On the road to Sapa
From
when we first booked our flights last year in England we had
heard good things about the
mountain town of Sapa in North
Vietnam. Our travel agent Tony told us it was somewhere he went
and really enjoyed. Based on that and recommendations from our
lonely planet and people we've met - we decided to
book an overnight train to
Sapa leaving at 9pm local time from Hanoi station. The
journey takes around 9/10 hours with no stops. We had got a
ticket for the 4 bed cabin - not as good as the private two beds
but more room to breath than the six bed - all of which pack
into the same sized cabin. We were in a cabin with two guys from
Holland who we ended up chatting to all evening - we got a
lesson in how a dutch co-operative bank works (one guys
employer) though I found this quite interesting! I probably
ended up getting around 7 hours sleep - which is not bad for a
train - and a lot more than when we go by night bus!
The train arrives in at a station in
Lao Cai - a Chinese border
town - where you then get a mini
bus transfer some 35km to Sapa
in the mountains. Despite being bleary eyed and just waking up,
we were ready for the rip of merchants who line the station road
trying to charge you US$25 each for the journey - our guesthouse
in Hanoi had advised us to pay only US$5 for us both max. After
much walking around we found a guy who eventually agreed to take
us for the 5 dollars in total. As we were putting our bags on he
told us to keep quite about how much we were paying for the trip
as others had paid the $25! At 5.30am and not wanting to get
chucked off the bus - we kept quiet but were outraged at how
blase the driver was about ripping these people off. The drive
to Sapa provided amazing views through the mountains of the
sunrise and got us both pretty excited about the trekking we had
planned for the next two days. We arrived at around 7am I think
and found our way to the guesthouse we had planned to get a room
at. First impressions were that Sapa was bigger than I imagined
a mountain town to be - and it was packed full of tribe folk in
there full tribal outfits.... trying to sell you stuff or take
you on a tour of
Sapa. In fact we had never seen persistence
like it - this one couple of tribe ladies started following us
when we got off the bus, when walking to the hotel, they then
waited for us while we checked in and dumped the bags, and they
followed us to a small cafe where we had some breakfast. It was
only when we came out and I told them for the tenth time we
"we're not buying anything" did they go away - even then asking
if we buy from them later or tomorrow!
We spent much of the day
exploring Sapa town - finding a good
pizzeria and coffee shop along the way. We also spent a bit of
time exploring the many outdoor gear shops - most selling fake
North Face gear.. much of it you could not tell was fake. With
most of our mobile wardrobe full of beach/hot weather clothes,
we bought a couple of jackets and waterproof trousers - my north
face jacket was only £12! We also spent some time trying to find
a decent guide to do the hill tribe trekking with - we stumbled
across 'the Sapa Sisters' on trip adviser as they had great
reviews - I gave them a call and we planned to meet outside our
hotel the following morning at 9am. We had two days of
full
trekking planned and a homestay in one of the tribe villages
house. We put the camera on charge and got kitted up for the
next few days trekking!.
