Escaping the heat....Sa Pa Highlands!!!
Trip Start
Jun 02, 2008
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3
Trip End
Jul 02, 2008
Sapa, Vietnam
Thursday, July 10, 2008
We left Friday night. Sze was great in handling all the logistics, we got our tickets (you're given vouchers first) through an agent which were then exchanged for real tickets at the train station through meeting up with the tour agent's representative. Finding the guy was an exercise on its own with lots of people milling around as with any good old Asian train station you can imagine. It's a complicated system - highly recommended that you purchase your tickets through a reputable agent and don't just go for the cheapest tickets unless you have lots of time (to be de-prioritized and returning on later trains than anticipated).
We got the soft sleeper overnight into Lao Cai - the last stop for the train (any further you'll be crossing into China). Each cabin sleeps 4 and they usually try to place the foreigners together. We shared with an American-Filipino girl who was volunteering for Oxfam Quebec (which deals in human trafficking) this summer in Hanoi. All nice and uneventful for us.
We arrived around 5:30am into Lao Cai and found our van who would shuttle us to the guesthouse in Sa Pa which would take over an hour. It was nice and cool - what a difference from the heat in Hanoi already!
Arrived at Cat Cat guesthouse/hotel (there are 3 of them! oldest, older, newest). We stayed at the newest one which was quite nice. Great balconies that looks out into the valley and the mountain range including the highest peak in IndoChina (mt Phang Xi Phan or as Bernie says it...Fancypant!)
The hotel was great as they are used to dealing with guests that arrive early due to the train schedule. Our rooms were ready as soon as the guests could check out and they hadn't....so in the meantime, Bernie and I had quite a few cups of coffee between us in 2 hours plus breakfast and enjoyed the cool and clean(!) mountain air. We were going nowhere anyway and just needed to chill after the symposium had ended just 3 days ago.
Rooms ready and we got settled in for a quick nap and nice hot shower to remove the zombified feeling a little. Explored the local market and town. Not too bad although it's quite touristy. A few nice shops including Indigo and a little art gallery tucked away past the main streets.
Armed with camera this time, I learned that the Hmongs, especially the tradition minded, actually take offence at being photographed as their belief is that this is robbing them a little of their soul/spirit each time that happens. Not sure how this balances out against the women who aggressively try to peddle their wares to the tourists/interact with tourists constantly.
On Sunday, we hired a jeep and a driver for half a day excursion around the highlands. I was expecting an SUV/van bu what we got was literally a jeep...100% Russian made...very tough...bounced our way around the highland roads! Great fun especially for 3 year old Jade :) Our driver was really nice but spoke minimal English which was just as well that Bernie and Sze could speak some Vietnamese!
There are plenty of side trips available and options for hiking etc. Ideally, I wish I had about a week at least in order to be able to reach the less touristy places to visit traditional indigenous tribal villages of the Hmong, the Dou (pronounced Zou) and other groups. And to trek up to the peak of Mt Phang Xi Phan (which can be done as an overnight hike including a night camping). Less touristy and traditional weekend markets are farther away where at least up to 8 tribes meet to exchange/barter are closer to the Chinese border. Not to digress but if you have plenty of time, another area to explore would be the highlands in Yunnan, China as there are also lots of indigenous tribes living in those remote areas and are only accessed by few travellers. The best way to do it is via a hiking holiday. I haven't been there yet myself but would love to visit one day.
It was a fun day trip - we started around 8:30am and finished around 2:30pm including some time for lunch back in Sa pa. Details in photos....We'd kept one room for freshening up before our train sleep back to Hanoi, leaving Sa Pa around 4:30pm back into Lao Cai.
On the way down, we could feel it getting warmer, sadly turning into sauna-like conditions of the summer by the time we reached Lao Cai and no air-conditioning...ick! As we journeyed down, we also noticed a lot more rice terraces being carved into the slopes (with greater than 45 degree gradients) and a lot of exposed soil (orange clayey). The result of which soil run offs were turning what used to be clear rivers into orange as the government is trying to transition the tribespeople from slash and burn methods up in the mountains into farming rice as a more stable form of agriculture. All this happening real time.
Dinner in Lao Cai and back on the train again. This time we were not so lucky with our cabin 4th person. This man showed up long past after the train had started moving....suspect there was a scam in double selling these berths (as there was a Vietnamese woman who kept peering into our window constantly to check if anyone else had shown up). So after an hour into the journey and all lights were off, a Vietnamese man snuck in and slept in the fourth cabin....completely woke me up as he smelled so bad and snored so loudly...!!! I definitely could not sleep after that which annoyed me no end given all three, the smell, the snoring and the fact that it was annoying me that I couldn't get to sleep and had to go to work when I got back! Still, a great sampler to the IndoChina highlands experience. Hope to be back for more.
