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Published: August 14th 2006
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Sapa was easily one of my favorite stops in all of Vietnam. If you only have a week or less to spend in Vietnam, then I would definitely recommend flying into Hanoi and spending a couple days there in addition to Halong Bay. Originally it was not on my itinerary and my friend, Polly, who had been to Vietnam the year before, suggested that I cut something out (sorry, Hue) to go to Sapa instead. This small village is nestled in the highest mountain range in the country and is just south of the Chinese border. The only convenient way to access it is via overnight train from Hanoi. The drama surrounding my train tickets easily could have ruined a trip to a less amazing place, but after seeing the incredible landscape, the only thing important about the ticket situation was that I made it.
Each night there are a couple different trains that leave going between Lao Cai and Hanoi. Many tour companies have their own private train cars, so while you may be leaving at the same time as another fellow traveler, your experience on the train could be very different. Unfortunately for me, my experience was on
the "nightmare" side. It began with the mistake of booking my tickets out of Hoi An, where the travel agent assured me that my tickets would be delivered to my hotel in Hanoi. He had been really helpful with several other bookings, so I had a certain level of trust. Well, after my first day in Hanoi, no tickets. That night he said that the tickets would arrive in two days, which meant while I was on my trip to Halong. This wasn't really a problem but frustrating since I had paid him serveral days earlier.
When I finally did receive the tickets, I noticed that they were for the equivalent of $10, or half the price that I had actually paid for them. I knew this could only mean one thing: they were hard berth, 6-bed berths instead of the more comfortable 4-bed, soft berths. The travel agent apologized for the mistake and told me it was too late to change the outbound ticket, but that he would have a new ticket sent to my hotel in Sapa along with a refund for the difference in the outbound ticket. He sounded to apologetic and sincere on the phone,
but that just turned out to be wishful thinking. When the tickets failed to arrive again after my first day, I called him again. He said that he would call me back shortly, and I never heard back from him.
The 6-bed birth was ridiculously uncomfortable. When I got to my car, I saw that the only open bed one the one all the way on the top. The softness of the bed was just bearable, but the main issue was that there was almost no space. I felt like I was in a coffin. I actually took a rough measurement of my vertical space by lying on my stomach and bending my knee and slightly pointing my toe. That's around two feet. To make matters worse, it was very hot on top despite the A/C and the fan, which was located on the ceiling right next to me bed. One wrong roll and I could have lost a finger. So the people below me were so cool that they needed to turn off the fan, while I was roasting up top. Brutal. Wasn't going to happen on the way back. I ended up paying my hotel to upgrade
my ticket, and was excited to discover that I was in the same car as a Canadian couple that I had done a tour with and who was staying at my hotel. The excitement turned into concern when we looked a second time and realized that not only did we have the same room, but the same actual bed. Eventually we got it sorted out and I made it back to Hanoi, but not without about 10 bedbug bites. How did those critters get through my silk sleeping bag!
So after all the issues around my travel (oh, I forgot to mention the mudslide with a stuck van that was blocking the road back to the train station), Sapa itself made it all worth it. As we drove the winding road up into the mountains, I could see the towering, lush mountain range on the other side of the valley. Rice paddies were neatly layered on the sides, and a river cut through the valley floor. The view from my hotel, the Cat Cat Guesthouse was stunning (see photo).
After getting settled in my room, I went on an organized hike into some of the tribal villages. One
The Day's Catch
Our guide is on the right with the umbrella. thing that makes Sapa unique is the presence of several ethnic minorty hill tribes. My guide was a 17 year old girl (who looked 12) from one of the tribes who spoke some of the best English that I heard in Vietnam. What's incredible is that they don't learn it in school; they learn it from talking to all the tourists that come through. The hike took us through the rice paddies and down to the valley floor along the river. For a change, we were even blessed with sun, which I was beginning not to recognize after all the rain and overcast skies of Vietnam. The next day I rounded up a few travelers to hire a driver to take us out to a big waterfall. Similar to Halong Bay, I think that the landscape of Sapa is best described with photos. So I'll let them do the talking from here.
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I decided that rather than waiting in Hanoi until 3pm after an overnight train trip that I would get on an 8am plane and connect through HCM, putting me in Siem Reap, Cambodia by 1pm. Everything was going smoothly until I got to HCM, and
I discovered that my flight was delayed three hours. When I went to board the flight, they asked for my paper ticket, and I told them that they took it from me at the Hanoi airport. The most frustrating part of it all is that I specifically asked them in Hanoi if I need the paper ticket when they took it from me, because at that point, all I had left were my two boarding passes. I was told that I would be fine. Quite the contrary.
The people at the gate said that they needed to get in touch with the person who took my ticket, and if they did not have it then I would have to buy a new ticket, even though I was sitting there with a boarding pass and my receipt from the travel agency. I watched my original (delayed) flight leave without me, and then the following two flights as well. After the third flight left, they said that the manager gave the ok to print out a new ticket, even though Hanoi claimed that they had given me "everything" back. They could also clearly see that nothing had been stapled to my second boarding pass. The next day I was cleaning out my bag, and guess what turned up? Oh yes, my ticket, which I refused to even look for because I was "sure" that I didn't have it! In the end, I was the one to blame for spending hours in the Saigon airport. Although it would have been nice if the person at the check-in counter would have stapled the paper ticket to my boarding pass, which in my experience everywhere else (and based on what I saw in Vietnam) is standard practice. At least I made it to Cambodia on the day I planned to get there.
Travel tidbits:
- Many tour companies offer multi-day trips to Sapa. You can easily book the exact same thing independently less expensively. The day time activities seemed to be exactly the same regardless of tour operator. Also the walk to Cat Cat Village can be done easily on your own without a guide.
- WARNING: Be sure to hang on to your train ticket, which will be checked upon boarding and collected as you exit the station.
- Different travel agencies have exclusive cars on the same train. As I walked by all the cars, I noticed that some 4-bed soft sleepers we much nicer looking than other. So ask to see a picture of the car if possible before you book. Also, do not pay for your tickets until you actually have them in hand, and make sure that they are soft berths if that's what you paid for, which I highly, highly recommend doing.
- Cat Cat Guesthouse boasts some of the best views in town, and starting at $10 a night, is a great deal.
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