BaCa Market

The hill tribes of northern Vietnam all come to BaCa to sell their wares at the Sunday market.
The market is huge and full of tribal people, wearing traditional dress. Flower Hmong wear extravagantly coloured and flared skirts, bodices and highly decorated collars. Black Hmong have a pretty uniform of black tunics with colourful bands of embroidery over knee-length black shorts and black leg warmers held up by embroidered bands. The Red Dao tribe, who shave their foreheads, wear big red head-dresses with lots of red tassels and dangling coins. They also wear black tunics but different embroidery.

Flocks of tribal women wander around the market chewing on sugarcane and spitting out the hard woody parts. Many of them have stalls, selling tribal embroidery and jewellery. They are very hard bargainers, using every trick of body language from emotional blackmail through affection to disgust (at the low price you are offering), to turning away and starting a conversation with someone else, to following you down the street waving the blanket, bag, bangle or whatever in front of your face, while you try to haggle with someone else.

One and a half hours was not nearly enough time in this fabulous market, which included food stalls, fruit and veg, household goods as well as new and old traditional dress, embroidery and every kind of object that might appeal to a tourist.