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Published: November 24th 2006
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for tours with sisi please visit http://sisi-sapa-tourguide.com/ Ah Sapa.....
the most wonderful place i have ever been to. Everywhere i go seems to get better and better but this place will take some beating!!! The landscape, the people, the pace of life.....its just a gem.
We arrived in sapa on the night train from Ha Long bay. I slept most of the journey after a few beers in the bar carriage on the train which was jam packed and everyone singing to karaoke. Was fun for a while until every song started to sound the same. When you step off the mini bus from the train to sap you notice the temperature difference straight away as it is a hours drive straight uphill all the way so much much colder.
You are literally amoung the clouds and it was funny eating at a cafe and seeing a cloud float down the street passed you!
We decided this time just to travel ourselves and not book an official tour. The tours are great but its just all the tourists driving round together (not being able to stop if you want to)seeing the same things which we were tired of.
Born to be wild
she was a bitch to start in the mornings This time we rented motorbikes so we could go and do what we liked. Since the "roads" around sapa can get quite ludicrously difficult at times(such as a meter high drop or climb at times and huge craters) we rented some old russian minsk motorbikes which, once started(starting them was a bitch)could handle the terrain much better than your normal little moped type bike. I never drove a proper manual motorbike before but it took only about 30 seconds to learn and we were off.
We set of on the first day and visited the silver water fall and trat tom pass(spelled wrong).As is almost the norm now the scenery was magnificant and again the photos just dont give you are real sense of the size of the valleys or mountains. On the slopes of the mountains the people have carved rice fields into them which just added that extra special something to the view.
The people around here are all minority communties which come from Loas, Thailand and China. Its crazy coz literally 1 mile down the road the villagers speak a complete different language to the next village, dress differently and look different. One thing they do have
in common though is a smile and a very warm welcome. All the kids speak english perfectly but dont be fooled by their innocent smiles.......Will and myself got hammered in a few games of pool on the first night by some 18 year girls from the Black Hmum(spelling) people.....absolute sharks!!!
The black Hmum people seemed to be the largest group of minority people, well, in sapa anyway. Most of the women have a gold tooth and the men a sort of solid steel necklace. They were all over the town dressed in their traditional dress selling their crafts to the tourists. Its a pity the words "no thanks" only seem to register after about the 30th time though. Its so feckin hard to say no the a 3 year old kid and i left sapa with a load of wristbands, hats and mini cushion things.....im not even sure what they are!
Anyway on the second day we were headed for a village called Ban Ho whos people are of Thai descent and was 20km from sapa. Thats when we met Sisi. Sisi was a trekking guide from the Black Hmum who had taken here group to the same cafe
as us for lunch. She spoke better english than me(which isnt hard) and had even an aussie/english accent. She was an amazing person full of life and made everyone smile everytime she spoke. She invited us to stay the night at a home in Ban Ho which we gladly accepted. As we headed off on our bikes we agreed to meet her at the bridge in Ban Ho a few hours later.
The drive down to Ban Ho was about 5 km but took us an hour. How any car can make this trip is beyond me, and a normal moped would have died after 30 seconds. The road is non existant!!! With huge holes half a meter deep or more and very steep drops in parts. You have to look well ahead and plan the route through the craters if you dont want every bone in your body rattled to pieces! Thats was harder said than done coz you have this amazing scenery all around you. But it was great fun! You could see Ban Ho in the Valley below, it seemed as if we were a mile above it. By the time we got down into the deep
valley and into Ban Ho it was quite hot again.
We met up with Sisi on the bridge and she took us to our home stay. The family were very friendly and cooked us a large meal. It was very tasty but the only thing was that we had to join them in drinking shots of rice wine every 2 minutes. After an hour you can image the state we were in!!Later on i had a great chat with Sisi about her life in sapa. That night i slept under the heaviest, thickest blanket in world, so warm i nearly got burned under it!!!
Next morning Sisi took us to a waterfall which was freezing coz it came from a natural spring in the mountain above. Its pools were very deep and since it did not pass any village on the way the water was crystal clear and drinkable.....it was just a little paradise.
After a swim we said our goodbyes to the family, to Sisi and here trekking team but i agreed with Sisi to meet her afterwards anyway so she could show me a cave she told me about.
The climb back up the mountain was again challanging
and fun. I met Sisi later in the day and we drove to a huge cave that took an hour to travel through its tunnels although i we only walked down the tunnels for 5 minutes as my bus was leaving soon.
To be honest we tried to change our train ticket when we had to leave coz we wanted to stay longer. I was gutted when we were told it wasnt possible. I had an amzing time here and if you are ever thinking of where to retire think more of sapa than spain......its beautiful in every way!!!!
Thank you Sisi for a wonderful time. I will be back!
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sicco
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good man chris
i remember these russian bikes. great motorbike. sapa nice little village with a handball soccer pitch in the middle of town. i suppose you are now going back to hanoi. loved hanoi. next stop is the lovely village with the beach and the clothes. in paris at the moment family home. enjoy sicco