Find one overnight train to Sapa. The railway provided us with an escort (in teetering heels no less) for this purpose and it is just as well because it involves stumbling off into the dark over railway lines until you find your train.. and then being turned away, no that is not it, back to stumbling in the dark across more railway lines. Ah, here it is.
Take residence in your cabin. Toddlers love the novelty of sleeping on trains even if you don’t.
Arrive at pre-dawn and then take an hour’s drive further up the mountains to a little village called Sapa. This is the view from our hotel balcony. A glorious valley almost entirely obscured by cloud.
Explore Sapa. (Visitors particularly love the markets, but we particularly loved not shopping for a day).
Get chilled to the bone and spend the rest of the day in bed with every bit of clothing on that you’ve brought. Toddler will soon get bored with this and you will need to invent games that can be played in a one bedroom hotel room. We played hide and seek with her doll. But found that just as you’ve developed some body heat under the blankets it was your turn to get back up and hide the doll, or worse yet, seek the doll, which you’re obliged to draw out for some time so that the toddler doesn’t feel cheated in her (un)impressive hiding skills. It was then I invented the mother of all lazy ‘entertain the toddler’ parlour game. I call this game the “Find something ____”. Here is an example. Lauca can you find something rough and something smooth in this room? Go! This game is best executed while the parents wait in bed.
Toddler will develop aversion to having her photograph taken while on holidays. You will end up with lots of photographs like this. Annoying.
Now to the actual trekking bit. Hire a guide, but unlike us make sure your guide understands that you are hiking with. a. toddler. So a half day trek, which was actually 12km through the winter wet season might have been a tad unrealistic. In Sapa anywhere you’re trekking will be with a dozen of your closest friends. Friends you just met when you pulled up in your guide’s minivan with your wallets stuffed with tourist dollars. But don’t worry, the women of the various mountain tribes of Sapa are the most charming friends you’ll ever make and the worst it’ll cost you is a dollar to buy some of their handicrafts at some point.
As your trek passes through various villages some of your friends will drop off to rejoin their village. After all that walking with you and keeping you occupied with exchanges of information about family life in ‘your village’ and hers, be sure to buy something from her so she feels able to return to her village.. and work like a dog for the rest of the day for her family. We seemed to end up with more friends than anyone else. We came across one other trekking party on the way and they had no friends. I don’t know if they were the stingiest couple on earth and that is why they had no friends or if our friends were just more loyal, driven as they were by a curiosity called “trekking with a toddler??!”.
While trekking you will see buffalo, wild pigs, dogs, and lots of ducks and hens. At some point you will recall the deadly Asian Bird Flu Epidemic. I remembered this flu after my partner made a joke about the word ‘Sapa’ meaning “sneezing chicken”. Oh ha. ha.
As the trek continues you will still have all your close friends with you. Your friends will have a good sense of humour, particularly for slapstick, after all they live knee-deep in mud, you don’t think people falling over is funny? They will also marvel at your age and your single child. What has this couple been doing for all those years then? (Incidentally, Vietnamese people will often need to know your age because it helps determine hierarchy which is vital for their language). Don’t condescend to your friends, they may not have gone to school but they can speak several languages after making friends with tourists from all over the world, and you will almost definitely be unable to speak their impenetrably tonal language.
You are trekking far up in the highlands of Vietnam on the border of China, but moments of solitude will be quite precious.
To be continued in part 2.
What fun to read. I find your posts particularly compelling as our daughters are right around the same age – worlds apart but strangely similar! I especially appreciate the lists you and your partner compose with the likes/dislikes of Lauca’s latest behaviours. On another note, I travelled to Hanoi at the end of 2001 and vowed to return. Although I have not “had the chance” (read: money, adventure-quotient with toddler), I live vicariously through you (I’ve been doing that a bit much lately with all my traveller friends!). Thanks for reminding me *it can be done* and for the great blog.
Your comment made my day jenken, thanks!
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