A crazy adventure into the wild outdoors

Although one might feel that the trip to the perfume pagoda was an intrepid traveler's dream (see previous entry) that was nothing compared to what we had in store next.

It began with a nice calm day of traversing through Hanoi to see local sites.  Begining with the museum of ethnicities on the outskirts of town.  Remarkable that Vietnam is actually comprised of 54 different and distinct etnicities.  This museum was dedicated to showing and preserving some of the traditions that are rapidly disintegrating in major cities or as ethnicities slowly get wiped out through inter-marriage etc.  One tribe believed that women are the sources of all pain and thus if someone was to get sick the priest would perform a ritual where they would have enlarged phallic symbols tied around their waist (for all women are of course afraid of phallics) and chase the women around the hall.  It was quite interesting to actual watch on tvs throughout the museum the actual ceremonys.  I wonder how many ceremonies we will never get to see of our native american's since many have long since lost critical mass to continue their deepest traditions.

The back of the museum actually held replicas of some of the different ethnicity's huts and homes so that one could truly experience what they must live like.  I thoght this was as close as we would get...I was wrong.

After the museum and a much needed to bit to eat we stopped by the main pagoda in the city.  Although not incredibly well maintained it is still the spiritual center of the city and even in a brief amount of time we were there we saw several people from as you as mid twenties to fifties making offerings to budhah with distinct wishes.  Still very much an active part of many of their lives.

The rest of the afternoon passed a blur of walking around street vendors, some ice cream in a coffee shop, watching all the schools letting out and the kid streaming out to an army of waiting relatives on their scooters.  But precisely at 830pm the care free aspect of day rapidly changed into serious focus.

A chaotic series of events preceded our boardingof our overnight express to Sapa.  Our tour companu had some 'miss communications' but with minutes to spare we were safely stowed on our hard sleeper cabin.  What does this mean?  On any type of transportation paticularly trains there is multiple classes of service, due to popular demand the only bunks we could get for this 10 hour train ride were in the back of the train in a cabin with 6 bunks (3 high).  Each bunch contains the thinnest of pads, think sheet rather than pad and a blanket.  Even more exciting we apparently took the bunks in the crew quarter for twice throught the evening a cell phone would ring and a couple of staff members would wake up, remove themselves from the bunks and are quickly replaced by two others who promptly fall sleep. 

I do not think between the shuddering of the train and curves through the mountains any of us got a ton of sleep, however around 5:30 when the sun rose the sites see through the train were quite impressive.  Jumping off the train at 7am, we quickly hopped a mini- bus which took us through the mountains for an hour and a half long drive before arriving at Sapa.  Now Sapa is one of the closest cities to China frm Vietnem.  It is in the middle of the mountains and still farmed by many of those same ethnic minorities we saw in the museum.  The next three days we would be interacting and walking among these groups as we see how they survive in these rugged turreins.