The best place in Vietnam: SAPA!

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We arrived in Hanoi with just enough time to get a taxi to the train station and jump on the first available train to Lao Cai. This is the closest that a train goes to Sapa. From Lao Cai we would take a minibus a couple hours to the small hillside town of Sapa. Sapa was probably our favourite place in Vietnam, despite all the attempted scams and touristy nature of the place – we had an excellent experience and did lots of trekking.

Our train left at 8pm and arrived in Lao Cai at 4am. Word to the wise: there are 3 trains nightly to Lao Cai – take the LATEST one possible! We took the first one (first mistake) and had the longest morning ever being scammed by locals and waiting for the other trains to arrive before any minibus would leave the train station.

So here is the story… at 4:20am our train rolls into Lao Cai station. Not sure how the guys do this but before we have even opened the door to our couchette, a porter has found us (the tourists) and offers to take us to a waiting minibus to get to Lao Cai. Being half asleep and not sure how things worked, we followed him (second mistake). Once at the bus, he tells us the tickets are 200,000d each for the trip, but being slightly more aware now, we know that the trip should cost no more than 40,000d and so we give the guy our money, he puts our bags in the bus (third mistake) and we get in, eager to hit the road and get to Sapa.

We quickly realize that between the 30 minibuses in the parking lot, each one has managed to grab 3-4 tourists from the train and no bus will leave until it is full. ASSAH. So we wait until the next train rolls in when the drivers run in again and each bring out a couple more people to ride the bus. Still not enough people to convince the drivers to go, we are starting to get frustrated and lose patience for the driver who keeps saying we will leave “soon”.

At some point a woman comes around selling coffee. She tells us it’s 10,000d (50c) for one cup of coffee so we agree to get 2.She pours the first cup and asks for 60,000d. Not sure on which planet 10+10=60, but on MY planet, 10+10=20. She explains that she gave us the price for normal coffee and she gave us milk coffee – from a packet nonetheless- (which was actually the only coffee she had in her basket). We refuse to pay and give her 10,000 for the one coffee and then close the bus door and eventually she walks away. It’s only 5am and already we have had 3 attempted scams. Awesome start to the day…

Finally the last train arrives and after being changed buses partway and being asked to pay the fare again (which we refuse), we arrive in Sapa. The 1.5 hour drive was through stunning scenery, rice paddies, villages and mountains.

Once in the cute hill town of Sapa, we are immediately awed by all the tribal people in the town wearing the full get-up of colourful tribal clothing. We quickly learned they do this to appeal to the foreigners and to get them to buy items from them. Basically, the villagers pick a tourist at the beginning of each day and tag along with you for the entire day until you finally buy something from the. They give you a bracelet when you first meet as a “gift” but accepting the bracelet is like telling them you give them permission to follow you around and constantly try to sell things. It can be a little annoying, but it’s a great way to chat with locals and I have just one piece of advice: before you accept a bracelet, take a quick check and make sure the person has some decent things for sale so that at least when you do buy something, you like it!

We get the last available room at Pinnochio guest house, where for 10$ a night we get a private room with an amazing view overlooking the valley. We later have to change rooms because our room is leaking from the roof, but we realize that it happens everywhere here due to the hot days and realllllyyyy cold nights! Sapa is a fairly rainy/misty/cold place compared to the rest of the country but we totally lucked out and get four days of brilliant sunshine, perfect for trekking and exploring the mountain-scape all day long!

After breakfast at the hotel (sub-par) we walk around to get a feel for the town, get some info on treks and meet Mai, a local H’mong villager with good English. Of course, she gives us each a bracelet and she gives us lots of info about the area. She is super nice and helpful so we don’t mind walking around with her a bit.

We decide to check out Cat Cat village on our own today since it is walking distance from Sapa (3km). Mai takes us to the limits of the village where we have to pay 20,000d entrance fee. This village is definitely worth a miss, as it’s super touristy, with every house trying to sell things to tourists. It was not an authentic village at all, although walking through the valley and rice paddies was picturesque. We do get to see people in their natural element, herding cattle, cleaning clothes by hand, farming, etc. There is also a decent waterfall in the area. It was a nice introduction to the villages of Sapa, but the next two days were the real gems for us!

Back in Sapa, we are just wandering through the streets and out pops Mai from the middle of nowhere! She has a friend along with her and after much debate and hassle we buy two purses from them for 150,000d (about 7$). The problem in our situation was that neither of them had really nice things for sale – they all looked somewhat old and worn. We had seen many other locals selling nicer things, but since we had promised Mai, we had to buy from her.

We enjoy happy hour at a local pub with a decent dinner. In Sapa, we had a hard time getting away from the tourist-centred restaurants and find real local food. That evening we meet two German girls from our hotel and plan a trek with them for the next day.

The next morning we get ready for our trek, which we organized through the travel agency across the street from Pinocchio. We paid 18$ each for a full day trek with guide, lunch, transportation and fees. Dung, our guide, is a young local man and he is a fantastic guide! He is so knowledgeable and we learn a lot during our trek! We chose a non-touristy trek that goes through a couple very small villages with about 6 houses each, through a natural reserve and the most beautiful scenery we have seen to date!!

We hit the trail after a short drive outside the town at 9:30am. We trek over 12km, half uphill, half downhill with a short break for lunch halfway through. Along the way we see villagers harvesting rice where they take a bunch of rice and whack it on a metal bin to get the rice grains out of the stalks. We walk through rivers, fields, farms and trails. We visit Sa Seng and Hav Thao villages, both H’mong tribes. After lots of rain recently, parts of the trail were washed out and we enjoyed a frigid river crossing with knee deep rushing water! (honestly, it felt good on our feet from being in our hiking boots all day!) We also meet lots of kids along the way who speak two words in English “Hello” and “bye bye”. Not really knowing what these words mean, the kids would continually yell “Hello byebye” as we passed their house – so cute! It was so interesting to see how a whole village comes together to work at the rice harvesting or whatever work needs to be done. Even young kids are put to work but everyone was happy to pause for a second to wave and say hi as we passed. We did not see a single other tourist the entire day and were very happy that we managed to find a non-touristy trek in an uber-touristy area!

We learned how the families use the indigo plant to dye their clothes a dark dark blue colour and that each family sends 1 or 2 kids to school and the rest stay home and work all day. We finished our trek at 4pm, tired and sore from a long trek, but very satisfied with our experience!!! Our night was spent relaxing with a bottle of wine, watching the sunset over the balcony of our hotel.

Day 3 in Sapa we took to the roads to explore more of the area outside the town. This time, we rented bikes and drivers since we had heard many stories about tourists getting caught by the police for driving without a Vietnamese licence. We decided to play it safe and ride on the back of local drivers. We pay 10$ per bike for a half day tour including Silver waterfall and Tram Ton Pass, the highest road in Vietnam.

We take a scenic drive up a steep road to Tram Ton Pass which was cool, but not amazing. Everywhere you looked was mountains for as far as the eye can see, interrupted only by the many hydro wires, which ruin the view. At the Silver waterfall, we walk around this thin, tall waterfall, which was quite impressive.

At the end of our tour, our drivers want to make a little extra pocket money so we bargain and agree to pay them a bit more to take us to Ta Phin village. This village is Red Dzao tribe, which we had yet to visit and it was too far outside town to walk to, so we thought it was a good option. After more stunning driving we arrive in the village and start our tour in a small cave. Unfortunately it was lunch time, which meant that the man in charge of turning on the lights in the cave wasn’t there so it was too dark to go into!

We meet a super nice villager who invites us into her home, which was super cool!! She was a beautiful tribal woman with 4 children. They lived in a fairly large home with their entire year’s supply of rice in one corner, all the sleeping areas in another corner, the sewing room and kitchen at the back and even a tv near the door! Clearly this family was not doing too poorly and was benefiting from tourist money. We buy a purse from her to thank her for the tour then continue on our way.

Back in Sapa, we relax for a bit and arrange our train tickets back to Sapa. Another word to the wise: buy your return tickets from the train station Lao Cai. When you buy them in Sapa, you pay 100,000d (5$) extra in “government fees”. The tickets to Hanoi cost 470,000d (23$) each including the minibus to Lao Cai and the sleeper train to Hanoi.

In our explorations that night, we FINALLY found the area of town with cheap, authentic local food and eat some delicious pho bo (beef noodle soup).

Our last day in Sapa we spent touring on our own and walked a total of nearly 25km up and down the mountains and through a number of villages. As we start our trek out of Sapa, a villager start following us. No longer being rookies, we tell her right from the start that we have already finished our shopping and will buy nothing from her today. She continues to follow us anyway, showing us a different path that leads down and around to Lao Chai village. Eventually she tried to sell us things, and when we refuse, she tells us to giver her 20,000d and she will leave us alone! hahah ya right! For once we hold our ground and do not buy any more things!

The trail we take is deserted and rugged but a nice walk. Along the way we pass a ticket booth where we pay 15,000d each to gain access to all the villages. The villages are fairly touristy but very pretty and we enjoyed our time just wandering on our own and getting lost a few times.

During one of our detours, we end up walking right through some homes where the inhabitants were very nice and helped us find our way back to the trail – through the middle of a rice field, along a muddy bank!! This was a much more fun and less touristy way to experience these villages.

Later on, we meet two more locals who show us the way through a pretty bamboo forest to a huge waterfall. We sit on the rocks on the top of this waterfall and let the water rush past us as we eat our lunch and admire the sights. This is the life!

We eventually make it to the end of the 13km village trail which took us through Lao chai, Ta Van and Giang To Chao. Back on the main road, we make the 10km uphill walk back to Sapa in record time, with enough time left to grab a couple ice cold beers while we rest our tired limbs then catch a 6pm bus to Lao Cai then an 8:05 sleeper train back to Hanoi. We are very sad to leave Sapa, which has been one of our favourite places to date but are super excited by Hanoi, which we have heard great things about and our friends Meaghan and Kyle who are meeting us in a couple days!!!! yay!!!!

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