Eventually I gave up on Hanoi and headed for Sapa. With so many intrepid travelers making the journey to Sapa to see the tribal markets, I was confident I would find someone willing to take a week-long trek.

By Sunday afternoon I wasn't so sure. The weekend market was winding down, the tourists preparing to board their dirty white minivans back to Hanoi and I had yet to find a soul interested in a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to spend a week among the mountain tribes. Most had strict itineraries taking them down the coast. The few that didn't blanched at the thought of sleeping on mud floors among the chickens. One woman told me she'd love to come but she hadn't a thing to wear. I looked her over and walked away, thinking, who the hell travels up into the Tonkinese Alps in spaghetti-strap sandals?

I had some hope that the weekday crowd, though perhaps a bit thinner, would offer up a more diehard stock of backpacker. Monday and Tuesday were devoid of foreign faces. Wednesday dawned gray and soggy. I went in search of a bowl of hot soup and found myself sitting next to a pair of miserable French people. They had arrived in the rain, spent several days in a cheerless hotel room, and were leaving in the rain. They had poorly timed their visit and missed the all-important market days. I pointed out that a short hike down the mountain would not only bring them to a string of gem-like villages, but also drop them down into the sunlight below the cloud cover. And that the next few days would see another market weekend, not entirely unlike the last one. They turned their backs to me and hunched more deeply over their coffee and baguettes, determined to make the most of their sour moods and their universal condemnation of all things unFrench, particularly Americans and soup for breakfast.

That night I climbed onto the flat guesthouse roof to watch the mist roll across the valley below and swirl around the moonlit paddy terraces. It was time to get to know the tribal minorities, not on the paved streets and sellers' market of Sapa, but in their own villages, living their ways and beliefs. If I couldn't find a filming partner, so be it. I would go alone. It was time to trek.