Blogs from Sapa, Lao Cai, Northwest, Vietnam, Asia

Before you read on, we will do our best to document Sapa but words alone can't really do this place justice. It was just spectacular. After our relatively standard bus trip back to Hanoi we headed to "tour guide Tony" for a shower, change of clothes and waited for our sleeper bus. His wife had also beautifully wrapped our present for Erwin (the guy getting married in Java) which was a bonus. Catching the connecting smaller bus, we noticed a definite influx of fresh-off-the-plane travellers and we seemed to be the only ones happy to go along with south east asias backward protocols. There was a lot of panicked conversation, talks of scams and worried voices whether we would make it to Sapa that night. We sat quietly (couldn't be bothered to help out, it had ... read more

I left Ninh Binh bound for the mountain village of Sapa just South of the Chinese border and about twelve hours from Hanoi. I again had to over night in Hanoi due to my arrival time and their being no night buses available for me to take to Sapa. Since I had been in the city before I was able to confidently hop onto the public bus and make my way to the Hoan Kiem Lake District and easily find a room for the night. Always nice when you actually know what you are doing. After an uneventful and expensive ($380,000VND) twelve hour ride overnight on the bus I found myself high in the clouds of Sapa and the sights and people of this region were straight out of the pages of an ancient history book. ... read more

Nous avons quitté nos amis de Bac Ha, sa tranquillité et sa belle température pour aller plus à l'ouest et plus en altitude, à Sapa (100km distance et 700 m altitude entre les 2). La route est très belle car elle traverse des montagnes. Après 3 h de bus entourés de sacs de riz, de fruits, de boîtes de rechauds et autres, nous sommes arrivés à Sapa sous un soleil éclatant (ici il y a toujours la brume et/ou la bruine le matin avec un beau soleil par après). Sapa est un endroit très connu, réputé et touristique mais a juste raison. Nous avons marché 1 km au long d'un beau lac entouré de montagnes avant d'arriver devant l'église française qui surplombe un grand square. Sur les marches de l'église plusieurs femmes hmong noires habillées en ... read more

Nasza przeprawa przez Laos dobiegla konca i postanowilismy przekroczyc granice z Wietnamem w Sop Hun (Laos) i Tay Trang (Vietnam). Plan byl taki, ze mielismy publicznym busem wuruszyc z Muang Kua do granicy tam sie zasteplowac i ruszyc w strone Sapa. Niestety kiedy dojechalismy do Muang Kua ( lodka z Muang Ngoi) okazalo sie, ze rano mozemy miec klopot bo akurat trwalo swietowanie chinskiego Nowego Roku w Wietnamie i ponoc busy moga nie jechac na wybranym przez nas odcinku. Wieczorem krecilismy sie po wiosce i na ulicy zaczepila nas dwojka innych podroznikow, ktorzy dopiero co sie poznali i uslyszeli od kilku innych zagranicznych wloczegow, ze ponoc jest jakas para (my), ktora tez bedzie uderzac do granicy nad ranem. No i tak nas zapytali czy to my... z naszej dwojki zrobila sie mala grupka 4 osob, ktore ... read more

Our guide from yesterday, I now know that her name is spelt Dao but pronounced Yioau, met us just before 9.00am and we were joined by a young couple from Holland, 4 Italians and the 2 older Germans from yesterday. Today was a 12km hike along roads and through rice fields with a lot of ups and downs. It was, mercifully, a beautiful sunny day or the trails would have been deadly. The views were absolutely breathtaking, like something out of one of the advertising brochures, with terraced rice fields rising hundreds of metres up the sides of steep mountains. It beggars the mind to think of the local people rising at 4 or 4.30am then traipsing for 3 or 4 kilometres, pretty much all of it uphill, to put in a hard days graft in ... read more