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PU DAO, LAI CHAU PROVINCE, Vietnam – I told a man in nearby Sin Ho Township that not long ago a British travel company (Gecko Travel) rated this place as one of the top five trekking destinations in Southeast Asia. He looked doubtful.
To many Vietnamese, Pu Dao – a collection of villages in the northwestern province of Lai Chau, about 350 miles northwest of Hanoi – offers no tourist value. A community of only 900 Hmong people, it’s isolated by woods, mountains, ignorance and poverty.
But the rating piqued my interest, and I wanted to experience the trails for myself.
After a three-hour bumpy ride from Dien Bien Phu City – the only city in northwest Vietnam – I got off the bus at Lai Ha Bridge, which spans a tributary of Vietnam’s longest river, Song Da. From there I watched oblong boats, the common means of transportation in the Northwest, drift by.
On the other bank, there was Chan Nua, a typical village of Thai people with stilt houses hiding under coconut fronds. Through the roofs, smoke rose, threading through the foliage, dispersing into the misty air.
From Lai Ha Bridge, I began the 15-mile trek to Pu Dao. The trail spiraled up into the woods, where millions of bamboo sprouts shot upward and thick groves were interwoven as if humans had never touched it. In the Hmong language, “Pu Dao” means “high mountains.”
Hong Ngai, the first village I encountered, was a light patch adorning the interminable flora of the region. Four or five wooden houses of Vietnamese teachers clustered around the local government building. Several bamboo houses of Hmong people squatted on the hillside.
I visited Ngo Thi Thanh Nuong, a 35-year-old woman, and learned about part of a teacher’s life working in a school in the mountains.
For 15 years in Pu Dao, Ngo had been struggling to teach the Hmong children the national Vietnamese language, known as tieng Kinh. She visited every family, begging the parents to let their children go to school. To keep the kids coming back, she would buy them candy.
Night came in Hong Ngai quietly, as if someone lowered a curtain. There were no electric lights, no TVs, no motorbikes. The village slept under a chorus of insect shrieks.
I spent the night in a small room with Vu Thi Quynh Hoa. The 24-year-old woman came to Pu Dao from Nam Dinh, 370 miles away, to work as the only accountant for the local government.
“A thousand years from now, Pu Dao will still be behind the present development level of the lowland,” my hostess said as she blew out the oil lamp before going to sleep.
The next day, I set off for the second village, Nam Doong, though Vu warned, “You’ll die halfway.”
I followed the only rugged trail linking the two villages; dry leaves cracked under my steps. In one stretch of glades, I could peek between the many tree trunks and admire white clouds and mountain after mountain. Another time, I passed lawns full of rose myrtles with quivering young flowers.
I approached Nam Doong to a chorus of goat bleats and cock crows.
Dusk brought the village to its fullest animation. A boy carried a younger brother on his back and a parrot on his shoulder. A woman bent under a bunch of firewood with a plastic can in one hand, a hoe in the other.
As I left Nam Doong, I had to climb over a communal bamboo gate. The woods opened, then closed. The moon poured patterns on the path. Hoots resonated from the abysses. Rattles rolled down from the hills. I looked up at the Great Bear to keep my bearings. The starry sky was peaceful as ever.
