Sapa was incredible! It is officially one of my favorite places in Southeast Asia. Our trip got off to an exciting start, but maybe not in the best way...We had to take an 8 hour overnight train to get there. This was my first experience on a sleeper train, so I didn't know what to expect, except what Nicole had told me...that they are not fun. A guy from Northern California named David also joined us on our excursion to Sapa. He is someone we met on our trip to Ha Long Bay. It's very common for other travelers to tag along on trips when they are traveling solo.
We took a taxi and got to the train station around 8:30pm. The waiting room was quite a sight! It was packed with Vietnamese people waiting for the night trains and nothing was in English. Let's just say we'd be pretty lost without our English speaking tour guide. (Well, she sort of spoke English.) After we were finally given our tickets, we made our way to our cabin for the night. It consisted of 2 bunk beds, so it was me, Nicole, David, and 1 local man who conveniently didn't speak English. We got him to take the top bunk so the 3 of us could play cards below for a bit.
Then, we forced ourselves to try and get some sleep. This was not easy to do on a noisy, creaky train! I was constantly in and out of sleep for the 8 hour ride. There were stops along the way too, so I always woke up for those. By the time the coffee and tea cart came around, I shut the door on them and passed out. When we finally stopped in Sapa, I didn't even wake up...neither did Nicole...or David...or the random guy...Finally, someone banged on our door and started yelling in Vietnamese. I woke Nicole up and said, I think we have been here for a while! So, we frantically started getting our things together and asked David to get off and hold the tour bus for us. Now it was just Nicole and me. I went to use the toilet before we got off and mid squat, I felt the train begin to move!!! I ran back to our cabin and Nicole and I were both screaming, "The train is moving! The train is moving!!" We proceeded to run up and down the train cars looking for another human being or a way out. Finally 2 train workers came up to us and started laughing. We kept saying "Sapa! Sapa! We need to get off! Stop!" The kept laughing, and I am pretty sure one of them said "Hanoi! Hanoi!" I had to laugh too because the situation was almost too unreal for me to believe it was actually happening. We were literally moving in the opposite direction and leaving our tour group behind. Noooo! I paid too much money for this! Finally, one of the workers opened a train door, while the train was still moving, and said "You speak Vietnamese?" Um, no!! We speak English! Then I was thinking, do we have to jump off the train while it is still moving, like in the movies? Fortunately, we did not. The train stopped and then slowly started heading back in the correct direction. We only had to walk on the tracks for a little bit, and then we finally met up with our group in Sapa. What a rush!
Once we arrived at the hotel, we met up with our guide who was a 27 year old local villager named Lam. She had only been doing this for 2 years, but her English was very good. As a young girl, she would sell local woven goods to the tourists, which is still very common for girls to do when they are between 4-15 years old. Then they get married and work in the rice fields or do other manual labor, and have children. Tourism is still relatively new to Sapa. People started seeking it out about 25 years ago, but hotels have only really be developed there for the past 10 years.
Our first day, we did a 1/2 day trek through some local villages. We were followed by a group of children who wanted to get to know us, and then, get us to buy from them. The phrase of the trip was "Buy from me? Buy from me!" We probably heard that over 100 times. I bought several bracelets because I felt bad for them. The villagers don't get any source of income from tourist groups. It all goes to the hotels and the government, so Lam told us to buy from them if we wanted to contribute to them directly. While they still harvest most of their food and make their own clothes, they have to sell a lot of it. With a steep rise in tourism, the price of goods has drastically gone up as well.
One of our stops along the way was a waterfall.
There were several food stands, and I was so excited to discover one with an amazing sesame sticky rice served in a bamboo! That was my first "street food" experience in Vietnam because most of it is meat. (I honestly have had no idea where to look.)
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to wade in the river with water buffalo.
There we many young, local boys jumping from buffalo to buffalo, so it seemed safe enough.
During our trek, we met other tour groups, including a couple from the states. Both of them were traveling before beginning their MBA programs as well, and one of them had been working in India for 6 months previously. It was really fun getting to know them and share stories, and we had drinks with them afterward.
Our second day is Sapa was my favorite. We did a longer trek through the beautiful mountains and ended up at a home stay.
On the way, we stopped to see Lam's house and meet her family. It was really eye opening for me to see how they live; it's very primitive. Lam told us that one of the young boys there had an accident with a knife and asked if anyone had medicine. I pulled out my Neosporin and applied it to his cut (which look like it needed stitches) and placed a band-aid on it. I think they otherwise would have left it to heal on its own.
While all this was very heart-breaking to me, Lam did say that most of their people live to be over 100 years old. Perhaps it's not that bad for them then? Most of them don't know what Western civilization is like, so they can't even image what our lives. Our home stay was amazing, and our family consisted of a husband and wife, and 2 teenage daughters. Our tour group consisted of the 3 of us, 2 French guys, and 1 German. We also shared our home with 3 French women. (The French really don't like to speak English!)
Our hosts were very generous. After everyone took a nice swim in the river, we came back to a feast! Our appetizer was the best serving of garlic fries I have ever had in my life! This is a big deal because french fries are my favorite guilty pleasure. I had no idea how popular fries are in SEAsia and have found they are on most menus.
We had to wait about an hour for our main course, so we sat outside and took shots of rice wine. Rice wine does not taste like wine. Rather, it tastes like a strange combo between vodka/whiskey. I would not recommend it, but it was a nice change from warm beer. After an amazing dinner of rice, tofu, veggies, (water buffalo and other meats), our hosts came and poured us more shots. I didn't want to be rude, so I couldn't turn them down. We did a Vietnamese cheers chant and the shots kept coming. If you refused to drink, you had to sing a song. No one was in a singing mood that night. For bed, everyone slept upstairs on matresses under mosquito nets. We even had pillows! For the bathroom, we used a little shack that had a hole in the ground leading into the river. I really miss Western toilets!! For the shower, there was a separate room with a bucket of water and a cup to pour it on yourself. I skipped the shower that day. :)
Our final day in Sapa, we did some more trekking and saw other tribes. I really enjoyed every moment in Sapa. The air was much cleaner and cooler than what I was used to in Hanoi, and the views were outstanding. I could spend several days there getting to know the people and giving candy to the children. It felt great to get some exercise as well! That night we took the train home again, and I made sure Nicole and I made it off in time!
I sadly said goodbye to Nicole on Friday, and made my way to Japan. I am staying with Jeremy's good friends Russ and Georgia on the Navy base until I make my way home on Tuesday. 1 month has definitely flown by! I plan to do 1 more blog of Japan as well as upload some miscellaneous videos from our trip. See you soon!!
Then, we forced ourselves to try and get some sleep. This was not easy to do on a noisy, creaky train! I was constantly in and out of sleep for the 8 hour ride. There were stops along the way too, so I always woke up for those. By the time the coffee and tea cart came around, I shut the door on them and passed out. When we finally stopped in Sapa, I didn't even wake up...neither did Nicole...or David...or the random guy...Finally, someone banged on our door and started yelling in Vietnamese. I woke Nicole up and said, I think we have been here for a while! So, we frantically started getting our things together and asked David to get off and hold the tour bus for us. Now it was just Nicole and me. I went to use the toilet before we got off and mid squat, I felt the train begin to move!!! I ran back to our cabin and Nicole and I were both screaming, "The train is moving! The train is moving!!" We proceeded to run up and down the train cars looking for another human being or a way out. Finally 2 train workers came up to us and started laughing. We kept saying "Sapa! Sapa! We need to get off! Stop!" The kept laughing, and I am pretty sure one of them said "Hanoi! Hanoi!" I had to laugh too because the situation was almost too unreal for me to believe it was actually happening. We were literally moving in the opposite direction and leaving our tour group behind. Noooo! I paid too much money for this! Finally, one of the workers opened a train door, while the train was still moving, and said "You speak Vietnamese?" Um, no!! We speak English! Then I was thinking, do we have to jump off the train while it is still moving, like in the movies? Fortunately, we did not. The train stopped and then slowly started heading back in the correct direction. We only had to walk on the tracks for a little bit, and then we finally met up with our group in Sapa. What a rush!
Once we arrived at the hotel, we met up with our guide who was a 27 year old local villager named Lam. She had only been doing this for 2 years, but her English was very good. As a young girl, she would sell local woven goods to the tourists, which is still very common for girls to do when they are between 4-15 years old. Then they get married and work in the rice fields or do other manual labor, and have children. Tourism is still relatively new to Sapa. People started seeking it out about 25 years ago, but hotels have only really be developed there for the past 10 years.
Our first day, we did a 1/2 day trek through some local villages. We were followed by a group of children who wanted to get to know us, and then, get us to buy from them. The phrase of the trip was "Buy from me? Buy from me!" We probably heard that over 100 times. I bought several bracelets because I felt bad for them. The villagers don't get any source of income from tourist groups. It all goes to the hotels and the government, so Lam told us to buy from them if we wanted to contribute to them directly. While they still harvest most of their food and make their own clothes, they have to sell a lot of it. With a steep rise in tourism, the price of goods has drastically gone up as well.
One of our stops along the way was a waterfall.
There were several food stands, and I was so excited to discover one with an amazing sesame sticky rice served in a bamboo! That was my first "street food" experience in Vietnam because most of it is meat. (I honestly have had no idea where to look.)
On our way back to the hotel, we stopped to wade in the river with water buffalo.
There we many young, local boys jumping from buffalo to buffalo, so it seemed safe enough.
During our trek, we met other tour groups, including a couple from the states. Both of them were traveling before beginning their MBA programs as well, and one of them had been working in India for 6 months previously. It was really fun getting to know them and share stories, and we had drinks with them afterward.
Our second day is Sapa was my favorite. We did a longer trek through the beautiful mountains and ended up at a home stay.
On the way, we stopped to see Lam's house and meet her family. It was really eye opening for me to see how they live; it's very primitive. Lam told us that one of the young boys there had an accident with a knife and asked if anyone had medicine. I pulled out my Neosporin and applied it to his cut (which look like it needed stitches) and placed a band-aid on it. I think they otherwise would have left it to heal on its own.
While all this was very heart-breaking to me, Lam did say that most of their people live to be over 100 years old. Perhaps it's not that bad for them then? Most of them don't know what Western civilization is like, so they can't even image what our lives. Our home stay was amazing, and our family consisted of a husband and wife, and 2 teenage daughters. Our tour group consisted of the 3 of us, 2 French guys, and 1 German. We also shared our home with 3 French women. (The French really don't like to speak English!)
Our hosts were very generous. After everyone took a nice swim in the river, we came back to a feast! Our appetizer was the best serving of garlic fries I have ever had in my life! This is a big deal because french fries are my favorite guilty pleasure. I had no idea how popular fries are in SEAsia and have found they are on most menus.
We had to wait about an hour for our main course, so we sat outside and took shots of rice wine. Rice wine does not taste like wine. Rather, it tastes like a strange combo between vodka/whiskey. I would not recommend it, but it was a nice change from warm beer. After an amazing dinner of rice, tofu, veggies, (water buffalo and other meats), our hosts came and poured us more shots. I didn't want to be rude, so I couldn't turn them down. We did a Vietnamese cheers chant and the shots kept coming. If you refused to drink, you had to sing a song. No one was in a singing mood that night. For bed, everyone slept upstairs on matresses under mosquito nets. We even had pillows! For the bathroom, we used a little shack that had a hole in the ground leading into the river. I really miss Western toilets!! For the shower, there was a separate room with a bucket of water and a cup to pour it on yourself. I skipped the shower that day. :)
Our final day in Sapa, we did some more trekking and saw other tribes. I really enjoyed every moment in Sapa. The air was much cleaner and cooler than what I was used to in Hanoi, and the views were outstanding. I could spend several days there getting to know the people and giving candy to the children. It felt great to get some exercise as well! That night we took the train home again, and I made sure Nicole and I made it off in time!
I sadly said goodbye to Nicole on Friday, and made my way to Japan. I am staying with Jeremy's good friends Russ and Georgia on the Navy base until I make my way home on Tuesday. 1 month has definitely flown by! I plan to do 1 more blog of Japan as well as upload some miscellaneous videos from our trip. See you soon!!
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