Sapa - "You Buy From Me"

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SAPA, VIETNAM - (May 2007)

"What is your name?"..........."What is your Country?"............."How old are you?"..............
"Are you married?"................"How Many Children?"

Thurs 10th May - Tuesday 15th May - (Sapa)
My first taste of rail travel in a while - a hard sleeper carriage over-night from Hanoi to Lao Cai. On overnight trains in Vietnam you can either travel ‘hard sleeper’ or alternatively for a bit extra you can purchase a ‘soft sleeper’ ticket. However ‘hard sleeper’ has always proved good enough for me in the past in China and so it proved to be on this trip.

The ‘hard-sleeper’ compartment consists of a tiny carriage with two triple bunks (i.e. 6 beds in total) on either side of the carriage. You get a blanket and pillow so you can generally get a reasonable night’s sleep. I’ve no idea what the difference between ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ sleeper is except that a ‘soft-sleeper’ ticket costs more, but ‘hard-sleeper’ is adequate for me.

The reason for the train journey was that I’d booked myself on a three day trekking package from Hanoi consisting of the train journey up to Lao Cai followed by a transfer to Sapa and then a three day trek including accommodation in Sapa and in the surrounding villages.

The train set off from Hanoi at 9:15pm on Thursday evening and arrived in Lao Cai the following morning at 5:30am. Once off the train everyone who had booked on the trip had to wave a little card in the air with 'Sapa Summit Hotel' written on it so that our onward transport could identify us. Once everyone had been located it was another hour’s mini bus journey up the hills/ mountains to Sapa.

Sapa is an old French hill station built in 1922 which is located in a valley the middle of the mountains/ hills in northwest Vietnam. Although the town is the premier trekking destination in Vietnam, the town is still only fairly small and the views from the town of the surrounding hills reminded me a bit of the English Lake district.

After checking in at the Sapa Summit Hotel we were split into groups of 5 to 6 people depending on what type and duration of trip you had booked and given a guide. To avoid every group doing exactly the same things at the same time, the itinerary of each group was varied as much as possible.

On the first day our group, which consisted of three Vietnamese girls, an Australian (Adrian) and another English guy (John) and myself did a half day trek down into the valley to a ‘waterfall’ and then back up the valley to spend the afternoon in Sapa (This could be done by walking or alternatively by motorcycle if you wished).

However, you could hardly call it a trek, more of a stroll really, but a pleasant stroll nevertheless in the sun alongside paddy fields and past a couple of small villages, one which was called ‘Cat Cat Village’. The valley was quite steep and we even got a bit of a sweat on walking back up the valley. As is usually the case, the obligatory waterfall was nothing to write home about.

Sapa is only a small town and you can wonder around it in about 30 minutes which then left us with the majority of the afternoon with nothing to do. So what could we do for the rest of the afternoon? Fortunately, myself, John and Adrian found a ‘Bia Hoi’ stand selling half pints of beer for 3,000 dong (around 20c) which proved to be a very good place to spend the afternoon sitting out in the sun drinking beer, and which also proved a difficult place to leave!

Sapa is surrounded by villages which are home to the Black, Tay and Dzay H’Mong people. The H’Mong ethnic peoples originate from China/ Tibet and are now spread all around northern Vietnam and Laos. Some of the H’Mong apparently sided with the Americans in the Vietnam War and as a consequence there is now a large community of H'Mong in America. They have their own language which is a lot different to Vietnamese and their own dress which they always seem to wear. At first I was unsure whether this was just for the benefit of tourists, but after spending a couple of days here I do genuinely think that they still wear their own style of dress all the time.

It's difficult to tell the ages of the H'Mong as they are very slender and of a very small build and they seem to have children at an early age. Although there are schools in the villages and literacy in Vietnam is now around 90%!,(MISSING) I'm not sure whether the H'Mong children go to school as they always seemed to be hanging around the centre of Sapa trying to sell things to tourists. They also congregated around our hotel first thing in the morning hoping to sell something when everyone departed on their trek.

The morning after the first day's little stroll we woke up to grey skies and lots of rain. It certainly did remind me of the English Lake District now! We set off walking around 9:30am in the rain with views of the surrounding mountains and valley obscured by mist. Fortunately the rain didn't last too long and the mountains and valleys gradually came into view.

There were several groups of us all setting off from the hotel down into the valley at the same time which along with the H’Mong who followed us all day hoping to sell something didn't particularly make for a quiet solitary walk in the mountains. Again the word 'Trek' was stretching the imagination a bit as it again proved to be more of a stroll than hard core trekking. However, it was still good to get out into the countryside and do some walking after being in cities for such a large part of this trip.
Everywhere you go in Vietnam, and indeed in South East Asia, you get asked the same questions again and again,

"What is your name?"
"What is your Country?"
"How old are you?"
"Are you married?"
"How Many Children?"


And on this trek it was no different. The H’Mong, some of whom walked with us all day must have asked everyone these questions every other minute. And then they would follow it up with, ‘You Buy from Me’, ‘This shirt/ bag/ cushion cover/ etc is very beautiful’. And if you said you already had one, they would reply by saying, ‘Yes same, but this different’!

Unfortunately they were not onto a winner by following our group which was just myself and Adrian and John from the first day and an Irish couple who had now joined us - as none of us were shoppers.

After walking for most of the day we arrived at a small village at around 4pm where we were to stay the night with a local family in what was termed a 'home stay'. The village was very basic, it had electricity but did not appear to have a particularly efficient system of running water. However some of the houses did have satellite dishes. Forget the running water; just make sure you’ve got a satellite dish!!.

After a night in the village it was a trek up the valley to the road and a mini bus ride back to Sapa, this time in the sun.

Although the ‘trek’ was not really a ‘trek’ and we didn't go too far from the road it was nevertheless a good couple of days. The scenery was fantastic and the H’Mong people very friendly and interesting to be around even though for the full three days they never let up trying to sell us something. The guide we had was really good, if very full of himself, and it was a good group to spend a couple of days with.

I think Sapa is probably my favourite place in Vietnam. It was really good to get out of the cities and into the countryside with my walking boots on at long last. The Trek/ Walk was well worth doing although I hope only a foretaste of better and bigger things to come in China and Central Asia.

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