"Not all Who Wander are Lost": Mountain Retreat in Northern Vietnam

We left the heat and humidity of Hanoi to spend four days in the northern mountains surrounding Sa’pa town. We heard the area was beautiful and had seen many pictures of the rice terraces climbing the mountainsides. It was quite reminiscent of the Inca Terraces and mountains of Peru and Ecuador and the cooler weather was a lovely respite from the temperatures in the lowlands.

Our trip to Sa’pa began with an overnight train ride from Hanoi. This was a first overnighter for each of us so there were several questions on our minds: Who might be sharing our 4-berth cabin with us? How soft were the “soft sleepers”? Will we actually sleep? etc. We met our bunkmates, a quiet pair of friends from France who did not speak much English and all settled in for a rocky ride in the bunk! Neither of us slept through the night, but we certainly got in a few hours of shut-eye now and again. We arrived in the border town of Lao Cai (less than 20 miles from China) and were met by an employee for the company who would transport us the remaining 45-km through steep uphill winding roads (good thing the Dramamine was still working!). As we climbed ever higher we could see the beautiful rice terraces in varying stages of cultivation, as well as the ethereal clouds noted in the region. The temperature outside was considerably cooler and we were looking forward to four days of trekking and exploring this beautiful area.

For the first time in our travels, we did not book a room in advance. Typically, we book the first 2 nights in a place just to have somewhere to go and leave flexibility to move should the accommodations not live up to their advertisements (we’ve only moved two times in 6 months, so we have done well with booking ahead!). However, Sapa was extremely difficult since there are such divergent reviews on various websites from previous travelers and no contact information for places with stellar ratings and within our price range. Fortunately, the mini-van dropped a group off right in an area we wanted to search, so we hopped out and ginnie went to one of our picks to look at a room while Anthony watched our bags. There was plenty of availability (it also happens to be a low travel season in the region) and we went ahead for a stay and quickly took a much-needed nap! For the rest of the day, since the clouds were low and fog was thick, we just walked through town and got our bearings despite not being able to see more than a few feet in front of us - in fact, we couldn't even find the central church through the fog and it's tall in the middle of town!

Many hill tribe people live in the villages of the north and those within a few hours walking distance of town come in to sell a variety of homemade items to tourists (well, the women; the men are farming). We immediately met a young woman named Ngu, who began with the common greeting asking where we are from, how long we’d be in Sa’pa, our names, if we’re married, and if we have children. We always then ask the same questions back (minus the stay in Sa’pa) and chat with them. Not planning to purchase anything, we are always honest and some women move along to find someone else, while some will follow us for quite a while until they really believe we are not buying anything J.

A woman we met in Hoi An suggested we meet a local woman and simply arrange to travel to her village with her rather than join an organized tour. Not being fans of tours as it is, we already planned to trek on our own, so when we met May (actually spelled Me) before dinner on the first day and she asked if we’d like to walk to her village and another with her the next day, we decided to go along.

Our trek to Lao Chai village with Me and another traveler who was on her own from Australia was one of the highlights of our travels. First of all, Me has the biggest laugh and is such an incredible woman (not that the others are not – these women are impressive with the work they do and the number of kilometers they walk daily). We had fun talking and trying to keep up with her speed as we walked down to the village. It was still a bit of a foggy day, but we could see the rice terraces surrounding us.

The two hour walk felt quick and before we knew it we were at the entrance to her village where we noticed the tour groups eating their lunch in a little café just on the outskirts. We stopped in at a shop where Me picked up ingredients for lunch and then found ourselves at the bottom of a steep, muddy slope and were informed we were heading that way! It was a slippery walk through deep, thick mud, but we managed to make it with no falls. Once at her home, Me instructed us to wash our shoes in the wash room and then we joined her inside and spent time watching her 4-year old daughter work on a simple cross-stitch pattern then play with her cousins in the house next door.

Me’s family are Hmong and as tradition states the woman moves from her village to the home of her husband and they live among his family – there were three houses in the compound for the three boys and their wives and children (views of the rice terraces sloping down the hill in front of the houses were stunning). We were impressed to see her husband cooking, we do not know much about gender roles among this particular Hmong tribe, so that was unexpected.

Lunch included fried instant noodles with fried eggs, fried potatoes, morning glory with garlic and fresh rice; this is a pretty standard fare for them. The fresh rice was amazing, it’s super soft and fluffy. After lunch, we looked through Me’s crafts (rather than just pay her for the walk, we bought some of her items) and then we went further up a less-muddy track to the next village of Ta Van where another Hmong tribe lives as well as a Dzay tribe (each tribe wears different clothes and speaks a different language).

Me took us back to the main road and pointed the way to Sa’pa then returned to her home. We decided to walk all the way back and took the steep road up for another 2 hours enjoying the scenery and avoiding motos and trucks blaring their horns as they passed. We were pretty tired as we reached town after walking over 20km!

On our third day in town, all of the clouds parted and we were able to see the views from our terrace of the mountains surrounding us. Earlier in the dense fog we could barely see other buildings! We quickly got out for a walk to a closer village called Cat Cat.

This one is much busier with people than the other, filled with shops and more women following along to sell. We had wider views of the valley and took our time on the 6-km round trip as we were sore from the day before and we were enjoying the area. The clouds continued to depart for the rest of our time in Sa’pa and we saw much more of the town.

On our jaunts through town, we decided to look at The North Face bags and jackets for sale. These products are made in Vietnam, so they were available in abundance for great low prices. Anthony was able to get a great Columbia rain jacket but we never settled on a day pack since we need it to be carry-on size for the return trip. We ran into Me again and saw Ngu a few more times.

Since Ngu was the first woman we met she always reminded us to buy from her when we were ready, finally, ginnie decided to find something from her to help her out. Unfortunately, the competition for these women is tight and several others came over when we were talking and wanted us to buy from all of them, but we were insistent that we would only buy from Ngu. We got a lovely long explanation of how we could easily come up with money by just going to the ATM and having our family and friends send us money – oh, if only! These are some strong saleswomen!