Sa Pa, Lao Cai Province

Breaking tourist tradition (as we like to do), we avoided the expensive night sleeper trains to Lao Cai and chose the public day train instead. We had to be patient and barter very hard to obtain a reasonable rate for the final stretch to Sa Pa by minibus as the tourist masses were travelling in the opposite direction. This worked out well in the end with just a few friendly local tour guides on the bus playing awesome Vietnamese techno on the stereo and a convenient stop at the local bakery.

We arrived to a mist shrouded Sa Pa, 1500m above sea level in the Hoang Lien Mountains (Tonkinese Alps). Thinking we would find peace and quiet in this picturesque mountain village, we discovered the 110th Sa Pa Tourism Anniversary celebrations underway and were surrounded by booming music from dawn to dusk. We managed to escape the noise on our day trip to Cat Cat Village on foot where we experienced sweeping views of the rice terraces (recently harvested) and surrounding mountains.

Sa Pa Village on the left

Cat Cat Village

Here we saw the local village people at work in the fields and with their crafts. There are scores of water buffalo around, who in between wallowing, pull their weight by ploughing the rice fields.

Water buffalo

The Sa Pa region boasts 24 different ethnic groups, each with their own distinctive dress and culture, all living peacefully within a small area. The village ladies walk to the Sa Pa village to sell their handicrafts to tourists. Once completely self sufficient, they are now hungry for the tourist dollar and are very persistent. We had a lady follow us for 15minutes despite our repetitive refusal to buy from her. She would have followed for longer had we not stopped and convinced her that her time was better spent elsewhere.

Dao Headdress 

Girls marry and have babies very young and carry them around on their backs, the infants also dressed in traditional clothing ornately decorated with beads and colored thread.

H'mong Ladies, Sa Pa 

Beautiful hand stitched blankets originally created as wedding dowries, are made locally right from growing the cotton, to weaving, dying and decorating it.

Handmade Blankets, Cat Cat Village

Sa Pa is the coldest place in Vietnam. In winter it is not uncommon for snow to dust the rice terraces. For the unprepared travellers there is plenty of dirt cheap knock-off North Face gear on sale.

Although the towering peak of Fansipan (at 3145m, officially Vietnam's highest) was beckoning, the weather remained fickle and the plummeting night temperatures were enough to discourage us. So after three days we headed back to Lao Cai and spent a night exactly 1 mile from the China Border before catching the train back to Hanoi.