295. | A beautiful last day

Since it was Monday, I planned to spend the day working.

But the sun was shining so beautifully again that I changed my mind.

I said goodbye to the beautiful city of Sa Pa in a different way.

Cat Cat Village: half here, half there

I walked to the nearby Cat Cat village.

It was not by chance that I wrote “half here, half there”. This village is one where local families still live, but it has also transformed into a settlement that attracts many tourists and is made up of them.

This is a Hmong (Black Hmong) settlement, a land of indigo-dyed textiles, hand-woven fabrics, traditional costumes and houses made of bamboo and wood. This is the “there”. And the many vendors are the “here”.

I spent very nice hours here.

Today I rarely let the vendors stop me and talk to me. Today I was just an innocent bystander. But then from what came out of the pipe.

I wanted to walk

The distance to the village was only about 3 km. After a while, the road started to slope, so it was expected that I would have to work on the way home.

I politely let the motorbikers who were offering me a ride follow me and I came and went happily. You could have even gone by motorbike within the village. Already at the cashier, three people asked me if I didn’t want to join them. When I said no, the usual answer came. “Sir, you have to walk a lot, it’s very tiring.”

Fortunately, we don’t see things the same way. For some reason, they never manage to scare you.

I climbed a lot of stairs during the day, and I really enjoyed it.

So by the end of the day, I had covered 12 kilometers.

The village

I saw very beautiful handicrafts.

Then I saw the beautiful local women’s costumes, which you could take pictures in. Many, many people did. By the end of the day, my eyes were “burned out” from all the beauty I saw.

You can’t ignore the fact that the village is located in a valley. I’ve been lucky enough to see this valley twice from above. Even from there, I could see its unparalleled beauty. When I looked closer, I often found myself gasping for breath.

The rice fields and rice terraces surrounding the village are like a fairy tale. The diversity of the green of the rice and the bright blue of the sky gave me a peace that day that is again difficult to express in words.

I think all the sarcastic jokes about Mondays would disappear forever if every Monday was like this hiking day.

The story also includes – a little jump in time – that every hour in the village there is a folk music and dance performance. I arrived a little earlier than the performance started. So I was able to watch the preparations before the performance. I saw their anticipation before the performance. I was excited with the actors throughout the whole thing.

I really enjoyed this half-hour performance. The movements were exactly as they should have been on stage. I felt respect for them.

The smiles on each other on stage reminded me of our own preparations, our excitement and our liberated joy when we were done with our performance. I felt like an insider and I really loved this feeling. I wanted to dance with them. But it was also very nice to simply be happy with them.

Rice and wind

My first stop was in a small rice field. I sat down at the edge of the field and enjoyed being here. There was no one around, so it was quiet. Only the wind was blowing. I started listening to the sound of the wind blowing the rice. I enjoyed it so much that I spent a quarter of an hour just watching the blades of grass move and listening to the noises.

Nothing really happened here, but I still feel like a lot has happened.

It’s a bit different than watching the rice grow, but I think I’ll try that next time.

Meditation on the hilltop

From here I went up a hill – opposite the village – because people were just coming down from there. I thought if they were coming from there, then there must be something there that the village map doesn’t show.

It turned out that there was nothing there, just a granite bench.

But, once I was there, I sat down on it. And looked at the village. I listened to the sound of the wind.

It was like this was the hit song on the radio today.

In the middle of the village

After a lot of silence and being alone, I arrived at the main square of the village.

Well, it wasn’t quiet here anymore.

On the other hand, there were a lot of people and a huge waterfall orgy.

In the short, approx. 200-300 meter section of the village, the river water fell in 5 places.

I felt like I should stay here. I would even pretend to be Hmong if I could.

But that wasn’t the strangest feeling.

In the middle of the small river, at one end of the village, there was a huge rock. I saw a man there. He was lying in the middle of the rock and sleeping. The river and the roads on both sides surrounded the rock. There were so many people going left and right, and this man was sleeping there in the middle of it all.

I felt like I wanted to do the same.

So I went down to the riverbed, climbed to the top of the rock, and lay down on it.

It was very comfortable to lie there. I didn’t sleep, I just looked at the sky and listened to the roar of the river, because the rock was right near one of the waterfalls.

The sky was pure blue, the clouds were rushing by quickly, after a while my eyes were dazzled by the blueness.

As I watched the dozens of dragonflies flying above me, I was immersed in a sense of freedom. I listened to music, but the sound of the water was sweeter than the melody. I didn’t care about the people. I heard some people shouting at me, but this was my time and I didn’t share it with anyone.

I didn’t think, I didn’t care about time. I was amazed at how soft the rock seemed. It felt like I was lying in a comfortable bed. It even warmed me. The sun was shining softly on me, and I only experienced joyful feelings.

The number of songs I listened to only warned me that it was time to get up, I couldn’t lie here forever even if I were Hmong.

On the way home

It soon became clear that I simply couldn’t get off.

On the way out, a downhill slope was visible from afar. As I got closer, I saw people sliding down a huge hill on a plastic track in rubber pants.

For some reason, I thought that this was for children. And I’m 50 years old. Fortunately, this stupid idea only worked for 1 second.

So I climbed that hill and slid down the hill. I think my whole day of silent observation was offset very nicely by the adrenaline bomb I gave myself.

That slide was intoxicating, even though my stomach immediately jumped, and I also had certain thoughts about my underpants.

Now I could really go home.

The poem

Now I have to jump back in time in the history of the day.

Because I wanted to write my most beautiful experience at the end of the post.

At that moment, I knew that this was the moment I was standing there.

Ancient Hidroelectric Plant

The word “ancient” was so incompatible with the word “hydroelectric power plant” that something immediately said: “look at it!”

It didn’t bother me that the door to the building was only half open. I entered the area of ​​the 101-year-old “ancient” power plant. Where there was a large metal cabinet and a large pile of metal, but the whole room was more like a classroom.

School desks everywhere. Pictures on the walls. And a pile of notebooks against one wall. I admit, that interested me more than the other things.

I opened one of the notebooks. I was curious about how Vietnamese children write.

But these were English exercise books.

I had a strange expectation – or a feeling – that I would see something interesting.

And my eyes caught two words:

“Beautiful dreams”

That spoke to me right then and there. I felt some kind of strange ecstasy.

At first, the thought crossed my mind that a little Vietnamese child had written a poem, that it had been forgotten here and I had found it.

Later, it became clear that this was an exercise book and that someone had probably copied it or dictated the sentences.

But I still carry on that beautiful dream that Mia, a little girl born in the village of Cat Cat, had written a beautiful poem and I was the lucky one to read it.

Maybe it was just a dream.

But to me, it was still beautiful, like a dream.

The booklet said this:

When the Sun rises up
Mom to field I am at school
Alone with the song of birds
The bright dewdrop on my shoe
Pretty flowers always smile
Take me to life
Beautiful dreams
Take me to life
Beautiful dreams