Multi-Purpose Vehicle

Posted on June 5, 2012 by setiawanphoto

When we walked through the villages in the valley near Sapa, Vietnam, we noticed a common type of vehicle that the locals used for many purposes (and it’s an unlikely one), the small cc motorcycles. In Southeast Asia, it’s pretty common to see small cc motorcycles dominating the traffic especially in big, crowded cities like Jakarta, Phnom Penh, Bangkok, or Hanoi. I didn’t expect to see these motorcycles as much in the mountainous region around Sapa, however, since you would think it requires bigger engine to have these motorcycles going on steep climb and descent in some of the area roads, and even going on gravel or dirt roads in the rural area. But since these motorcycles are also quite affordable in comparison to cars, surprisingly you can find many of them around. There are even some people who provide service by giving others ride between Sapa and the nearby villages. In some cases, we saw people carrying heavy loads on the back, or even having three adults riding on one small motorcycles.

I thought it’s interesting to see how people would push the boundaries of the ‘operating conditions’ of these motorcycles. I thought of similar cases in many developing countries where you have to make the best use of what you have, and it’s about necessity, not luxury, to have these vehicles. Back in Indonesia, when I was young, my father owned a Vespa (Italian scooter) that he rode everywhere in Jakarta since even before I was born. He rode the same scooter for more than 20 years, and whenever it broke down, he would find some ingenious local mechanics who figured out how to fix it. You hear similar stories with the 1950s cars in Cuba that are still in use today — people with their ingenuity manage to prolong the life of these vehicles, even when at times the use was beyond the intended ‘operating conditions.’

Compare that to the wealthy countries like the United States. In the US, there are more cars than motorcycles, and when people drive cars here, I think on average the cars are probably around 5 years old or younger. You do see older cars, but a lot of people if they could afford it would look to get new car every several years. And these days most of the newer cars are so complex and sophisticated that you almost need to take it to the authorized dealer service center to figure out using computerized diagnostic tools if there is anything wrong with it. Try to take those cars to places like Sapa; I would be reluctant to do so lest it breaks down and noone knows how to fix it. Also, here I do care about keeping my car in good condition (for its resale value) that I would think twice before driving it to any off road or even unpaved roads since the car is not a 4-wheel drive. I’m sure if I had no choice I would’ve found ways to make it work with what I have.

The photo below was taken as we walked on the main road in the village of Tavan. You see a man riding his small cc motorcycle with ‘wide load’ on his back seat. I’m not sure if this would even be allowed in the United States.

School Performance

Posted on June 4, 2012 by setiawanphoto

After we finished our lunch in the village of Lao Chai, we continued our trek to the village of Tavan, which was located about 3 km away from Lao Chai, also in the valley near Sapa, Vietnam. The walk between the two villages was pretty flat; we spent the time chatting with our guide May talking about her life experience living in the nearby village and about the local culture.

When we arrived in Tavan, we stopped at a local elementary school, where at the schoolyard there was a dance performance by the students shown for the tourists who came to visit. It was pretty cute to see these little kids — mostly between 5 and 8 years old, performing the coreographed dance to the tune of music playing on a boombox. Their teacher was watching them performing. Many of the tourists including myself got closer to the performing kids so we could take photos of them during the performance.

We stayed there for a little bit to watch the performance, then continued our trek. One thing interesting however was May’s comments to us as we left the school. She said that the school was opened by the Vietnamese government to educate the local children, mostly from the minority tribes (you could tell the government influence as there was a picture of Ho Chi Minh prominently on display at the front of the school). While undoubtedly the children received education, with the increasing popularity of tourism coming to the area, now the teachers tried to charm the visitors with the performances by the children to encourage the visitors to give donation to the school to help the poor children. This is well intentioned, but at times there are occasions when it seemed that in some schools the money donated never actually made it to the children, but instead were taken by the teachers. When you have teachers in remote area like this with likely pretty low salary, it’s not surprising that such corruption may happen. A better way to donate to the local community was by bringing in some school supplies that the students could use.

The photo below was taken during the performance by the school children. You can see them performing while their teacher was watching on the side, and the tourists were watching from the background.

Hearty Lunch

Posted on June 3, 2012 by setiawanphoto

We reached the village of Lao Chai, which was more than half way of our trek from the town of Sapa, Vietnam. Our guide May told us that we would stop here for a lunch break. The trek so far had been mostly downhill, and the weather was cool enough that we didn’t sweat that much. But a break was definitely welcomed by then.

We crossed a wooden bridge that swayed a little bit as we walked across it. The place where we stopped for lunch was just after the bridge. It seemed to be a multi-story structure that stood on the cliff with the top floor set up to be a dining area, and the bottom part seemed to be where the kitchen was located and also possibly where some of the local hosts lived. While it’s set up like a restaurant, I think they mainly catered the trekking groups that passed that route. I didn’t see any sign for a restaurant or any menu given.

After we were seated, May explained that we had a couple of choices for lunch, either noodle soup with vegetable and fried eggs, or noodle soup with chicken meat. The food was part of the trekking arrangement, but the drink wasn’t. So we got to choose also whether to get bottled water or canned soft drinks. Everyone in our group asked for the noodle soup with vegetable and fried eggs.

There were several other trekking groups who were eating at the same time, so they were quite busy preparing the food for us. May helped out in serving the food and drink. The meal itself ended up to be nothing special; it looked like they prepared instant noodles as the base, but added vegetables and fried eggs as toppings. This reminded me to some places in Jakarta where you could get cheap meals on the side street where it’s basically just instant noodles but with added toppings like vegetables and eggs. I think in the end it didn’t matter as much as we were quite hungry by then, and I think we valued more the atmosphere and the people who we were with, as well as the generosity and hospitality of our hosts in serving us. I don’t think May had anything to eat as she was busy helping the hosts serving, but she was still smiling and cheerful even after we’re done with our lunch and ready to continue with our trek.

The photo below was taken from the bridge as we saw the place where we’re about to have lunch. You can see a couple of these places, with the area on their top floors where they set up the dining areas.

Free Range Chicken

Posted on June 2, 2012 by setiawanphoto

We finally reached the village of Lao Chai as we hiked down to the valley near Sapa, Vietnam. We walked on the dirt road that cut through the village. On the side of the road, we saw more terraced rice fields and some homes. We also saw something that’s probably common to see in the villages in Southeast Asian countries, but not in the United States or other western countries, animals roaming around near the homes: dogs, chickens, and pigs. Seeing dogs roaming around as pets are not unusual. But seeing chickens and pigs, those are a little different. They pretty much roamed around freely, not just in an enclosed, grassy areas, but really just anywhere around the homes, and some even roamed outside to the dirt road.

The first thought that came to my mind was that this gave a new meaning to ‘free range.’ In the United States, there were concerns about how farm animals are treated. Many farms were focusing on increasing the production of meats and poultry that the way the animals were grown some considered as ‘inhumane’ or cruel. The animals were caged and lived unnaturally. So the industry then tried to improve this by introducing the idea of having ‘organic’ and ‘free range’ animals. The animals were fed more natural foods (without chemicals or growth hormones) and instead of caged, they were free to roam on the field. The result was supposedly not only more humane treatment for the animals, but also healthier and better tasting meats.

I thought of that concept in comparison to how locals grow animals in Vietnam. The locals in the villages have some pig and chicken, but they’re not necessarily farmed for high volume production. According our guide May, the locals eat meat, but that’s considered as luxury and they only have those for special occasions. So no one cares really about the idea of ‘organic’ or ‘free range.’ They would probably look at you funny if you talked about treating the animals in ‘humane’ way. Animals don’t get treated in any special way, but they are also valued so it’s likely they don’t get treated in any bad way either. I remembered a story from my father who lived in a poor village in Indonesia when he was young — having eggs as special meal for a birthday as those were too expensive to get for day-to-day consumption. That makes me feel grateful of the blessings we have today — in many cases it seems that if anything we need to reduce the consumption as the excess can be detremental to our health.

The photo below was taken from the dirt road as we walked into the village. You can see the chickens just roamed around on what looked like a pretty dirty grounds.

Terraced Rice Fields

Posted on June 1, 2012 by setiawanphoto

As we continued our descent to the valley near Sapa, Vietnam, we saw that we closely approached where the some of the terraced rice fields were located. So far we had been following a muddy path down. Then as I looked at where that path led to at the bottom of the descent, it looked like it ended at a small stream that we would have to cross. On the other side of the stream, I couldn’t see any continuing path. Instead there were the terraced rice fields.

We watched the group in front of us going through there, and it became clear that once you cross the stream, you would then walk on the narrow pathway in between the rice fields (what looked like the boundary or outline of the terraced rice fields when you see them from far away). It didn’t look too bad from far away, but when you get closer, it looked like an interesting exercise walking through that stretch while staying in line within your group. The challenge was that you need to maintain your balance on the narrow path, and on one side it plunged down to the stream below, and on the other side you have the muddy rice fields.

When it came to our turn going down there, I walked carefully crossing the stream to make sure I hopped from rock to rock and not getting wet from plunging to the stream. That was not too bad. But then as we walked on the narrow pathway next to the rice fields, at one point I lost my balance a little bit, and ended up with one foot in the muddy rice field — my whole hiking boot turned brown covered with mud. So much for trying to keep my boots clean… At least it wasn’t as bad as going to the other side and falling into the stream. We continued on our trek as if nothing happened. Fortunately it wasn’t too far until we reached an actual road / path again.

The photo below was taken before we descent through the last segment before we reached the bottom of the valley. You can see here May was already a bit in front of us and waited for Dave and Anna in front of me to start descending. At the bottom of the descending path, you can see the little stream and the terraced rice fields on the other side.