Seriously Sapa
Trip Start
Feb 01, 2004
1
31
44
Trip End
Jun 01, 2004
Sapa,
Vietnam
Monday, April 12, 2004
Quickly, here is what happened. We had an uneventful trip (overnight train to Lao Cai)...and then we took a bus to Sapa. It was misty, foggy and difficult to see. While the road at this point was paved, it was windy and dangerous already. The ride up was definitely scary....as a matter of fact, no one spoke a word all the way up.
We began to trek almost immediately and had a great first day, visiting Hmong and Zay villages. We enjoyed our guide, sunshine, the cooler weather and a nice hotel
sapa1
. The view of Mount Fansipan from our hotel was breathtaking...finally the green and lush SE Asia we has envisioned (but not exactly seen along the Mekong.)The market in Sapa was incredible, with many minorities represented in full dress, selling their handicrafts along with local food etc. The sellers were very aggressive but in a friendly way. They do touch you, grab you, try to give you gifts, all so you will buy. We are not much for souvenirs, but Paul eventually bought several small mouth harps in embroidered cases, simply because the young girls wore him down! Also interesting was what they call "the love market" where you see some of the courting rituals of these local "tribes.
On day two, we began a difficult 20 kilometre trek that took us to another Zay village. The idea was to walk most of the day, then get a jeep back, in order to get the bus to Lao Cai for the overnight train back to Hanoi. The jeep never did arrrive and we had no choice but to go back about 15 kms or so by motorbike. This is something we had decided we would prefer to avoid, but in this case we had little choice.
On the way back, we narrowly missed a "rock slide"...not a natural one but one detonated by Vietnamese using explosives to blast the rock face. It was awful as we watched each others' faces on the back of these bikes as rocks rolled into the road. We honestly were not sure what would happen and we sure prayed a lot.
It was more than a little scary and we ended up waiting there for over an hour while bulldozers cleared the rock off the road and over the cliff. Needless to say we are feeling very lucky, especially since about three weeks ago a driver and a few Australian tourists were killed when the rocks crashed onto their jeep.
All in all, it may well be true that the most rewarding places are difficult and take some time and effort to get to. This was true of Sapa. We are only able to say that it was incredible because we made it back...likely not something we'd do again though. We will be happier to spend the next few days cruising Halong Bay.
