Sunburnt in Sapa

Sapa is a hill station, and a long time French resort, in Northern Vietnam set in amongst majestic rolling mountains between 1,800 and 3,100 metres above the sailors. We were lucky enough to stay there for four days while we waited for our Vietnamese visa extensions, and we were blessed by unseasonaly perfect weather. Sapa is notoriously the coldest place in Vietnam, but when we were there it was warm and sunny with clear blue skies during the day (hence the subject title), atmospheric misty mornings, and at dusk, the clouds descended over mountain ridge to cover the town like a blanket.

On our first day, we went for a walk in and around Sapa, through some rice paddies and rose orchards (ie. predominately in people's backyards), and enjoyed the lovely weather. After wandering around for 2 hours, a young H'Mong lad offered to lead us through the hills (... or, we presume that's what he was trying to say... we think he may have been a couple of skin heads short of a brawl, if you catch my drift, but a friendly kid none the less), so we followed him around for about a while. He would bound up the steep slopes like a mountain goat, and we would follow him like some out of breath and unfit lame-arsed foreigners. We paused to watch some kids splashing around in one of the rice paddy terraces, and after a short time, the two little boys came running up to meet us.

They loved looking over our shoulders at their digital world we were filming, and when we turned the camera onto them, they laughed and shouted and babbled to each other. We shared some of our honey coated sesame seed snacks with them, and enjoyed the stunning views.

Tim on the balcony of our guest house, Mountain View hotel, looking over the valley.

One of the typically picturesque houses we traipsed past on our walk.

Tiered rice paddies and one curious water buffalo.

The valley view looking back towards our hotel.

Seriously, how beautiful is that?

Another shot of the valley, what a shame it's such an ugly place. ;-)

A placid buffalo with massive horns that I was worried about at the time.

I came to realise that they were walking towards us because they thought we

were going to feed them.

Me with the gorgeous backdrop, looking up towards the hotel.

Tim with the same stunning backdrop.

The front gate where we met the young Black H'Mong boy who showed us around.

Some more tiered rice paddies - you can see one of the little boys in the left hand corner, running up to meet us.

The boy on the far right lead us around, and the other two little ones came to meet us.

There are lots of ethnic minorities in Sapa and the surrounding area, particularly the Black H'Mong people but there were also a couple of Dzao women amongst them. The balcony of our guest house gave us a great bird's eye view of them all trying to sell their wares to the polite but cornered tourists. All the ethnic minorities live in nearby villages and come into Sapa to sell their beautiful embroidered blankets, pillow covers, wall hangings, belts and also some interesting jewellery. There was a constant high pitched, sing-song sound track to Sapa from the H'Mong's: "Hello! you buy blanket from me? You buy blanket from me?", they were very persistent but very cute. Then, if you did buy something from them, a Dzao woman would come up and say, "You buy from H'Mong, now you buy blanket from me? I am Dzao we are from different village... you buy from H'Mong, now you buy pillow case from me?". When we were eating lunch one day in a restaurant, the most adorable old woman in Vietnam tentatively, at first, came in and started to show us her wares. She didn't speak a word of English, but still managed to get the point across that if we took a photo of her, we had to give her 5,000 dong. It was worth it though (we secretly took video footage as well... shhhh!). :)

The sweet old Black H'Mong woman pausing in her sales pitch for a photo.

... the sales pitch continues...

I did really like that belt, but unfortunately, we only had 5,000 dong left.

On our second day, we decided to walk down to the nearby H'Mong village called Cat Cat, which is an easy 3km stroll down a well marked path. At the beginning of our journey, we bumped into two young H'Mong girls (both around 12 years old) who asked whether we were going to Cat Cat... and then just tagged along with us, much to our delight. Their English was reasonably good and so we talked about our respective families, pointed out the animals we saw along the way, asking if they ate that too, playing with them etc., but it was just really nice having Chi and Leelee accompany us.

We met the girls at the beginning of the trail to Cat Cat.

Leelee (left) and Chi (right) were our companions for the day.

Cat Cat itself wasn't all that great, but I guess we only saw the touristy part (ie. the odd stall selling blankets/pillow cases etc.) and not where the H'Mong actually live, but there was a lovely waterfall there which we admired for a while. Chi ran down to it and was shrieking with joy as she jumped from rock to rock until she reached the base of the waterfall - she would periodically turn around and wave at us and babble to Leelee.

As we were walking back up to Sapa along a sun dappled stone path, lined with palm fronds and lush greenery, Chi started to sing a H'Mong song in her beautiful voice - definitely a moment we won't ever, ever forget.

A view of one of the old stone buildings from the bridge, with a stall selling ethnic wares beneath it.

Some pictures of the lovely waterfall.

Me, totally enchanted by the girls, precariously balancing on a stone wall overlooking the waterfall.

The view on the way down to Cat Cat.

Another photo of me, Leelee and Chi on the way down to Cat Cat.

On our third day in Sapa (Wednesday), we decided to hire a moto and go for a ride around the area (an old Russian clanker with a gearbox that was noisier than the engine - and the engine was loud enough). We bought a completely useless map which had Mt Fansipan (the largest mountain by far in the area) in totally the wrong place by a looooong way, and completely omitted major roads. But not knowing where we are going has never stopped us before, and so we set off towards Lai Chau (probably).

To get to Lai Chau, you have to go over the Tram Ton pass, which at 1,900m is the highest mountain pass in Vietnam... and bugger me, it's windy. We stopped at one point to take some photos, but I was literally being blown over. To tell you the truth, I was shitting myself when we were back on the bike, because in some areas as we were getting blown around quite a bit.

The view from part of the Tram Ton pass.

Me, struggling to stand up to the strong gully winds.

Tim looking out over the pass, and probably worrying silently about our petrol situation.

After a time, we came across the silver waterfall, which is another big tourist attraction and looked like a bit of a yawn, so we kept going up the mountain. It was only after we stopped to check the map (a true exercise in futility) a little further on, that we also double-checked the fuel and were slightly worried to see that there was only a couple of litres left. Now, we probably would have been fine, but you always feel uneasy when you have less than a full or near full tank. We decided to push on to Lai Chau, in neutral gear with the engine off to conserve petrol (it was all down hill anyway, all 30k's of it!), and hope they had a petrol station there so we could make it back up the mountain. It all worked out in the end sort of... we bought fuel at double the value from an elated farmer (probably 2 kms short of the Lai Chau petrol station), and made it back to Sapa before dark. On the trip back up the mountain, I took lots of video footage and photos from the back of the bike - it was truly, truly stunning. :)

Not only was the view stunning, one of the local trees was in bloom, so the fresh mountain air tinged with exotic floral scents. I could try to describe it to you all, but it would just cheapen it... if you could bottle it, you would be an instant millionaire (and I don't mean in Vietnamese dong). :)

Once we arrived back in Sapa, we drove straight to Baguette & Chocolate, which is another amazing business set up for, and run by, former street kids to give them a leg up in the service industry. I can tell you from experience, there is nothing better than coming in from a long ride on a bike, with freezing hands and face, and drinking one of their mugs of hot chocolate (made from real chocolate). Hhmmmmm....

On the Thursday, we hired the bike again for the morning as we were heading back to Hanoi by overnight train that night. We spent the day roaming around the surrounding country side trying to get into the ethnic villages by taking the odd dirt track. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't, but mainly we were just awestruck by the scenery. I was also awestruck by this ridiculous dog with a humiliating haircut... poor thing... have a look for yourselves!

I think the poor thing knows how stupid it looks.

Right before our bus to Lau Cai was leaving, I bought some of the beautiful earrings that the H'Mong girls all wear... one from Leelee and one from Chi. We ended up paying way more than what they were worth, but it's easily justified by the time we spent with them the previous day. Both of the girls were being very sweet and clinging onto my arms and saying to Tim and I things like, "Will you remember me? If you come back will you remember our names?". We were both sad to leave Sapa, and I would love to go back through the area some time soon.