VIETNAM NORTHERN HIGHLANDS - Sapa

We awoke on boxing day to more sunshine and blue sky, how lucky we’ve been in Sapa. After a hearty breakfast we met our guide Kha and our driver and off we went to the village of Cat Cat to start our trek. The scenery was once again breathtaking, lovely rice paddies cut into the hillside, water buffalo galore basking in muddy holes, children running carefree and little oinking pigs trotting around.

Each time you go into a village there is a small fee to pay but in Cat Cat it’s now more than the rest, presumably to pay for the rather impressive stone steps they’ve built in place of the muddy slopes they had before. The village inhabitants seem quite busy in their daily life – young girls literally ran past us down the steps with baskets on their backs with 4 or 5 very large and heavy logs. Later we came across a gathering of villagers in a fairly heated discussion. It was apparently over a longer wooden rafter they were sitting on. It seemed they couldn’t agree on the price and whether it included delivery so presumably they would keep sitting on it at the foot of the hill until they reconciled their differences!

Huge bamboo is growing all around, the girth of the poles so large you can barely get your hand half way around. We came across a lovely waterfall and then Kha took us off the track a little and showed us an early piece of French ingenuity, a small dam that had provided hydro power for the town. We walked for around 5k and eventually came back to the road near where we started and our driver took us back into town.

Debs, Kah and I had walked around the local market in Sapa the morning before, it was filled with wonderful fruit, flowers and locally made fabrics, the fish and meat stalls were amazing, everything so fresh. Kah told me a funny story as we walked. He said if you have a smart dog he doesn’t bark when you try to sneak in late at night, he doesn’t make bad smells and he never nips your children, he only barks when strangers try to cross the threshold , he will be your friend and you will bury him when he dies; if however the dog barks when you try to sneak in late, makes bad smells ,nips your children and barks unnecessarily you will give him to the market! It was then that I noticed the stupid dog nicely jointed up on one of the stalls, oh dear.

At lunchtime we bid Kah farewell for the day as we had the rest of the day on our own. We’d spotted a high lookout above the town and decided to go and see if we could find the way up. It was via many steps into a protected park called Ham Rong. The way was laid out beautifully into different gardens - Orchids, Four Seasons, Heavens Gate, Cloud and open areas of beautifully manicured lawns and shrubs. The views were stunning and we took lots of pictures. The landscape was quite unusual with black rocks jutting out amongst the lovely foliage.

We walked back into town for a noodle soup lunch and bartered with the local Hmong tribeswomen and Debs bought a nice black and white embroidered Hmong tribal hat and then after lunch we walked next door for a massage in one of the many little shops that are set up along the main street - you just walk in and sit in an aircraft style seat and get pummelled for an hour, but it only costs $6.