Victoria Sapa Hotel

For me, this was one of the highlights of the whole trip. When you look at the pictures, you'll see why! Sapa [or Sa Pa as the Vietnamese spell it; in English we tend to append Vietnamese words together, e.g., "Vietnam," but they always split them up into separate words] is in the hill country/mountains of North Viet Nam. We spent a few amazing days there admiring the striking scenery and getting to see the hill tribes ("ethnic minorities") who still live much as they have for centuries. It w...

Back on the road to Sapa (7 hours).

Entry containing 10 photos titled: Sapa _ Hiking around the valley, Sapa- Hiking around the valley, Sapa- Hiking around the valley, Sapa, Sapa- Hiking around the valley, Sapa, Sapa, Sapa, Sapa, Sapa - Victoria Hotel

Entry containing 22 photos titled: Sapa Morning , Sapa Town, Views Of the Valley, Rice fields, Views Of Clouds in the mountains, Clouds sweeping through valley, Rocks, Church , Tribe Women, Kids selling stuff, Cloudy, More Kids Selling, What there use as taxi's, Lisa and Tribe Girl From Village , More Views of valley, Working the fields, View of Hotel, Lisa n cat, Morning View, Morning Views , More Clouds through Valley, View From Hotel Room

Entry containing 44 photos titled: Moth i think on the window, Clear Morning , Among the Clouds, Clouds come in quick, Resort room, Views on the road to Lai Chau, Fag Break , views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, Views of the valley, Moutains , Minin Waterfall, distance view of the Thac Bac Waterfall, Road sweeping around the moutains, Thac Bac (silver waterfall), Thac Bac (silver waterfall), Thac Bac (silver waterfall), bloke watching me watching him lol, Shack where they live beside waterfall, Selling goods beside waterfall food etc, woman n kids easy eh, views of the Tram Ton Pass, Tram Ton Pass roads, wow, clouds coming in through the valley, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, sweeping roads love em , views of the Tram Ton Pass, turn in road, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, Rice Fields, Road we where on , other way, views of the Tram Ton Pass, views of the Tram Ton Pass, Pass Roads

Wednesday 8th July

Our overnight train from Hanoi arrived into Lao Cai station in drizzly weather at about 6.15am. Lao Cai is located at an elevation of 650m and the 1 hr trip up to Sapa, at 1650m, has to be taken by a narrow and winding yet sealed road.

Sapa village is located near the top of the highest peak in Vietnam, Fransipan Mountain, and is just 2 km form the Chinese boarder. The Village offers an amazing view down the mountain and to the river below. The sides of the m...

Thursday 9th

The guide books will advise you that there is no dominant Religion in Vietnam. That is not true. 95% of Vietnamese are Buddhist. It is just that theirs is a more private form of Buddhism compared to their neighbours; they visit Temple only twice a month but pray daily within their homes. So, it was with some form of cruel irony that the one Catholic Church in Sapa peeled it bells with vigour to jolt Mark and I awake at 5.30am this morning. Further sleep was impossible. Hen...

Friday 1/8/08 just before dawn the train moves slowly through the rising mist & rain in the mountain as we approach Lao Cai. The dawn breaks through the mist and as small villages and vegetable gardens slip by I try to take some photos but this is impossible due to the rain and grime on the windows, Finally about 6am the train stops at station and passangers start to disembark but as we were in the second last carriage we had stopped short of the platform. This makes disembarking a little...

9.30am and our guide Vung walks through hotel entrance raincoats in hand so we assume that our firt treck is about to begin but first the niceties of a apology from Mr Tom, the direcror of trails of mountains, for the hic up at Lao Cai station and Mr Tom wishes to reimberse for the cost, We thank him and decline the offer just to be safely in Sapa is enough.
Now it is time to attack the treck to Cat Cat village.There is misty rain falling as we start to decend the first steps to Cat Cat vi...

Saturday morning first surprise of the day hundreds of moths littering the verandah outside the door of our room and more on the stairs leading to the ground floor they were all shapes, sizes and some amazing colours. Careful where you walk as we make our way to breakfast, another exelent breakfast.
mid morning departure for our second treck to a Red Doa village. First a walk through the local fresh food markets so our guide, Vung can purchase supplies of fresh produce, fresh vegetables an...