Black H’mong Hill Tribe in Sapa, Vietnam: Meet Vu

Vu and her best friend, Bo, invited me to trek through down to their village after making me pinky promise I would the moment I arrived in Sapa. I was more than thrilled to hike through the luscious rolling hills of rice fields down to her home. Sapa is absolutely a stunner.

Hiking down to Vu’s village was such a beautiful and humbling experience. We met with their families and relaxed out by a waterfall as H’mong children were playing together nearby. We ate some peanuts and talked about random things like why my ear-piercing holes were not gauged like theirs were and how theirs came to be so stretched.

How did we communicate with the Vietnamese H’mong? As a result of tourism, English is essentially a second language in this area of Sapa, at least for the H’mong women because they interact with tourists or travelers (whatever you consider yourself) much more than the men do. Many of my friends have asked if it was difficult to communicate with locals in Southeast Asia, but because of tourism and Western programs on television, many people even in rural areas speak VERY good English.

Learn more about Sapa, Vietnam here.