Liz and I recently joined our friends Mike and Susan Goldman to spend a weekend at the northern Vietnamese hill town of Sapa. Built by the French in 1922 as a retreat from the summer heat in Hanoi, Sapa is nestled in the mountains just south of the Chinese border in Lao Cai province. Over the past ten years or so, Sapa has boomed as a tourist town for its cool weather, beautiful mountain scenery, and access to numerous hill tribes, many of which (for now) retain their traditional way of life.
The most common way of traveling to Sapa is by overnight train. Departing Hanoi at 10 pm, the luxury coach of the Victoria Hotel arrives in Lao Cai city at 6 am. A one hour drive along scenic, mountainous roads and you arrive at your hotel. The Victoria boasts a comfortable dining car and nicely-appointed cabins. We couldn’t get one of the two-person berths and shared a four-person cabin with the Goldmans. Given my lovely wife’s occasionally antagonistic relationship with gravity, I volunteered for one of the top bunks. The bedding was comfortable, but two inches too little to completely contain my muscular 5’11” frame. Though Liz slept like a log (when doesn’t she?), I tossed and turned as the air in the car would switch from hot to cold.
Though somewhat dazed by lack of sleep, I gawked at the remarkable scenery on the way to the hotel. We drove through a long, narrow valley filled with terraced rice fields giving way to forested peaks. The hotel referred to these mountains as the Tonkinese Alps, and while they don’t quite match up to the Eiger and the Matterhorn, this northern Vietnamese range provides stunning views. Unlike the mountains I encountered in my recent visit to Cao Bang and Bac Kan, these were a real mountain chain, not karst sentinels scoured by the winds. The tallest mountain in mainland southeast Asia, Fancipan, occasionally peered out of the clouds at over 10,000 feet.
The town of Sapa sports some old hotels and a photogenic church, but a lot of new construction. Vietnamese stroll around the town shopping for tea and traditional medicines and looking for places to sing karaoke. Budget tourists and backpackers pile into guest houses and converge on a street filled with western restaurants. Members of local hill tribes set up small stalls in the market and merrily stalk unwary tourists in order to ply their handicrafts.
The Victoria, at the top of the town, caters to high-end tourists and boasts a spectacular view of the northern peaks. The restaurant features local produce, such as Sapa mushrooms and duck. The cooler weather allows local farmers to grow temperate fruits, which are reflected in the plum preserves and fresh peach juice at the hotel
Of course, being the adventure travelers that we are, we were in no mood to just sit around luxuriating in the hotel. Ok, maybe we were in that mood, but the beautiful, cool weather beckoned us out for a mountain trek. Six hours later, sore feet and sunburned arms were evidence of an eventful day spent hiking in the mountain valley. Though we hired a guide through the hotel, 5 ladies from the local Black Hmong hill tribe attached themselves to us for the 5 hour trip. Speaking surprisingly good English, they quizzed us about our names, ages, and home countries. Though the friendly questioning was part of a long-term sales strategy, we eventually welcomed their company as they provided support during some of the more challenging moments of the hike. With largely blue skies, we could see miles across the valley floor, where rain-swollen streams splashed down the mountain sides over long, narrow waterfalls. We walked through more terraced rice fields, with green and yellow stalks rippling in the wind as harvest approached. The path moved up and down through open sun and stalks of bamboo and several Hmong women greeted our group as we walked by.
After washing up at the hotel, we drove back to Lao Cai to catch our overnight train back to Hanoi. 8 hours of tossing and turning later, we prepared to head into work. Just another relaxing weekend.
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