Trekking in Sapa

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Spent 3 days trekking in Sapa, up in the far northern mountains, near the border of China, which was absolutely brilliant! I have to say that it is the most breathtaking stunning scenery I have seen in Vietnam, and maybe in the world.

The northern mountains in Vietnam are home to all the 'minority people' of Vietnam. 87% of the population are Vietnamese, but the rest live as tribes in small villages and are distinguished by their language and dress - usually a colourful costume with varying colours of headress. They all live in small villages in the mountains and survive by cultivating the land for rice.

We took the overnight train to the town of Lao Cai, on the border of China, and from there it was a bumpy 90 minute drive to Sapa - a small town set over 1000m up in the mountains. The drive along the mountain edge, dodging crazy drivers and slow-moving buffalo was pretty scary!

The views from Sapa were amazing (especially from our hotel, which had more steps than I've ever known!) - we were above the clouds, surrounded by green mountains. As soon as we arrived, we were ambushed by adorable children from the local villages who trek up to 6 hours to get to Sapa to go to the market on Saturdays. The main tribes that live around the Sapa area are the Black Hmong and Red Xao, and we had time to wander around the local market, packed full of the local tribes people in weird and wonderful traditional costume, buying and selling fruit and vegetables. Was a really great sight to see!

In our small group of 4 (with 2 other Canadian guys, Ollie and Jason), we met our guide, Xa - a local Black Hmong girl, who took us on the first day on a short 3 hour trek to some small waterfalls and to generally take in the scenery. We were up so high so could look down into the lush green valleys and terraced rice fields as far as the eye could see - absolutely stunning.

Our activities that evening included eating copious amounts of food (the fresh air makes you so hungry!) and going to watching some traditional music performed by local tribes people which was....interesting! The highlight of the evening was definitely watching a man play a leaf. No joke.

On our second day we took motorbikes out into the mountains to get further out, so we could start our trekking. Still not loving the motorbikes (requested a good driver and our guide sat behind me so was wedged in tightly!) but the scenery as we drove out was amazing.

We trekked for 6 hours (in the hot hot sun!) up and down the hilly landscape, across the tiered rice fields (balancing precariously on the narrow edges of each tier) alongside the many water buffalo which plough the paddies, and through villages, where the local girls would follow us and practice their English, which is pretty good. They usually ended up trying to sell us things they'd made at home, so all came back with many bracelets and bags as it was hard to resist!

Spent our second night in a home stay in the village of Ba Ho, with a local family who cooked us up a feast! Slept in an airy wooden hut with a thatched roof, with no sounds except a crazed squealing pig, many ducks, chickens and annoyingly loud roosters.

The next day trekked to some more waterfalls where we swam in the freeeeezing cold rocky river, went to hot springs (ahhh bliss) and had a pretty hardcore solid uphill climb to get to the road where we could be picked up to be taken back to Sapa (although any uphill climb I do now seems like nothing compared to Mount Kinabalu!). We were back in Sapa in time to rest our weary feet, eat fabulous food, enjoy the views as the sun dipped behind the mountains and hug our new kiddy villager friends goodbye, before we had our long overnight journey back to Hanoi.

Was a brilliant experience and was just constantly amazed at how beautiful the scenery was - the vast mountains, valleys and rice fields were really overwhelming and the people were fascinating and so friendly. With perfect weather for all 3 days, was definitely a highlight of my trip in Vietnam!

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