Michelangelo Explains How Sapa Works
Share Article American, 50’s and married to a Hmong woman. She sews and sells in the cloth market. This is how it works, he said. The exploitation of local people in Sapa means Vietnamese own the hotels and control tour groups. Local guides make $5 a day. All the money goes to Vietnamese businesses. There’s no autonomy for minority hill tribe people.
Tourists and travelers need to arrange individual Sapa travel plans. Be independent. This way they support the local people. Spend money directly with the locals. Tourists need to be made aware of this reality, especially when in Hanoi making plans. Most foreign visitors stay 2-3 days then out. The local government tour office controls the home-stay business and limits the economic potential of the Hmong.
I walked into the Sapa Tourist Office. A friendly fat Vietnamese man in a suit sat behind a big clean teak desk. He assumes I’m a new arrival. We chat about Sapa.
Can I make home stay arrangements with the Hmong?
Alarm bells exploded his round passive face. Oh no! You mustn’t do that. Years ago we had trouble. A foreigner did that and ended up missing in some village. He was killed.
Wow, really.
Yes, we expect foreigners to make arrangements through us. They have to be careful dealing with the local people. We have a responsibility for visitors, thinking they are Noble Savages.
I see. Thanks.
He looked at his big fake gold watch. Time for lunch. Let’s Eat.
Buy Day Mountain by Light
A Sapa park loves baby red roses. A fractured historical liberation statue is dusty. The neglected fountain has brackish water.
Six Red Dzao women talk with threaded samples on the ground.
Do you want to buy from me, said one, smiling her golden teeth.
Yes, I want to buy the mountain, pointing to the rising green western forest, steel gray granite slabs, deep shaded mysterious valleys with rolling gray clouds dancing around the edges escaping from peaks toward us.
Ok, she said. I will sell you the day mountain for 10,000 and the night mountain for 10,000.
Ok, It’s a deal. We laugh in this precious moment.
Most tourists disguised as humans do not really meet, know and understand the locals. They are in a big fat fucking hurry. Travelers are slow, involved, patient, caring, kind, curious and absorbing the lessons they need to learn.
Travelers discover, tourists find.
Time is the greatest wealth. The soul travels at the speed of a camel.
Predicting the future is hard work, said Tran. It’s a dynamic equilibrium. Natural energies play ancient drums pounding children to class, gathering laughter, echoes rise on water, diamonds rest on a bamboo leaf. Water music. Patience. Zen.
Crazy Cloud said, Trust and Innocence and Patience are guides. Cherish them.
Inner Voice said, The oracle speaks the truth. It represents clarity transcending dualities. Whatever you do: sleep, eat, rest, walk, speak, or practice silence, truth and beauty is silent. This radiant vibrant blissful song of yourself is grace, gratitude and beauty, a ray of light from beyond this world.
A Rebel said, Be the master of your own destiny. You have broken the chains of society’s repressive conditioning and opinion onions. Anybody who is not miserable looks like a stranger.
An enlightened person is the greatest stranger in the world. They do not belong to anybody. No organization, no community, no society, no nation confines them.
Playing my blues harp I blow and I draw, said Leo. I express my crazy rebellious literary intuitive instincts. I dream rainbows of light with Hmong, Dzao, Tay people walking, singing in mountains, filling air skies and hearts with their song, their stories, this symphony of voices are direct immediate sensations. Mist mountains fly into sky, a blessing with gratitude.
