Sapa

I'd have to say - Sapa is my favorite place in Vietnam.

It's a small town set in beautiful countryside, at the top of a big mountain, with an incredible valley below with awesome views. The area is home to some of Vietnam's minority tribes, and part of the experience here is to visit the minority villages.

I caught the night train from Ha Noi, but had zero sleep, because the guy in the berth next to mine snored so loudly that it was impossible to do anything but stare at the ceiling. Not to worry.

When you arrive at the station you are bombarded by people trying to sell you a minibus ride up to Sapa. The drive up is incredible, with amazing views on a little windy road that climbs up the mountain. (Tim's Top Tip: Sit on the left - you get way better views).

Sapa itself is pretty small. And while there are loads of people trying to sell you stuff, it's really relaxed and stress free.

I really wanted to do the walk down to the villages, so having dumped my bags at the hotel, went to try and get on a tour. Everyone told me I was way too late for the walk that day, which would take 6 to 8 hours, and the prices seemed to be really high.

Not sure of what to do, I got chatting to some of the women from the village, who were saying I should definitely go with them to see the village. Which sounded like a great idea. One of the village people (no - not the band) spoke really great English, and I got chatting to her about a possible route.

She said she'd take me, and when I asked her how much, she said it was up to me. I think that she'd have taken me for free, but I wanted to see three of the villages and it was a long way - and I'd have had to pay for a tour anyway - so it only seemed fair to pay something.

My guide's name was Sea (no idea how to spell it, but that's what it sounded like), and despite only three years of school spoke incredibly good English. It was really great walking down the mountain chatting away about all sorts of things.



As we're walking down the road, a minibus grinds to a halt and out jump Jacqui and Leah - who I'd met on the Halong Tour. So we arranged to meet up that night for some food.

After about an hour, we caught up with all of the people who'd set off on the tours earlier that day:



Now I like to walk pretty quickly, and Sea had no problems keeping up with me (or was it me trying to keep up with her :-) - but when we got to this really steep down hill bit, she was off running, and I was struggling to keep up even though she was wearing sandals, and I had on my fancy walking shoes on :-)

Rice Paddy's:





A rather nice heart made of ferns that one of the ladies from the village gave me. Not sure if she was trying to tell me something but there was a lot of marriage talk at one point :-)



"Baby Rice" which will be replanted in a few months time:



No, No, NO. NO! Some ducks:



A water buffalo:



Village houses:



We walked through the first village and then on to the next, where Sea pointed out the different style of dress - they even have a different language. And then on to the next village - again a different way of dressing and a different language.

At the next village there was no tourists - and I think we'd already walked about 14 kilometers or so. So I got out the chocolate bread I'd bought in Sapa this morning, and we ate it on the side of the path. Sea then pulled these shoot things from the ground and showed me how to peel them so you could eat the inside. The first bite was a bit weird, but it was pretty good after that.

From there, it was the long path up to the road. If you do the walk to the first few villages, you can walk back to the road and get a moto road back to town. But we'd gone so far that there weren't any moto's so started walking back towards Sapa.

After seeing this I told Sea we should steal some Water Buffalo and ride them back to Sapa:



I got joking with See that I was going to walk back to town and she was laughing at me saying it was too far. It turned out to be a punishing 11 kilometer up hill climb in the baking sun. Fun - but hard work - made even worse by plenty of "you want moto" offers on the way.

But the good news was - I met loads of local people on the road, and it was good fun to chat to some of them.

I managed just over 25 kilometers in five and a half hours - which was pretty good seeing the last half was up hill. :-)

Sea's village:



An incredible day out - made all the more fun by Sea - whose standing on the right:



That night I met up with Jacqui and Leah and we went for food in one of the restaurants. Sadly, there other friend Emily, wasn't feeling well so wasn't able to join us. We ended up at the place that makes the chocolate bread (which was totally awesome) but ended getting kicked out at 10:30 because they were closing!