Tay Ethnic Minority

History: The Tay are the earliest known minority in Vietnam, who are thought to have arrived from inland South East Asia about 500 BC. They settled in valleys in the north west part of Sapa. Language: Tay language belongs to the Tay - Thai language group. Their alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet devised in 1960, similar to the Viet alphabet. Costume: The traditional dress is made from indigo dyed cotton. It is usually plain, with little embroidery or other decoration.  The women wear a simple shirt with silver buttons down the front teamed with black trousers.  Both sexes wear colorful head scarves. Nowadays the Tay are often seen wearing Viet and western clothes. Social organisation: The Tay social system used to resemble a feudal society.  One man in each village owned the land, forest and rivers.  He ruled over the people living on that land. This regime appeared very early and ended in 19th century. Tay now live in villages of mixed ethnic groups, enter into mixed marriages and leave their traditional settlements to work in other areas.  They have adopted other elements of Kinh culture and of the Tai speaking people, are considered the most integrated into main stream Vietnamese culture. Birth: While pregnant and even after giving birth, the mother and father have to avoid many different things in order for both mother and child to be healthy, for the child to grow up quickly and strongly and to avoid evil spirits. When the new born is three days old, there is a ritual in honor of the midwife.  One month after the birth, there is a celebration and party to name the baby. Marriage: Young Tay men and women are free to love, but the decision to become husband and wife rests with their parents. The boy s parents need to know the potential bride s fortune so they can compare it to their son s.  To do this, they consult an astrologer who judges how well matched they are.  If the signs look favorable, the marriage can take place. After the wedding, the wife stays with her parents until she is pregnant. She will only go to live at her husband’s house in the late stages of pregnancy. Funeral: The funeral rituals are quite similar to Vietnamese. The funeral brings deceased s spirit to the world of the after life. Three years later, there is a ritual to bring the spirit to the ancestors and to end the mourning period. There is an annual day in honor of the deceased. Beliefs: The Tay worship ancestors, the house spirit, kitchen spirit and the midwife. Housing: The Tay live in houses built on stilts originally designed to protect them from wild animals.   Nowadays, they use the first floor for storage and cooking. When building a new house, the owner has to choose the right place very carefully.  Many factors are considered, including his age and horoscope. On the day that he and his family move to the new house, the head of the family must start a fire and keep it burning all night. Food: The Tay used to eat sticky rice most of the time, but now eat regular rice. For festival occasions, they make many kinds of cakes such as square rice cake (banh chung - symbol of the earth), round rice cake (banh day  - symbol of the sky) for the New Year Festival and pounded young sticky rice that is roasted (com) for the Mid Autumn Festival. Production activities: The Tay use traditional wet rice cultivation.  The rice is grown on the hills with very little water, which is well utilised using irrigation methods like digging canals and laying water pipes.  They produce high quantities of food by practicing such intensive cultivation methods.

Source: traveltosapa.com

Sapa History

The Sa Pa plateau was identified in 1901 during the first topographic plotting of the area. A military post was built in 1903. In 1906 the first westerner to settle in Cha Pa, named Mr. Miéville, worked with the department of agriculture. The number of French permanent civilian residents was never very high, only twenty odd people in 1942, plus a small colony of English-speaking protestants of unknown origin. Originally, Cha Pa was created for medical purposes: the bracing climate of Cha Pa was beneficial to westerners exhausted by a long stay in Vietnam, especially «people with chlorosis, post-infectious anaemia, previous history of malaria, and a whole array of neurotics: people with neurasthenia, phobia, overworked people or hypochondriac women». Certain diseases, such as «chronic bronchitis with associated emphysema or asthma and certain skin diseases» could also be cured. The military sanatorium, completed in 1913, was built on the hill on which the municipal cistern and its pumping station now stand. As of 1914, the main purpose of the civil authorities was to create in Tonkin a veritable summer capital in the mountains. In the summer of 1914, the offices of all the local services were moved from Hanoi to Cha Pa. The works had started in 1912, the tourist office was created in 1917 and in 1925, there were already 80 kilometres of footpaths offering a great variety of hiking trips. The forestry service planted evergreens, some of which are still standing today. In 1922 the building of the most sumptuous hotel in the station, the Résidence du Tonkin started on «governor’s hill». In 1909, thanks to Miéville, the « Sapa Hotel » was inaugurated to the east of the station on the road to Lao Cai, while the «Fan Si Pan» hotel was only built in 1924. The « Métropole », a luxury hotel with 50 rooms and ten suites sited at the foot of the Ham Rong on the bank of the lake, was inaugurated in 1932. The «Hôtel du Centre», a more modest establishment, was built in1937. The first villas were built in 1918 by the Hong Hai Coal Board and by the Haïphong cement factory (at the place where the Victoria Hotel now stands). A hundred or so other villas were built between 1920 and 1940 on neighbouring land given for free, some specimens of which can still be seen. In the lower area are located the private villas, administrative buildings and hotels. In the higher area, one finds the big military sanatorium and the governor ‘s summer palace. The church was built in 1934, followed by a protestant temple sitting on the hill overlooking the road to Cat Cat. By the end of the 1930s, Cha Pa had reached its peak and over a thousand colonials went there to rest and have fun. Until the mid-40s, Cha Pa was to remain the fashionable mountain resort of the Hanoi colonial society. In order to meet the increasing demand for food, the local authorities created agricultural stations. The aim of these stations was to feed the summer visitors and « put an end to the typical problem of hotels where bread is wanting because a party of six had the unfortunate idea of turning up without sending a telegram two days earlier ». Vietnamese people launched into agricultural production, providing the town with « all sorts of foods »... The Taphin estate produced pork, chicken, vegetables, fresh fruit, jam, milk, potatoes, cheese and… wine. Trade was flourishing in the hands of Chinese people and Vietnamese from the delta area. The growth of Cha Pa was an incentive to modernisation and between 1924 and 1927 the public authorities had it equipped with running water, a sewage system and an electricity network supplied by a power station built on the Cat Cat waterfall, whose renovated buildings are still in operation, as well as a telegraph and telephone network. In 1942, untypically for such a small place, a complete town plan of Sa Pa was drawn, which included over 400 plots of building land. In February 1947, the Viet Minh attacked Cha Pa and destroyed the military installations and part of the hotels (among which the Métropole) as well as villas. In March, the Foreign Legion occupied Cha Pa again until October 1949 when the French troops left the region for good. In March 1952, the French headquarters ordered the air force to bomb the town. The Governor’s Palace, the sanatorium complex, public buildings and most of the villas were destroyed. The Vietnamese population fled the ruined town and did not return until the early sixties. Not until the early 1990s did Sa Pa start developing again.

Source: www.traveltosapa.com

Sapa Restaurants , Gerbera Restaurant

GERBERA RESTAURANT

Address: No. 31, Cau May Road, Sapa town, Lao Cai, Vietnam
Tel: (84-20) 871 064 ; Fax: (84-20) 871 064
Website: http://www.sapatravelguide.com/nha-hang-gerbera.htm

Welcome to Sapa! Welcome to Restaurant Gerbera! Restaurant Gerbera is a fine dining restaurant with Vietnamese and international cuisines. An excellent and wide choice of domestic and international wines is available. With its classical style and casually friendly atmosphere, Restaurant Gerberca welcomes you for breakfast or pre- and apres theatre dinner. Our restaurant was built with Sapa’s bamboo, it combines the traditional and modern architecture in an warm and comfortable atmosphere.

From Restaurant Gerbera, you can see the whole view of Sapa town in a magic beauty, and further is the Hoang Lien Son range with the highest peak in Vietnam and in Indochina, Fansipan.

If you want to see some of the traditional people who live in the area, want to know which excursions one can do from here, and want to see some nice pictures of the landscapes in the region, we can book a tour or hire vehicles for you.

Breakfast

Our restaurant serves some special dishes for breakfast including Vietnamese breakfast, Asian and European breakfast, and Pancake.

Starter

Customers can start with Soup, Salad, Spring Roll or Potato and Sweet Potato.

Main Course

Various kinds of special dishes are available for customers to choose namely Sapa chicken (with steamed rice), Sapa duck (with steamed rice), Sapa goose, Sapa rabbit (with steamed rice), Sapa wild pork (with steamed rice), Sapa pork (with steamed rice), Venison (with steamed rice), Sapa beef (with steamed rice), Shrimp (with steamed rice), Squid (with steamed rice), Sapa fish (with steamed rice), Curry (with steamed rice), Tofu, Sapa vegetable, Green bean sprout, Bamboo person shoot, Rice, Noodle, Spaghetti, Pasta, Hamburger, Special food, and Hotpot.

Dessert

Customers can enjoy some kinds of fruits and cakes

Source: www.sapatravelguide.com