After an early breakfast our tour guide met us at our hotel to join our bus. 🚌 National Express could learn a thing or to about long distance coach travel.

With seats 💺 like first class train carriages that recline to almost horizontal the 6 hour journey was not going to be difficult. 🤗🤗. Sapa is the north west of Vietnam close to the Chinese border and in the hills. Temperatures vary on a daily basis so we were equipped with base layers and fleece. However we hit Sapa on a good day. 😎 A warm welcome met us at the hotel check in and then a look around the town.

We were given instructions not to buy from street vendors or give the children sweets or money. They didn’t tell us the children were the street vendors with a starting age of about 4. They speak excellent English and know the main phrases like ‘buy from me please’ ‘I make good price for you’ and ‘but I have baby to feed’.

During the evenings these children are dressed in local costume to pose for tourists in exchange for money or wander the streets with their baby sister or brother on their backs selling wristbands and trinkets.

 

Our second day was a 10k trekking tour of some local villages through the hillside. June, our guide met us at the hotel and frog marched us to meet the rest of our party. If this was to be the pace of the day we were having second thoughts. June eased our minds when she said ‘I look at you two and you will have no problems with the tour. I have two fat people who will not make it’. Don’t hold back June, say it as it is. Andy thinks she comes from Yorkshire.

 

The views over Sapa are quite incredible. They farm the hills for rice and vegetables in tiers down the hillside moving water through at the right times at it falls from the hillside.

We visited three local villages on the way all with their own cultures and dress but all know how to create embroidered garments, hand crafted goods and speak excellent English. They just have not learned the English word ‘NO’.

Lunch was in one of the villages which I am sure was just so you could not escape the pressure sales techniques. We bought 2 purses for 400,000 Vietnamese Dong from one of guides as a gesture for her support on the way. By the end of lunch we could have purchased 4 purses for 100,000 Dong! 😐

During the trip June, our guide, took us to her own house. She lives there with her husband and two children. No television, an open fire to cook on and one light. She does have running water though. No tap, just a direct feed into the washing bowl overflowing into the street. We also visited the school her children attend.

Girls go to school until they are needed to work in the home so until about 10. Only a few girls will get an education. As it was a warm day her son had been swimming whilst at school. In the local river, but I’m not sure where the teacher was at this time.

The beauty of this kind of trek is that when you finish they put a bus on to take you back to the town.

The local delecisy in Sapa is BBQ. It ticks all our boxes so on to the plastic stools again for traditional street food.

With the street children again selling their wares we picked our way through to the safety of our hotel. The children only come out in the evening because all the tourists are in their villages. Some just sit in the road falling asleep with a blanket of goods for sale while others wander the streets following anyone who may be willing to pay. There are a lot of gap year students in Vietnam and when I asked one of the children why they were pestering us rather than them, their reply was ‘they young and have no money, you old and have lots of money’. 🤣🤣

Our second day was a trip to Cat cat, another local village set in the hills surrounding Sapa. There is a ticketed entrance to Cat cat that supports the local heritage. Small narrow streets lead you through the village where local crafts and a view of traditional Vietnamese life is on show including training their children how to handle a knife!

Many Vietnamese visit Sapa and wear local dress during their stay. I thinks it’s a way of reconnecting with their history. One thing about these girls is, they do like to pose and have their picture taken.

They would be lost without a smartphone and selfie stick. So when we came upon a bamboo bridge that crossed a lake, Andy had the camera out. The bridge goes nowhere but you just have to do the photos.

Nice views of the river and a waterfall brought the camera out again. The views really are impressive.

As we waited for our transport to take us to the night train a Lunar New Year celebration was taking place across the road from the hotel. The Vietnemese just need an excuse to pray to a statue. While recitals and much bowing took place 1,000 Dong notes were through into the crowd.

So its time to board the night train back to Hanoi before our trip to Hoi An.

Till next time ‘Tạm biệt‘ – ‘Bye’

Carol and Andy