March 12, 2015 – Sa Pa
So, we’re headed to Sa Pa for a couple of days. We’ll take the train to Lao Cai (yay, finally a train trip!), which is right on the Chinese border. It’s an eight-hour trip, and you have the option of an overnight sleeper or a day-trip. Then there is a transfer to a bus for a 35-kilometer journey up the winding road to the 5,000 foot valley that Sa Pa is situated in.
The population of the town and its environs is about 70,000 people, but you wouldn’t know that as the area is quite mountainous. Today, you REALLY wouldn’t know that because visibility is about a hundred feet in dense fog. The tourist brochure forgot to mention that Sa Pa is known as ‘the city of mist’.
Once we settle into our room, we discover that we have a wood-fired fireplace and an ample supply of wood. Maybe. And a stunning view of – the edge of the patio. It’s maybe 15 degrees, but probably not. Oh well, time to snuggle in for the night.
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The view from our room.
Morning dawns to the same hundred-foot visibility. Undaunted, we decide it’s time to head into town for a walkabout while we wait for the fog to burn off in the afternoon. It’s a nice town, with lots of shops and little cafes. On a walkabout, we come across a big sign with a photo of a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains, but we can’t figure out where it is as it’s all in Viet.
Deb had lined up a tour of the countryside, as this area is famous for its steeply-terraced rice fields and marvelous landscapes, but today you wouldn’t see the water buffaloes until they were standing on your chest, so there’s not much point to that. Back to the room, and order more firewood. Aaaand, that’s it. Tomorrow, we head out in the afternoon as we have to catch an overnight train back to Hanoi.
Morning dawns on our final day here and – holy crap! The clouds, mist, and fog are all gone.
So THAT’S what this place looks like!
We still have time for a quick walkabout into town, and now it’s a completely different place.
That lake we were wondering about? It’s right here!
Aaaand, then it’s time to go. Rats. We’d love to spend another day, but we have a bus, a train, and a plane to catch, so that’s all the time we have for Sa Pa. If you ever get there, say hi to the water buffaloes for us.
And that’s it for Vietnam. Lasting impressions? We’d come back for another three months in a minute. I think next time, it would be a month in Da Lat and a month in Hoi An, and we’d play around with the other month. But it was all good; three months anywhere would be a treat!