Sapa
Sapa is a town in the mountains of Northern Vietnam, just a few kilometers away from the border to China. It’s close to tribal villages and a great place to trek. Sadly, my train to Sapa was eight hours delayed because of a landslide. The train stopped at 2am in the middle of nowhere and didn’t start again till 10am. Of course, no one had any idea what was going on, but after seeing Vietnamese taking strolls outside, the foreigners also decided it was safe to leave the train. It gave us the opportunity explore a little village in the middle of nowhere that most certainly never gets to see any tourists. It was fun and people gave us huge bags of fruit for breakfast.
But getting to Sapa at 3pm instead of 7am also meant that I lost a full day of trekking. Sadly, the organization I booked my trek with refused to accommodate the changes and I was obliged to simply shorten my trek by a day.
Sapa is known for mountains covered in lush green rice fields and tribal villages where people still wear their traditional clothes. Unfortunately, the rice fields were brown, the weather was awful and the tribal villages seemed a bit staged for tourists. The villagers were more interested in selling souvenirs to tourists than going about their everyday life and it almost seemed as if they were only wearing their traditional clothes for the entertainment of tourists. Basically, Sapa was a disappointment.
At my insistence, my trekking guide brought me to a remote village in the mountains on my second day. It took several phone calls to the travel agency to make this happen. My guide tried to convince me it was a bad idea, because the houses in that village are too basic and he didn’t want to spend the night in such a rudimentary home. I didn’t know what to expect, but I followed my intuition and kept insisting.
It ended up being the right decision. Visiting the remote village was the highlight of the trek and really the only thing that made the detour to Sapa worth it. When I arrived in the village, I immediately met an old lady who was thrilled to have a visitor in her village. She belongs to the Red Dai tribe that is known for their knowledge in herbal medicine. She immediately dressed me up like a local, showed me around her house and told me about the various plants she is using for medicine. She also introduced me to all of her family and the other villagers. I don’t know where she learned English, but her English was definitely good enough to keep up a basic conversation.
The village and the house where I ended up spending the night were definitely very rudimentary. The house had no floor and chicken were running around freely inside her home. Of course, the chicken weren’t supposed to be there, but she always kept all doors to the house open and no one seemed to bother that the farm animals were getting inside. They only put a small barrier at the door to make sure the pigs (and there were lots of them) were not getting inside. I was quite entertained by the whole situation, it seemed like I had landed on another planet, a hundred years behind our time. The enthusiasm of my host was overwhelming and refreshing. Especially after my previous night in a different home-stay, it was nice to have someone who sees more in tourists than just money.
So I spent the afternoon following her around as she was trying to find her buffalo, feeding the pigs, looking for herbs, preparing the rice to make rice wine. Many of her relatives came by to say hello and we all shared a simple, yet delicious dinner. The next morning I had a bit of a surprise concerning my breakfast. Vietnamese usually eat a salty soup for breakfast, but they know that Europeans prefer sweet food in the morning. So my host decided she would make me pancakes. I didn’t realize how much effort that was going to be. She collected the eggs from the chicken, not sure where she got the milk from, and then started to grind the grains with two stones to get the wheat. It really made me realize the effort it is to make something as simple as pancakes from raw ingredients. But I am happy to report that her pancakes were absolutely delicious!
When I left, the lady gave me a gift (an embroidered keychain) and a rice cake. I was really fortunate to have met her, especially since the landscape wasn’t that stunning and the weather was just ok.
See more photos here.
Practical Information: I’m not sure i would recommend Sapa to anyone. It seems overpriced and too staged for tourists. If you have the opportunity to do treks somewhere else, don’t go to Sapa. I booked my trek with Sapa O’Chau, because they have plenty of good reviews and use their profits to educate disadvantaged children. But their organization is a mess, barely anyone speaks English, they charge you for every single thing extra (even coffee after a meal) and really showed little willingness to accommodate my train delay. So I really would stay away from them.
