The Hoi An Fish Market

Hoi An is coastal town in Central Vietnam. It is about 30km south of Danang and is famous for its abundance of tailor shops, its beautiful French architecture, and its excellent cuisine. However, my favorite thing about Hoi An is the morning fish market. The fish market is smelly, crowded, and packed with aggressive, pointy-elbowed (ouch!) old women selling and buying fish.

To attend the market, you must get up very early. By the time the sun is coming up, the market is already in full swing. Later in the day, the market miraculously transforms itself into a tourist hell – something like a miniature, low-budget version of San Francisco's Fisherman’s Wharf.


Tourist hell is a narrow gauntlet that must be run, while on both sides shop owners are coming at you saying, “You buy something.” Sometimes this is phrased as a question. More often, it sounds like a direct order! Having gone to the fish market in the early morning, and later returning only hours later to find tourist hell, I actually thought I had become disoriented and was on a different street!

In case you need to escape from a new-found parasitic twin at the market, there are always lots of water taxi’s standing by. You won’t need to find them, they will find you. My escape was facilitated by the woman in the lower left of the picture above (notice the betel nut smile!), but when I was dropped off, the woman in the track suit wanted payment too. Um, no!

So what is the appeal? The market is full of life: the good, the bad and the ugly. It is full of sights, sounds, smells and activity. One morning there was even a fight between some of the women over who got to buy a basket of fish. The women were yelling and grabbing the basket and the fish, while another woman was cracking up at the absurdity of it all.

What I like best is that the fish market is not there for the tourists (that happens later), it is all locals doing business and making a living. I find it much more interesting than the more easily found experience that I call, "Fisherman’s Wharfs around the world."

Far North Vietnam

Flower H'mong Woman

Katrina has just posted on her blog regarding our trip to the far north of Vietnam. This region is near the China border and is not visited by many tourists. This makes visiting far more exciting and rewarding. Being a curious novelty to the people that you are visiting makes it much easier to make portraits, and allows for the possibility of cultural exchange.

Rice Vendor

Flower H'mong Woman and Child

Market Woman

Flower H'mong Woman

While we were photographing in the market, I spotted the old woman, pictured above, curiously watching us. While she is Flower H'mong, I tried a few words we had learned from our Black H'mong friends. It seems that their languages are quite similar, and she was delighted to have her picture taken. When she saw her picture on the back of the camera, she was completely tickled. This is a far cry from the many people in touristed areas who now ask you to take their picture and then demand money. Homie don't play that.

Another thing that I love about this region are the ponies that the people here use to transport their goods. I am also enamored of the woven bridles and wooden saddles that adorn them.

Outskirts of a Flower H'mong Village

Village Boy

... with Dress Shirt and Bone Amulet

Several years ago we visited a remote market in this region. From the looks of astonishment we received, we might as well have been landing in a spaceship, rather than creaking into the market in a Toyota minivan. We had a fascinating visit while it lasted, but it was not long before some police appeared and told us that we had to leave. If only my phrasebook had a translation from, "We mean no harm to your planet."

A Trip to Lau Chai Village

Lau Chai is one of the Black H’mong villages that is near Sapa. It is also the home of most of our H’mong friends. Lau Chai is reached by either a long 2-hour walk, or a short motorbike ride followed by a ½ hour walk. One of the many changes since our first visit to the area five years ago is that the road from Sapa to Lau Chai is now paved. Previously this was a dirt road (really, a mud road), with sections that were submerged by runoff and strewn with fist-sized rocks. While the small road that descends into the village itself is still unpaved, even it has been improved and is no longer as treacherous.

Lau Chai Village from the Road

On Thursday Katrina and I visited Lau Chai with Gom to help her family plant their rice. It was also the first time that we met Gom’s new little sister. Gom says that her sister’s eyes are so large that they sometimes scare her! Gom’s mother, Yang, is 39 years old and this is her 5^th child.

Carrying Rice Shoots for Replanting

After stopping briefly at Gom’s house, it was time to go planting. The planting party consisted of Gom, her mother, her cousin, her brother-in-law, Katrina and myself. The family’s rice fields are located high above the village itself. As it had been raining all day, the steep dirt path was very slippery. I thought that I had learned how to walk as a child, but watching how easily the H’mong negotiate these trails make it clear how much more I have to learn! Here, Yang is helping Katrina through a particularly slippery patch.

Climbing toward the rice fields also provided great views of the village below. We passed a number of other groups of villagers that were tending to their fields, or bringing firewood back from high on the trail. Gom says that to get firewood, her family has to walk up this trail for 25 kilometers! For small fires, they use bamboo, which is locally available.

When Gom, Katrina and I reached the fields where we would be planting, we saw the other three family members coming down from much higher on the path. They had gone up ahead of us slow, clumsy foreigners to carry down big bunches of rice shoots that we would be planting. The rice shoots look something like green onions. The idea is to replant them in small bunches so that they have room to grow. This sounds easy, but we managed to make it look hard. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the rice planting, as I was too busy trying to keep my rows straight, my bunches the correct size, and my rice from falling over in the mud. After a while it started to rain again. Fortunately, the family had come prepared with plastic rain ponchos. Katrina and I kept working in the rain, while Gom stood under an umbrella pointing our our mistakes like a straw boss.

After we had done enough planting for the day, we descended the path and headed back to Gom’s house. Her father had slaughtered a small pig and was preparing a feast for the whole family. It was a great honor for him to make such a big and expensive meal for us. Even though I was just recovering from stomach problems, I felt compelled to eat a lot and to try everything that was offered to me. In the country, nothing goes to waste. Just about every part of the pig is made into food. Even the intestines of the pig were cleaned and prepared as food. My least favorite part was the liver, which I quickly washed down with a swig of rice wine. The scariest part was a gelatinous delicacy made from pig’s blood mixed with milk and “other things.” Gom told me that all men must eat this, or they are not really men. Wanting to show my appreciation for the meal, and not wanting to have my license to carry a Y-chromosome revoked, I took a quick spoonful and ate it before I could think too much… Actually, it wasn’t that bad.

It was a privilege to be guests of honor at this lavish meal, and it was wonderful to meet Gom’s extended family. I especially enjoyed meeting her 95-year-old grandfather (bottom right in the picture above), with whom I drank many toasts, though neither of us could understand what the other was saying.

Watching the Rain

It’s a Nice Day for a H’mong Wedding

Katrina and I have a history of exciting first days in Sapa. This is our 4^th visit to this former French hill station. At over 5000 ft. of elevation, Sapa is a lush, cool getaway from the heat and humidity of Vietnam’s major cities. It is surrounded by the terraced rice fields and small villages of many ethnic minority tribes, including the Black H’mong and Red Zao.

Sapa from the hills - Photo by Katrina Keating

We first came to Sapa in June 2003, and quickly fell in love with the place. The minority tribe girls walk to Sapa to sell their homemade bracelets, embroidered blankets, and other beautiful goods. Due to what turned out to be a fortunate motorbike accident on our first trip, we wound up not being able to leave Sapa for about two weeks, and could not stray too far from our hotel’s lobby. As a result, we got to know a group of Black H’mong girls, which has been an honor and a blessing. They are a whip smart and funny bunch of kids who, even when they are giving you the hard-sell, are transparently good natured and fun-loving. As soon as we got on the bus to leave Sapa in 2003, we asked each other, “When do we come back?” The answer was, “Next year.”

Black H'mong Girls - Photo by Katrina Keating

Sapa is reached from Hanoi via an overnight 10-hour train ride followed by a one-hour bus ride. On this year’s visit, we got off the bus, checked into our small hotel, and went to have breakfast on the patio of our friend Nam’s restaurant. It took us half an hour to order, because we kept seeing our H’mong friends and catching up on their lives. We had previously heard that one of the girls, Ker, had gotten married. To our surprise, our friend La told us that Ker was having her wedding reception that day. La asked us if we would like to walk there with her. Excited, we answered, “Of course! When are you leaving?” La told us that she was leaving in half an hour.

Catching up with friends in Sapa - Photo by Katrina Keating

We hastily ordered and ate breakfast, and hit the road with a couple of the girls. We hired motorbikes to take us a small part of the way, and then walked up and then down a steep, muddy path for about two hours to reach the village.

On the road to the wedding - Photo by Tadashi Tsuchida

The wedding was packed with Black H’mong and, surprisingly, about a dozen tourist friends of the H’mong girls. It was not long before we learned the H’mong marriage drinking game. This is played with a cup made from a segment of bamboo, which is filled with the local rice-wine moonshine. The person in possession of the cup finds a victim and grabs their elbow. The victim must now watch as the one who grabbed them finishes the cup. The cup is then refilled from an iron teapot or reused water bottle, and the victim takes possession of the cup. It is now up to him or her to find a new victim.

Trying to escape from the drinking game - Photo by Katrina Keating

In this manner, everyone at the party is soon drunk. However, this is just the beginning of the drinking. Soon it is time to go inside to eat… and drink!

No escape from the drinking game - Photo by Katrina Keating

H’mong houses are large wooden structures with a high ceiling, dirt floors, and no windows. For the party, this house was filled with low benches and tables around which we all crowded. In the dark, I was able to stick to eating mostly just rice and boiled potatoes. However, a hospitable grandmother would occasionally come by and put a piece of mystery meat in our dishes. In the dark interior of the house, it was all but impossible to see what had been added to our meal. I tried to eat around these offerings and then quickly throw them under the table to the eagerly waiting puppies.

The bride and groom - Photo by Tadashi Tsuchida

After the meal, we moved to another large room where the new husband and best man(?) Repeatedly prostrated themselves on the floor over and over (for at least an hour), while being largely ignored by the drinking revelers.

Endless prostrations - Photo by Tadashi Tsuchida

At last it was time to go, and our drunken crew staggered back up and then down the muddy mountainside. We then turned onto the street, and walked back into the town of Sapa – a fantastic start to our ten-day stay in Sapa.

Staggering Home - Photo by Katrina Keating

Eating at such occasions is a risk that I feel is usually a worthwhile one. Usually, one even gets away with it. This time, I have not emerged unscathed. None-the-less, it was a worthwhile sacrifice to participate in a fascinating tradition of another culture.