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We had our first proper sleeper train experience from Hanoi to Lao Cai and a very good one it was at that. We'd booked the hard sleeper beds which are second most expensive option but still only $11 each so good value
(note to other travellers doing this route... never book the train though an agency or hotel as they charge up to double the price of getting it direct from the train station). The hard sleepers have 6 bunks per cabin and we'd bagged top bunks which worked out perfectly after we'd managed to climb up there with Sophie giving the lady & gentleman below a flash of her knickers by mistake.. bloody loose trousers! We were glad we had the top bunks as the other people in our carriage seemed to sit on the bottom bunks and keep the second bunk folded up while we got to go straight to sleep out the way.
We got to Lai Cai and were greeted by the hoard of minibuses just waiting to whisk you away to Sapa, we dodged the greedy people asking for up to 75,000D per person and found a bus that would take us for the price
we wanted of 25.000D. Even better than that the hotel he stopped at had rooms with a tv & hot water for just $5 so we checked straight in and enjoyed breakfast with wonderful views over the valleys below us.
We didn't want to do much on our first day so spent it wandering around and around the streets. This was met with much delight from Sophie who discovered that her dreams had come true and there were many many beautiful things to buy here and they were much cheaper than the things she'd seen in Hanoi & Saigon. Many of the things are sold by the local hill tribe ladies who flood to town each day to sell their wares. The ladies are very persistent and as soon as you step outside your hotel they tag onto you and follow you around the town.. it's quite fun to see how many you can collect as you go along. These ladies are probably some of the nicest, smiliest people in the world too so it's hard to keep on saying no to them but you have to be stong because as soon as you show any interest in one
of them the rest of them surround you all trying to get you to buy from them. As well as trying to sell you things they are also interested in finding everything out about you and telling you about their lifestyles too and we loved to chat to them.
On our second day we decided to hire out the usual moto and go off to discover the area. This day was fantastic and was met with probably the best landscape scenery we've seen since leaving New Zealand. We headed on North of Sapa to the Ton Trom Pass which is set at 1900m and from where you can enjoy fantastic scenes before you and a weird weather experience. The Ton Trom Pass is in the middle of the coldest point in Vietnam and the warmest so you literally go from cold one side to baking hot the other which was quite strange to experience. You have huge mountains to each side of you and the valley floor straight down the middle which is so beautiful it takes you breath away.
The road up there was also an experience as they are upgrading it so it's like off roading
for much of the way and quite tough on the backside as you bump up and down constantly. We went down the otherside enjoying the windy road with beautiful views all the way with hill tribe people going about their daily lifestyle as you pass on by. Once we'd rode for an hour or two and got to the bottom we then went all the way back up again passing lots of crazy biking people on the way who must have been totally exhausted!
We got back to Sapa by lunchtime, stopped for a bowl of Pho and set off again to find out what was West of the town. Again more wonderful views but terraced paddy fields this time and yet more beautifully decorated hill tribe people doing what they do best. Sadly we also saw our first road accident as we returned to town when a truck took a corner way too fast and knocked off a family of 4 from their bike, thankfully noone was injured badly which was so lucky as there was a tiny baby among them and we were also grateful that we hadn't been a few seconds earlier as it could have
been us.
So to our third, final and very best day of Sapa and our Vietnam time...
We'd made friends with 2 Black Hmong hill tribe ladies who were outside our hotel and they offered to take us to their village so we took them up on their offer. We met up with them at 8.30am and started the 2 hour trek down the valley to their village.. something they do twice every single day in order to sell things in the town. At first we followed the road but this stopped after an hour and we headed for the hills and paddy fields and continued going down into the valley. It really is so beautiful here and you could never get bored of looking out at the valley in front of you every day which is what these people are lucky enough to do. All the way we chatted to Ly and My about their life, history and the tribes of the area and it was fascinating to learn so much from them and they speak almost perfect English so you can understand them very easily which is something that cannot be said for the rest of the
Vietnamese people.
After walking for just over 2 hours we got to the village of Lao Chai and had lunch in a restaurant clearly put in for the tourists.. it was very very busy with bus tours stopping off there too but the food was excellent and we enjoyed the rest for an hour or so. After lunch we set off again to the next village of Tan Tan home to the Dzay hill tribe. Here we got to have a look at a homestay house and were quite sad we didn't have longer here as we'd have loved to stay a night and get to trek to more villages the following day but our visa was't on our side so we'll have to save this for another day. Another few hours of walking and Ly had arranged us some bikes to take us back to Sapa so we jumped on and were quite glad we didn't have to trek the 14km back uphilll again as we were both pretty exhausted. We can only be amazed that these ladies do this round trip at least once a day.. even more amazing was that we learnt that they got up
at 3am every day in order to do their daily chores before going up into town for the day and always with a smile too.
This trek really was a great experience for us both, not only did we get to enjoy wonderful views as we went but we got to spend the day with 2 of the nicest ladies we've ever met who were so happy to be showing us their home and life, these days though you are never out of touch and we have Ly's email to keep in touch and hopefully meet up with again on our undoubted return to this most beautiful area of Vietnam.
Sadly for us we had the misfortune to hook up with probably the worst person we've met travelling to date and just couldn't shake him off for our time in Sapa which tainted things a bit...
In 10 months of travelling we haven't met anyone we disliked and without wanting to slag someone off we would like to highlight the meanness of some people.. not only to fellow travellers but also to the lovely hill tribe ladies which got to us even more. We are always happy to
meet new people and spend days or weeks travelling with them so when this guy started talking to us at the train station we were happy for him to come along with us.. we were even ok when he asked if he could stay in the same hotel and spend his time in Sapa with us... We didn't like it though when he came along on our trekking day with Ly & My and refused to pay then any towards the day they'd given us and to make it worse he didn't even say thankyou to them, which made both us and the ladies feel he'd taken full advantage of our good nature to provide him with a free day out. To top it off he went on to have lots of beers that night 'as a treat for saving so much money in Sapa'.. Dale had to restrain Sophie from giving him the full piece of her mind over the dinner table so we just left him to enjoy his beers on his own and went to bed.
We just cannot understand the mentality of people like this and we really hope that we don't ever meet anyone with
this tight fisted attitude again on our travels.. we are all careful with our money but there are limits!
So although this did spoil our trip slightly we had reallz enjoyed our 3 days in this most beautiful part of Vietnam and will definately be back here one day to experience it a little more.. maybe even climb Fanzipan! But for now we are heading off to Laos for the next stage of our journey...
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TravelWankers
#TravelWankers
Sorry to hear about your experience with the mean traveller, we had a similar experience in China, some people are just downright rude. Beutiful pictures of a beautiful place, I can't wait to visit myslef, Sapa is top of my list for my Vietnam trip.