Day 5 Sapa

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We started the day by being woken up at 5am with a knock on our cabin door saying we would be in Lao Cai station in about 30mins so we got our things ready and waited for the train to stop. We soon arrived but we hadn’t sorted a ride to Sapa. We got taken by some locals that said $5 dollars pp which we said ok to but they loaded our bags in the bus and just took off. They left us in the van for about 40mins...While they were gone I was talking to another couple in the van next to us and they had been waiting for over 1 ½ hrs. The driver came back with more backpackers to fill the van and we were on our way...

We made our way up the steep mountain range going past small villages and rice paddy terraces as far as the eye could see until we arrived at Sapa. Sapa is about a 35km trip, which took about 1 hour. We were dropped off by our driver and straight away we were asked by the local hill tribe ladies to buy gifts. They were asking us question after question. We made it to our hotel with the ladies talking to us the whole way to the front door. We went inside and sat down by the fire and had some tea and waited for our room.

We settled in to our rooms and set the air-con to 30 degrees as it was a tad bit cold…it reminds me of New Zealand and how the fog settles around the town. It’s an amazing sight to look at with the French architecture of the buildings as a back drop. The kiddies and I ventured out for a look around and Abby stayed behind in the hotel to rest as it took 27hrs or so to get here and she didn’t get very much sleep at all! We headed around Sapa Township and looked at a few market stalls. We really just took in the way of life for the locals and it was an amazing sight just to sit and watch. The local people up here are friendly and always have a smile and want to say hello to you.

We headed back to the hotel as the weather had changed and the temp had gone down to less than 10 degrees….when we got back we had some dinner and had a early night as it had been a long day and we all were exhausted from the traveling we had done to get here…

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