Taphin Street-sellers Abound

The small town of Taphin is still quiet and quaint at 9am. Local Red Dao women are sitting in small groups, sewing, and gossiping about their husbands. Dogs, chickens, even a lonely buffalo are making their way at a healthy pace that mimics the gentle breeze coming down from the hills. In the surrounding hills, above the terraced rice paddies are the small communes of about 25 families each, where all these women have come from. They are sitting at the entry to Taphin village waiting. Waiting for the tourists.

You can first hear, then see the tourist buses and jeeps making their way down the last hill before the village. Then it is a free-for-all of activity and chatter. The women jump out of their focus on their needle and thread, throw their bamboo baskets - doubling as small shops - on their backs and latch onto a potential buyer.

They are selling a variety of brocade items as souvenirs. Some extremely high-quality hand-bags and hats from authentically Red Dao, others bought wholesale from other local tribes or from factories.

This scene happens twice a day - in the morning, and again just after lunch. Some tourists don't mind local women accompanying them as they walk the one main road to the Taphin cave and back. Yet, there have been others who would rather not have the local sellers follow them through the village, and some have actually had an unpleasant experience.

Is it a logistical problem? Challenges with regards to equal benefits being shared with community members? Could it be an act of desperation? Does the key to the solution lay in the tour guides? Or, is that the locals do not understand that if this activity continues, the tour companies bringing the tourists will stop coming?