Vietnam- Sapa

Sapa is a small town in the mountains of northwest Vietnam. The landscape surrounding it is absolutely beautiful, but it's being completely overrun by tourism, and the town itself is mostly tourists, tourist shops, and Hmong women dressed up in local attire trying to sell things to tourists. "Hello? You want to buy from me?" We enjoyed our time there very much, and we did some wonderful trekking, it just wasn't quite as authentic as we had expected. If we were able to do it again, we'd rent a motorbike in Lao Cai and drive ourselves to Sapa, we would get out of town and visit Tram Ton Pass and Thac Bac waterfall, and we'd venture out trekking on our own. We would plan nothing through any sort of tour agency. However, not to complain. We enjoyed a visit to the Bac Ha Sunday market (previous post), we had an amazing local guide named Chi who took us "the long way" on our treks (which ended up being off the beaten path from most other tour groups), we enjoyed some Vietnamese BBQ to celebrate the 4th of July, swam in a bunch of beautiful rivers, we had unbelievable weather, and our home stay while trekking was an out of this world experience.

Our Orient Express overnight train car from Hanoi to Sapa. We lucked out and got the whole cabin to ourselves!

downtown Sapa

Indigo plant.  They soak it in a giant barrel of water, and the color naturally comes out of the plant. Locals then use it to dye hemp for clothing, especially the traditional Black Hmong outfits

Black Hmong girls

4th of July BBQ! That's fresh mushroom wrapped in thinly sliced pork and grilled. We also had pork-wrapped fresh greens. And sticky rice grilled inside bamboo, grilled corn, and potatoes. All over an open charcoal fire on the side of the river, sitting in plastic chairs. This day Robert just happened to wear red, and Carter just so happened to wear blue, so we felt quite festive, and the Vietnamese BBQ was awesome! A most unusual, and exciting, Independence Day celebration.

grilled corn, turned into popcorn before our eyes!

View of Sapa from lookout spot on nearby mountain

It was beyond hot on this day of trekking, with mosquitoes everywhere, and we were taking a much needed rest for a cold drink of water when we met this girl. To see her hiking our same route, as a daily routine to get from town back to her home, in layers of wool no less, made us feel like total lightweights! These women are unreal.

All locals have their own plot of farmland, which are always gorgeous and flourishing like this one, and from which families are completely self-sustainable

This is an example of what the once narrow, rocky and natural trekking paths through rice paddies have been turned into -- wide bulldozed dirt roads. Those unfortunate people walking along are part of a tour group. Had we not had a really cool guide (CHI!) who understood what we were interested in doing (getting as remote as possible), we would have taken these paths too. Not exactly what one expects when they sign up for remote trekking through local villages in Sapa...

One of our wider trekking paths, thanks to Chi for taking us "the long way"

Black Hmong traditional dress. We marveled at how they could wear layers of wool in the summer heat! This is a typical sized load for girls to carry, and they walk everywhere. We are so thankful to have trekked along the local pathways so we could see examples of daily Hmong life such as this one.

cute little girl who took a liking to us at our lunch stop

She enjoyed punching Robert's hands as he gave her a target. She did some amazing 'preparatory' moves like the one in this picture, like she was zenning out and centering her concentration before the big hit. Amazing coming from such a young girl, she looked (and hit) like a pro fighter.

she loooooooved Carter's camera

Our guide Chi's niece

Chi's sister

A girl who latched onto us shortly after our arrival and followed us for the first 24 hours everywhere we went

our home stay house

After a long day of hiking and settling into our home stay, we walked down the hill to a huge and beautiful river for a swim. It was incredibly refreshing and relaxing. We swam across the rapids, climbed on the rocks, watched people working in their rice paddies along the bank, and just chilled in the sun.  It was just us initially until some local boys showed up to brave the rapids and play games, and eventually other tourists made their way down to join.

Porch area of our home stay. Just when the day couldn't get any better, we returned from our swim to cold Tiger beers and a plate of french fries with fresh chunks of garlic

The feast of a dinner at our home stay. We got to eat with the extended family who owned the home, along with close friends from the village, one of whom was married to a Norwegian guy.  So the guy from Norway and his friend from Denmark, who are in the hotel business in Sapa, also joined for dinner. It was a large and lively bunch, with home brewed rice wine flowing with wreckless abandon (and it's apparently rude to say "no thank you" when offered rice wine). After dinner, more rice wine, and then the drinking game started, with shots of rice wine!  Kill us. At some point in the evening we were able to substitute water in place of our rice wine (our saving grace is they store rice wine in old Aquafina bottles), thank Heavens... otherwise I'm not sure we would have survived the night. The whole scene, obviously what they so often do as a group of family and friends, and having the opportunity to be their guests, was really special and an incredible amount of fun. 

Here's the dinner crew!

the inside of the downstairs of our home stay

Hemp, stage 1 (no one smokes, it's only used for making material). We found it interesting how it grows so nonchalantly, in the same plot of land with corn

Hemp, stage 2

Hemp, stage 3

bamboo forest