops, up into the clouds.

For travelers in Vietnam, Sapa is a popular place for treks. It's beautiful, but its also where you go to learn about the ethnic minorities in Vietnam. The country has over 50 ethnic minorities scattered throughout the provinces. In Sapa, seven or eight of these peoples can be found in the surrounding villages. It is these people who sell handicrafts in Sapa and who lead treks.

Mai is a Hmong woman. She is thirty years old. She has four kids. She leads treks, makes and sells hand woven and embroidered belts, pouches, and bags in Sapa, farms rice and corn, and loves her children dearly.

If you saw her in Sapa, you probably wouldn't be able to pick her out. The town is filled with young women from the Hmong tribe and other tribes trying to make a living. Most days she wears a traditional Hmong jacked, pants, and leg wrappings, often with a t-shirt underneath. Her fingers are decorated with gold and silver rings her husband makes. He also makes bracelets, beautiful earring, and the silver clips Mai uses to wrap her hair simply around her head.

During that first day, we we trekked up and up and then down on steep rocky tracks and slighter wider dirt roads, Mai was no the only Hmong woman walking with us. There were actually half a dozen Hmong women who joined our group, walking up the steep road with us towards home. We spent the afternoon together, talking, laughing, asking questions. Two of these women carried babies on their backs and we learned about childcare among the Hmong. Two little girls led the way, confidently stepping along the mountain roads. Us westerners bought various things from our new friends before parting ways. (That was most of the reason, I'm sure, why they followed us for so long, but besides some beautifully embroidered things, we left those women after a great afternoon of conversation, laughter, and cultural exchange).

I met many women throughout the trek eager to sell something to us, but they were always just as eager to laugh with us, and point around the mountain valleys, telling us something of their home. One woman, Zoa, with a voice like a songbird, spent an afternoon walking with me, pointing out parts of the valley. Her english was limited, but the words she did know sprang from her mouth like birdsong, twittering and fluttering through the air. She pointed out water buffalo and the mountain path and different villages. It was a good way to spend an afternoon of walking, talking with a new friend.

Up in the Hmong mountains, clouds roll in easily. But every now and then the sky clears up, the fog rolls out. And a beautiful world is revealed.

In the mornings, I sipped coffee while admiring the mountain view. Often, the clouds were lifted in the mornings, letting sunlight stream in, filled the world with color. Every morning, I was reminded how beautiful this place was. The green, soft mountains. The geometry of the rice fields. The distant water falls that whispered or roared. The near laughter of village children.

The mountains were so filled with life, with good, strong, green growing things, and healthy people.

In the evenings, it got dark quickly. And thunder and lighting danced in the skies. It rained every night, filling the dark world with dampness. And I fell asleep to the percussion the rain played against the tin roofs. Rain reminded me of how wild this place still was, how fragile these lives are.

Walking on the second day of the trek, I was surrounded by the fog. Emptying the bowl of coffee I had sipped from that morning, I'd lifted my pack, ready to begin a long day. We were headed to another village, but on the way we would stop and visit one of Mai's family members.

Her grandmother.

It was nearly noon. We'd been walking for a few hours, and the fog had only just started to thin. Mai brought us to her grandmother's house. She left us waiting outside while she stepped in to ask if we could visit. A few minutes later we were all seated inside the dark and smokey house.

There was a cook fire blazing inside, over it were set several pots, and beside the fire sat Mai's grandmother.

She's a tiny woman, like all Hmong. Thin. Wrinkled. But only slightly worn from time. In fact, she looked very, very healthy considering her age.

Mai's grandmother is 120 years old.

I had found myself sitting in the little mountain house of a 120 year old woman.

An hour passed inside that house. We talked while Mai translated, asking questions of the grandmother's life, her family, how things have changed over time. The grandmother picked up her great tobacco pipe and drew in a deep breath. She stood up, setting some food to the side of a bench, moving as if she was years younger. Her hands, gnarled from year of hard work, flexed and gripped easily. She smiled. She blinked her big eyes, looking around at us strange creatures around her fire, there to learn something.

How her world has changed in the last century. The loss she has seen. The violence, the death. All lived through. How the lifestyle of those around her has changed, and not changed, and continued on as it always had. How long the years must feel, stretching out forever behind her. How brief it must feel. For surely only yesterday she was Mai's age, carrying her babies on her back and meeting her husband for the first time. Surely only yesterday she ran through the rice fields the way children do, lightly and unafraid of breaking the tender corn stalks. Her certain hands could work, could cook, could create, familiar with the movements needed to do any work. And her voice. Soft, quiet. Thoughtful. It rumbled up from deep inside, hinting at the young girl, the young woman that once spoke with those same lips, who still live somewhere inside the wise woman I now sat before.

But we could not stay forever. There was a long way yet before we'd reach our beds. And so after many thank yous, we left. Donning our packs, we set off again into the blue mountains, taking with us a piece of the legend we had become a part of.