3 - Sapa

 

After the over-stimulating 'Loop', I had to turn down the gas a bit, I was exhausted from 7 days of poor sleep in hostels and then the last days just having the best time in the day and getting a decent night's sleep but still in a big dormitory. The bus we got to Sapa was due in at 3/4 in the morning and I still booked a hotel for that time and to arrive in the morning.

I got into the hotel early and tired in darkness and it appeared as if although it was advertised as having a 24/7 front desk, noone was answering the bell or coming to open. After 10 minutes, the doorman woke up from sleeping on the sofa next to the door just out of sight and let me in. He made me a green tea and let me into my room where I slept very nicely into the morning.

The mistyness of the lake and mountain-village atmosphere was something I loved, I've always loved places with mist and in a 'cloud-rainforest' setting. Mindo in Ecuador, Betws-y-coed in Snowdonia North Wales, and Baños in Ecuador all had this vibe and I find it so beautiful and peaceful.

I was supposed to relax properly on my first day, but anyone that knows me properly knows that I'm pretty rubbish at relaxing and am generally unable to not be doing something so after a few hours relaxing at a cafe looking across the lake and trying a coconut coffee again which I absolutely loved (lots of sugar, how could one with a sweet tooth not like it..) I was wondering around and found a nearby preserved traditional village to visit and walk around which was really nice

This was the view from the hotel, which had a great balcony overlooking the lake which constantly changed from clear skies to cloudy and misty with little warning

Sapa is a mountain town with many indigenous Vietnamese peoples with another local language, the town was grown and made popular by the French colonists who developed the town and connected it by train to Hanoi. Now the town has a teleferic gondola which takes you from 2,500m to 3,500m and to the top of a mountain called Fancipan or something like that, and the town attracts so many national tourists from all over Vietnam, as it is very picturesque and nice to be in. This also makes it a bit touristy, but when you go around, you can see why. 

I cheekily had a walk around the fanciest hotel in town, which is built into the gondola station. It's crazily over-stated and grand in every sense, with beautiful, over the top architecture.

This was the view from the top of the hotel. I guess it would have been amazing if it wasn't so misty!

This is the start of the building which has the gondola station, a shopping centre and the 5-star hotel all in one complex.

I went down this road which takes you out of town and to the traditional village area, called Cat Ba 'Tourist Village' I believe.

It was really nice, and had lots of rivers and waterfalls coming together at the village. There were a large group of children playing football on the area next to the river and a traditional dance performance and everyone wearing typical dresses which was nice to see.

For dinner I was recommended by the person I had booked a hiking tour through, to try this for dinner. It was 'black chicken' cooked as a stew inside a pumpkin. It was mental! It was tasty, but really hard to eat as the chicken was completely full of bones and you spent so much effort to actually eat, but eventually it was worth it.

I left the next morning for an organised 'hike' or walk, I had no detail of what it entailed other than it was a 2 day walk with a homestay in a village. If I had done some research on which tour to take, I would have seen better things and been on a better tour for sure, as the travellers I met on the loop started 10km out of Sapa town and went further out, whereas we stopped at that 10km mark. But all in all it was worth doing as, unexpectedly, the best thing about the tour was that it finished relatively early around 3pm in a village, and having free time to wonder around it and see the real village life for people and take in the valley with a beer at a quiet terrace on my own was really nice.

You can see here how muddy the path was, at some point I was wondering, really we are paying to walk through so much mud? I guess it was just the season. There was an Italian girl on the tour who had brand new white trainers on, they were not having a great time getting their new shoes destroyed but they took it fairly well!

A weird thing about the tour was that from the beginning, villagers who sell artisan bags and fabrics come with a bag loaded with things to sell, and then accompany the whole tour, then mark one person each for the whole walk and then offer a hand when crossing tricky sections, leaving you with guilt and pressure to purchase from them, then, if you don't want to buy, they really really make a fuss until you are forced to buy something to end the awkwardness, not nice for anybody.

This was our tour guide, they were nice and entertaining, giving the people what they wanted: happy water and this marijuana leaf tea which entertained everyone (not intoxicating). We stayed in this basic homestay of an open air converted loft with matresses on the floor. I had had enough drinking from the loop and wanted a rest so went to bed early-ish, but a few of the group drunk heavily downstairs the entire night.

These are photos of the village, beautiful, peaceful, but quite isolated and depressing at the same time. The person who did the tour with us, showed us their house, which was very dark and depressing, but they were proud of it and she introduced us to her husband who had built the house (breeze blocks and a thatched roof), apparently a concrete floor and breeze block construction was a expensive and good modern construction compared to a traditional house built of bamboo. Another interesting fact of the area was that the men generally stayed at home and did the housework and the women went into the Sapa town and selled artisan products or did tours for national and international toursists. The men only knew the local dialect / language and the women generally learned Vietnamese and some English and were able to work in Sapa, so the men generally do housework in this area. I was really surpised and humbled at the fact that the tour leader told me that they had never been to the capital of their own country, Hanoi, and had only been inside their village and to Sapa town. They've met people from all over the world on their tours but basically never left their area. They also told us that they were basically forced by culture (similar to arranged marriages) to marry their husband that they had never met before at a very young age, 15 or something around there, they didn't want to at first, but eventually agreed as he was supposed to be a nice person and now she is 'happy' together.

After resting in the homestay and having a nice morning coffee in the sunshine and in the valley seeing the animals run around (dogs, chickens, bulls (I think?)) we set off for the last bit of the walk, we went through a bamboo forest which was cool to see as apparently bamboo is the sacred building material in Vietnam and just has great properties for use in construction and other things (the bamboo rice I tried on the loop for example)

This was a food called 'che' which I loved, it is a kind of yoghurt with tapioca and other sweet treats, a bit of a desert. I got together with Adam, Sam and Esther for the last afternoon & evening in Sapa after finishing the tour, Adam wanted to go to the gym and get some exercise so we all went there which was the second visit to a gym in my life and this time I enjoyed it more than I did in 2008 when I went as a student! Then I had no interest and didn't see the point, I was fit and health enough as it was just doing bmx but now as an adult I do see the point when you don't get any real strength or body maintenance in maybe a sedate office life and nights of beer and pizza do little to keep you in shape. 

I was lucky to be able to pick up my main bag from the same hotel, and they offered me to use a shower before my overnight bus to Ninh Binh which was a treat. I then met up with the guys again and we went out for street food at the market which was great. After eating we say another street food but properly on the sidewalk, and they were selling oysters, I can't remember eactly, but I think they were something like 30 pence per oyster, insanely cheap, we had a few of those and took a group photo which unfortunately I don't have atm and then I got my bus to Ninh Binh where I booked to stay at the same hostel as where Adam would also stay at the very next day, which conveniently worked out, that's the traveller's route showing where people are generally following the same route and if you meet some nice people along the way you can tag along with them and enjoy the places together and have a good laugh at the same time! That's the real enjoyment of travelling and having that planned but spontaneous enjoyment of getting to know a place and meeting open minded people.