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SAPA & the NORTHWEST
Northwest of Hanoi toward the
Chinese border lies the Hoang Lien
Son Range, with Mount Fansipan, the
highest peak of Vietnam (3,143m).
This range was christened the
Tonkinese Alps by the French,
who took a liking to the cool
climate. Limestone largely comprises
this Northwest frontier where
dramatic hills rise from the plains.
From Hanoi to the Northwest several
routes will get you there, the
most spectacular via
Dien Bien Phu
to Sapa. At Lao
Cai, close by, you can cross into
China and continue by rail to
Kunming.
The
Northwest offers captivating
mountain scenery; you can hike or
trek into valleys around key towns.
The hill tribes inhabiting the
valleys here include Thai, H'mong,
Zao and Muong groups. Some live in
raised long houses. May still dress
in traditional garb; intricate
hand-embroidered clothing and silver
jewelry are worn by the women. The
best time to see minority people is
on market day in the towns, when the
mountain people hike in for days
from surrounding areas. The big day
is usually Sunday. Key destinations
in the Northwest include
Dien Bien Phu
and Sapa.
Dien Bien Phu,
toward the Lao border, is a small
town that was the site of the
Vietnamese communists' victory over
the French in 1954, ending the
Indochinese War I. The village of
Sapa remains the jewel of the
northwest, a former French hill
resort with splendid mountain
scenery, a market thronged with
people, and excellent hiking
opportunities. For a more limited
time Hoa Binh
and Mai Chau
offer good one-day or two-day trips
with light trekking.
Hoa Binh
Nearly 70km to the Southwest of
Hanoi, Hoa Binh is easy to reach by
the Highway No. 6 which have much
less traffic compared with other
national ways crossing by the
capital, and have more poetic
landscape. Hoa Binh is the name of a
mountainous province, the name of
its chief town, and of the biggest
Hydropower Station of Vietnam run by
the water power of the Reservoir
built on the "Da" River (the Black
River). For those who love ecotours,
Hoa Binh is a good stopover for
meals or refresh before delving into
the hill tribal daily life in the
Muong, Zao and Thai villages close
by or continue the mountain way to
reach Mai Chau.
Mai Chau
This
small village is not marked on many
maps, but if you are heading from
Hoa Binh to Moc Chau it is
impossible to miss. Mai Chau is set
about 2.5 hours North of Hoa Binh
and is approached as you go down the
side of a very steep valley. From
Hoa Binh to Mai Chau you will pass
by Man Duc crossroad, which is an
hour driving from Hoa Binh and
backed by karst peaks, with
an interesting market. Another hour
from Man Duc is the stop for a
spectacular view over Mai Chau
valley to the south. The village,
nestled between two steep cliffs and
surrounded by emerald green paddies,
is enchanting to look at as you wind
down the mountainside.
"Thai"
ethnic people have inhabited in Mai
Chau for centuries and are
highlighted from other hill tribes
for their cleaness, intricate
weaving decoration made by dexterous
women's hands and hospitable
customs. Many evidences show that
they are homogenous with the Thai
groups living in South of China and
in Thailand now. An overnight visit
to Lac village or Poong Com village
in Mai Chau can be easily combined
with trekking or hiking in the
surrounding mountain area or with
a longer visit to the far Northwest.
Moc
Chau
Moc
Chau is set nearby some small
dairy-farms, belonging to the
government or privacy. The way from
Mai Chau to Moc Chau stretches
between the round hills filled of
green tea and terraced rice fields,
which bring a special tranquil
beauty for the region. Yet, since
most of visitors stop by Moc Chau
just to refresh before heading
North, the attractions of the town
are limited in local dairy cakes,
fresh milk, and the market that
concentrate colourful-dressed H'mong
and Black Thai people.
Son La
Located
320km northwest of Hanoi, Son La
town is often used as a half-way
overnight stop on the way to Dien
Bien Phu. There is not much to
remark the town except a prison
built in 1908 by the French
colonialists to incarcerate the
Vietnamese political criminals.
However, from Son La to Dien Bien
Phu you will see lots of minority
villages – Black Thai, white Thai,
H'mong, and Muong – some close to
the road. Black Thai women wear
black sarongs, and tightfitting
blouses with rows of silver or metal
buttons down the front attached
tightly to the neck. The blouses are
usually bright green, blue, or
purple. A woman coils her hair in a
topknot, covering it with a black
turban embroidered with multicolored
thread. After marriage, Black Thai
women wear a silver hairpin. Some
800,000 Black Thai and White Thai
(white-bloused Thai people) live in
the Northwest.
Tuan
Giao
From Son La, your road will pass
over Thuan Chau and starts climbing
to cross Pha Din Pass at 1,300m
before reaching Tuan Giao, which
breaks the distance of 180km from
Son La to Dien Dien. If your
destination is Lai Chau, you can
skip the turn to the west heading to
Dien Bien and carry straight. White
Thai villages lie along the route
between Tuan Giao and Lai Chau, with
pretty women wearing white blouses
with silver jewelry.
Dien Bien Phu
This
was the scene of the siege in 1954
that finally broke the back of the
French war effort in Vietnam. In an
attempt to halt Viet Minh (Vietnam
Independence Association) incursions
into Laos, the French commander,
Navarre, decided to establish a
"super garrison" at the top end of a
valley called Dien Bien. This was to
police the strategic cross-roads
between Laos to the West, Son La to
the South and Lai Chau to the North.
He believed that with this base
firmly established in the Far
Northwest, he would be able to
launch sorties against the Viet
Minh, and greatly reduce their
strength in the area. He was to be
proved terribly wrong.
The
Viet Minh commander, Vo Nguyen Giap,
finally saw an opportunity for an
open confrontation with the French
and started working towards it. By
mid 1953, the base was completed and
regarded in French circles as
virtually impregnable. With twelve
battalions of French, Morrocan and
Algerian soldiers, two airstrips, a
heavily mined perimeter and
surrounded by a number of smaller
defensive positions, named
Dominique, Elaine, Claudine and
Huguette. These were named,
supposably, after the four
mistresses of the base commander
Colonel Marie Ferdinand de la Croix
de Castries. The troops within the
compound slept fairly soundly at
night! The French even went to the
extent of flying in an entire
brothel of French women to keep the
soldiers happy!!
For
Giap and his comrades, however, the
struggle had hardly begun. They
embarked on an incredible logistical
feat of dragging up, in pieces,
various heavy field guns that were
then hidden in caves and dense
forest cover in the hills
surrounding the Dien Bien Phu base.
By early 1954, Giap had over 40,000
men in the hills, completely
surrounding the base. It was
estimated that just to keep Giap’s
men fed, over 250,000 porters were
used to ferry food.
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For the
French it was their ignorance
amongst other things that led to
their downfall. Though they knew the
Viet Minh had some troops in the
surrounding hills, nothing was done
about it, until it was too late. On
10 March 1954, to the horror of the
French, Viet Minh shells started
landing on the airstrip. Giap
possessed a comprehensive plan,
first if which was the
neutralisation of the airstrips,
thus completing the siege. The
French were taken completely by
supprise, and after the first day of
shelling, an assault was made on
Gabrielle. By midnight 13 March,
Beatrice had fallen. The fighting
was fierce, with the Viet Minh often
following up hours of shelling with
human wave tactics, incurring
shocking casualties. At times the
fighting was hand to hand and always
chaotic, with the French utterly
frustrated by their inability to hit
Giap’s well-concealed guns.
Within
five days, both the airfields had
been completely destroyed and the
garrison could only be re-supplied
by airdrops, an increasingly
perilous pastime, proven by the
wrecked planes on the ground. As the
Viet Minh edged closer and closer in
trenches, the airdrops increasingly
fell into Vietnamese hands. The
position was becoming truly
desperate.
At the
start of April there was a lull in
the fighting during which Navarre
parachuted in some of his crack
troops adding to his garrison now
totalling about 16,000. Giap also
brought in his reserves, edging his
forces up towards the 50,000 mark.
The French were desperate and they
appealed to the US for assistance,
preferring bomber strikes from their
bases in the Philippines. By this
stage the US was funding 78% of the
French war effort, so they hardly
had unstained hands. They came back
with a proposal for limited tactical
nuclear strikes on the Vietnamese
positions along with a series of
strikes on China, fearing ‘another
Korea’, all of which would be
performed on French behalf.
Thankfully this insanity was avoided
by the British giving the idea a big
no and congress getting cold feet.
In the end there was nothing
forthcoming from the US.
For the
French, the end was near. On 4 May
following a series of attacks, the
Viet Minh attacked with a force
previously unwitnessed and by 8 May
the garrison finally surrended. By
this stage the conditions within
were unimaginable, with maggots in
the wounds of the injured and an
incredibly demoralised fighting
force. It was estimated that during
the battle 7,000 French and close to
20,000 Vietnamese had lost their
lives. This loss finally caused the
French to withdraw from Vietnam.
Dien
Bien Phu now bears few scars except
for the occasional scattered tank to
bear witness to its horrendous past,
though it is still one of the
remotest areas you could visit. The
hilltribes living around the area of
Dien Bien Phu make up 70% of the
regions population, and the ethnic
minority groups include the Black
Thai, Nung, Meo, Loa and others.
Sapa
Sapa is the most popular place to go
in the Far Northwest amongst budget
travelers and packages tourists
alike. By using Sapa as a base you
can hike off to more remote
‘traditional’ hill tribe villages
and sometimes you will be offered a
bed in a village for the night. Sapa
was originally built as a hill
station in the early part of this
century and, in winter, gets
bitterly cold. If you are going to
be visiting Sapa in winter do not
forget the winter woollies.
Sapa is preparing itself for the
continuing tourist boom considerably
well. Behind Sapa, towards Phong Tho
is a high pass forming part of the
Hoang Lien Mountains that were known
to the French as the Tonkinese Alps.
This range includes Fansipan, the
highest mountain in Vietnam at
3,143m, which view at dawn could be
spectacular.
There
is a weekend market in Sapa during
which the town fills up with
hilltribe people selling their
wares. If you want to see these
tribes as they "traditionally" live
(as opposed to flogging jackets to
tourists), either go for a hike or
head over to Dien Bien Phu from
Sapa. This stretch has the most
traditional people you will see in
the whole of Vietnam. It seems that
most tourist groups pile into Sapa
during the weekend for the market.
However, travelers have reported
that during the week is a much
better time to catch a glimpse of
the real Sapa avoiding from a big
hassle of tourists.
You can
hike in the surrounding area and
visit a number of fairly traditional
predominantly Mong hilltribe
villages. Further afield is the
colourful Red Zao, Dzay, Tay and Xa
Pho people. A home stay in the Tay
village would be unforgettable
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