A Trip to Moung Koung

A sweet family in Moung Koung

As you know, we have many friends in Sapa that we made the first time we went there. All of our friends are doing very well, and Hang and Nam are no exception. We first met Hang when she worked at the Mountain View Hotel, where we stayed the first time. She was the front desk manager, and so we came to know her well. (It turned out that it was her husband Nam’s bike that Tadashi crashed, causing the muffler burn on my leg.) We became quick friends with Hang, and she invited us to her room for dinner one night.

We had hot-pot for dinner and it was fantastic. She and her husband rented a little room that was about the size of a dorm room, but with an attached bathroom. Although it was small, they made it very cozy.

The last time we we in Sapa, (3 years ago) Nam & Hang had opened their own CD/video shop. This shop was small, but it was theirs and it had a nice size sleeping room above it.  This time we went to Sapa, they are doing even better: they opened their own restaurant.
It’s really nice, and serves everything from Vietnamese to Italian, French and Spanish tapas. They were lucky enough to even be recommended by the brand new edition of Lonely Planet – making them an instant hit with the English-speaking crowd.

It was great to see our friends, and fantastic to see them doing so well. The building they rent is a great size, with the restaurant on the first floor, and plenty of room for Nam, Hang and their 2-year old son, Viet. There’s even a storage room that doubles as sleeping quarters for Hang’s brother so that he can help run the place. They’re doing so well that they’re planning on buying a car (remember: you pay 150% taxes on cars)! (A Toyota Camry costs about $40,000.)

Nam & Hang in their Restaurant (by Tadashi Tsuchida)

Nam and Hang invited us to join them on a day trip to a Flower H’mong market close to the Chinese border, in the village of Moung Koung. It’s about a 2 ½ -hour drive through the hills of northern Vietnam. We went to this market 3 years ago, and it was nice to see that there are still few tourists that go there – in fact, I think we were the only ones there that week.

The rural markets usually only happen once a week and begin early, ending in the late afternoon. The locals go to buy and sell goods, as well as to socialize. Although many of the “tribal” people used to make and sell their own goods to each other (such as clothing and baskets) the Chinese and Vietnamese now manufacture many of these things at very low cost. As such, many of the originally tribal goods are now purchased pre-made cheaper than they could have if they were to make it themselves.

For example, much of the clothing, which used to all be hand-made, is now often purchased piece-wise and stitched together at home, with perhaps some personal embellishing (such as embroidery). Some enterprising people also make the whole outfit to sell. For instance, you can buy a traditional clothing of the Flower H’mong pre-made (shirt, skirt and apron) at the market (as worn by the women below).

Flower H'mong buying baskets

Basket Maker

Although the area around Moung Koung is mainly Flower H’mong, there are many other ethnic groups there too. I’m not sure of the groups that the people below belong to.

Selling cucumbers (yes, yellow cucumbers)

The rural markets are a great place to see new things for sale. It’s good to have a guide who can tell you what everything is, and to help you buy stuff (no one here speaks English). Notice those yellow cucumbers above? I thought they were squash.

Yummy Sticky rice with natural flavoring (no red dye #4 here!)

My favorite Vietnamese sweet snack

Black sugar cane

The black sugar cane reminds me: did you know that chickens come with black skin too? I’m told that the black-skin chicken tastes better, too. Do you think The Colonel would go for that??

A slice of inedible eggplant

These market are a good place to see odd stuff for sale as well.

metal pieces for sale

A H'mong Cuisinart for pig food

One thing you should know about developing Asia: they reuse everything. Rice bags become basket straps and shoes once they won’t hold rice any more. Water and oil jugs (or any plastic jug) become rice-wine containers. And metal cans become arrow fletching, toys, wind chimes, or even tobacco bongs (and yes, they really are for tobacco use only). Some of these are a little scary -- notice the bottom can on the right bong.

Smoking bongs made of recycled aerosol cans (yikes!)

After the market, we went to a nearby Flower H’mong village. Interestingly, there were no adults around. I assume they were still at the market. We always wave and say “Hello!” to kids, which nearly always get a response of a huge smile and “Hello!” In this village, we developed quite a following of curious children.





It was quite cute to have a following (which happens often when we go to little villages). However, I was a little worried about the boy skulking behind us with a knife!
Luckily, he was a nice boy, and just being silly. We also met a really sweet family just coming back from the market. Notice the water cistern. Many of these were donated to villager by Unicef.


You can imagine that there was wildlife in the villages too.


But I wasn’t the only enamored by the water buffaloes.