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Trekking With the Hmong
What a rural homestay in Vietnam taught me about authentic travel
Sometimes adventures don’t turn out the way we imagine them.
I’d say that’s a good thing under most circumstances. But when you’re hiking deep in the foothills of northern Vietnam, and the sun is setting, and your stomach is violently cramping, and you’ve run out of water — that’s the sort of adventure that could turn a fun story into a bad one very, very quickly.
Our hike began early, after a long taxi ride from Sapa’s foggy streets to an equally mist-shrouded rural valley. Our guide, a Hmong woman in her fifties named Cha, wasted no time hustling down the gravel road where the taxi dropped us off, eventually leading us into an expanse of terraced hillsides that seemed to roll on forever, with individual fields separated by small dikes that we carefully negotiated, balancing like gymnasts.
And then we walked. And walked. And walked.
Now, I’m a relatively experienced walker. I’m no stranger to mountains, either. I’ve run one of the most challenging 50-kilometer trail races in the eastern United States, and the fifteen-thousand-foot altitude of Dead Woman’s Pass on the Inca Trail was no problem for me.
