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Other entries in Tả Van

First night

Su and Sa with their fellow black Hmuong girl friends pester us for most of the way to our first night's rest. While waiting for other members of the group Louise (Mind representative) starts to teach them the colours of the rainbow. It seems strange that they don't know red, blue and black, but are fine using the words 'freckles' and 'sun-kissed'.

Guy chats to me for a while:

"What's your name?" I tell her, "Very pretty name".
"How old are you?" 25 I say "very young" she replies. I hear another girl behind me talking to Dianne.
"What's your name?", "Dianne", she replies.
"How old are you?", "49 she says". "Very young" the girl replies, somewhat automatically.

The black hmuong women never cut their hair, simply winding it around their heads in squat fez-type hats. All of their clothes are dyed in indigo root, turning them a very dark blue - indigo in fact (pretty smelly too, I later found out)

Our first night is in the village of Ta Van - guests of the Zai tribe. The flushing toilet is a lovely luxury that I miss later on. The family are paid 30,000VND per person per night - quite a good earner for the village apparently. It's Emily's birthday tomorrow - Guyung and Ging have somehow managed to make a pineapple cake with no oven, and surprise us with thimble-fulls of Vang Dalat wine - a speciality of Vietnam from vineyards left over from colonial French rule.

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