Tribasia Blog

4.45 am on 13th June. So early! Too early to be true but we have to wake up to take the only bus of the day leaving Dien Bien for Sin Ho.

After a bumpy ride, we arrived at destination just before midday. Sin Ho is a big village of 8,000 people located in the middle of a green valley surrounded by paddy fields and lush landscapes of mountains and untouched nature. Once you enter the place, you understand that here stops the postcard picturing of the place.

Sin Ho is not used to tourism, at least not of the foreign kind. People welcomed us with icey glances and seemed to have a keen interest in our belongings. We try to get moving by finding an accommodation for the night but this is no easy task. After much drama and crossing dozens of barking dogs along the main road -the only one in the village- we managed to get a room in the end.

We ventured for a long walk outside Sin Ho but loving dogs -an average of two per hemlet- waited us at every corner and we decided that it was time to go back. On Sunday, we woke up early again to spend time in Sin Ho's market. A wealth of ethnic minorities from the surrounding area had come to trade or do their shopping: Tay, Hmong Dau (Red Hmong), Hmong Du, Hmong La, Dzao and Lu, we saw them all!

'Hmongs' are a complex people to classify. This group is in fact a collective name for many different sub-groups. Each of these sub-groups can easily identified by their attire:
- the Red Hmong (they called themselves "Hmong De" in this region) sport a giant headdress made from red pleated wool and hair

- the Hmong Dau (again, this is the name they gave us when we asked who they were) wear black skirts with colourful stripes, colourful long sleeved cropped jackets whose sleeves' pattern (stripes) differ from that of the body (flowery or block colour).

- the Hmong La wear a conic shaped hat and black clothing adorned with flashy colours.

- the Dzao from this region are different from those of Tam Duong or Sa Pa. They wear indigo or black dyed clothing and headdress, similar to the Lanten from Laos. They have cropped trousers stitched with white, red and green design at the helms. All women sport a rigid brass necklace, similar to a choker and colourful wool strings with colourful beads and coins on their backs, hanging from their neck line.

- the Lu from this region are similar to that of Tam Duong area. They also sport a headgear made from wrapped black material adorned with fake flowers for a dash of colours :))

We also spotted a Tay woman -not to be confused with a Thai minority woman- doing her shopping! This maze of minorities lifted our spirits up in what was otherwise a difficult stay.

Sin Ho is really not a welcoming place at all: we got people throwing stones, or whatever they had at hand, at us. Therefore, we decided not to linger too much and on Sunday 14th, in the early afternoon, we 'escaped' by mini-bus.

Labels: ethnic minorities, northern Vietnam, Sin Ho