A river, runs through it

Fat drops. Smoke drifts. Steam curts, plumes and snakes, then wafts and dissipates into the eaves of Sapa’s Saturday covered market. Well-sharpened blades cut through green stems. Chopping boards thud. Baskets of noodles are dunked and tipped into bowls of beansprouts and shredded meat. Hands reach for chopsticks, and herbs are scooped and mulched in. Spoons sauce; bowls are at faces, and benches are full. Through the mist of smoking charcoal-grilled bun cha (bamboo skewered pork) and the steam of pho (noodle broth), people, dressed as if straight out of the pages of National Geographic - in silver-hooped neckwear, wrapped headgear and striking colour - are totally focused. On food. It’s a scene unchanged for centuries, yet now appears like a futuristic film set, a mix of past and present, in fantastical and displaced costumery even Ridley Scott couldn’t dream up. The tribespeople of the Lao Cai Province in north-eastern Vietnam, the Black H’mong in metallic inky-blue hemp with leg warmers and large jewellery, and the Dzao women, with shaven foreheads, in their coins, tassels, red turban garb and flashing gold teeth, all tuck into breakfast.