All Aboard

---

Between the clickety-clack sound of iron wheels hitting new line segments and the rocking motion of our sleeper train as it makes its way out of Hanoi for Sapa, putting thought to words and indeed those words to screen has never seemed so difficult. Now, some 24 hours from starting this adventure we are nearing the beginning of our first chapter of this return to Vietnam – the rural farming community of Sapa.

A tour liaise was waiting for us as we arrived at Hanoi train station. With our luggage in tow, Michelle and I, along with four other westerners ventured out to the train platform as a series of lemmings, following the liaisons footsteps to the letter; all the way down the end of the main platform, across 4 or 5 rail lines, narrowly missing a diesel engine as it purred its way past, to a series of carriages on the far side. Walking back down that platform to the opposite end towards our car we passed the general economy cars, similar to those that the TopGear presenters went on in their Vietnam Special, all open, wooden bench seats. As we continued to walk down past the cars, the cars slowly began to improve with class; from the afore mentioned wooden slated seating, to two and four berth cabins containing basic light fixtures and bedding to the even more luxurious two and four berth cabins, all mood lit, and representing the classical Orient Express 1st Class look and feel – these were our cabins.

Finally, the train to Sapa was the first ‘pit-stop’ in my mind, where we at least wont be travelling for two nights, i exhaled a content sigh of relief as the doorman showed us to our private 4 berth cabin. Having just under an hour before we set off from the platform we explored our deluxe car; it had two toilets one on either end, and despite the engineering details we knew about these toilets, they were very classy and you would very much believe you were in a hotel room toilet rather than a train. The car contained five or so berths all up, although there was no dinner car on this train we did have a menu limited to our car containing snacks and alcoholic beverages. The other passengers in our car were Australian, two girls, Sharon and Meriana sharing a four berth with an elder couple, and another couple in a berth of their own.

I slept like a baby that night, once the train picked up speed as it exited Hanoi the clickity clack sounds began to dull, and the rocking of the car became a gentle sway as if you were being gently rocked to sleep in a cot. Michelle on the other hand didn’t quite find the experience as relaxing as I did; waking up at every loud clack and every stop the train made during the night. It turns out Meriana had an even worse night, having spent it crouched in the hallway opposite the toilet looking very pale in colour.

We arrived at the end of the line Lai Chau, some eight hours from when we departed Hanoi the previous night. Once there we split from our carriage buddies finding our own tour guide waiting for us at the entrance to the train station. From there we jumped into the car and began our hour long drive to Sapa. The drive to Sapa was jaw dropping, driving a further 1,600 meters above sea level, the roads were narrow, the view they beheld incredible – the Jurassic Park sound track stuck in my head, mountain after mountain of greenery, at the scarp of these were farming areas for rice and corn. Large water buffalo roamed the streets, and unlike the lunatic locals on motorbikes and cars, the buffalos merged to the far right line of the road as we approached from behind. What seemed to almost take forever, after endless windy roads, and climbing even higher we finally arrived at Sapa, some 2km from the Chinese border.

As we drove into the terrace of our hotel ‘Victoria Sapa Hotel’ we soon quickly forgot we were in Vietnam at all. The architecture all around us, including the hotel was clearly French, and with the mountain vista extending behind it, it looked more like the Alps than the far edge of the Himalayas.
Jut with everything else so far on this trip we promptly checked into our hotel and were back on the road less than thirty minutes later on our first of two tours of Sapa. Driving down the narrow roads to our first destination Cat Cat Village, my subconscious was reassuring my tired near shell shocked body that there is ‘plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead’. No sooner had the message started to seep in we arrived at the town site. This was exactly how I had pictured Sapa – narrow muddy paths, water buffalo, dogs and chickens roaming about freely surrounded by the stepped plateaus of rice fields down along the steep mountain sides.

We took a leisurely walk through the old village, observing the traditional customs and practices of the ethnic Black H’mong, taking the winding path down one mountain side to the stunning waterfall at the base and the hydroelectric power station constructed by the French during the colonial era.
The water fall was of particular interest to me; I had been preparing for this day for a while, slowly buying up the necessary camera lens filters and reading up on tips to capture a perfect water fall shot. I was glad that the clumsy camera bag and tripod that I took on this hike all finally paid off.

After I had taken photos of the waterfall from every conceivable angle imaginable we continued up the other side of the mountain along a dirt trail sneaking through the mountain along a narrow river, soaking in the spectacular scenery all the way to Y Linh Ho village, also home to Black H’mong minority. We rested here for a good thirty minutes just taking in the beautiful wilderness of the Vietnamese countryside. The whole region devoid of the hustle and bustle of motorcycle traffic and general street crowdedness that we’ve experienced in the two capital centres of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi. Sapa was very much the postcard snapshot, indeed the perfect metaphor of Vietnam.

---