Sapa trekking

Easy trekking in Sapa ..... We will find out.

Overnight train to Sapa ...ok well give it a try.  Four berth cabins, who will you share with? Lucky for us it was an Australian couple from Sydney.

We had a travel agent voucher for the train, which had to be swapped for train tickets at the station, so pleased we had a goffer to do this for us it appeared to be a complicated exercise.

Entertaining young people at the train station in Hanoi

We are met at the destination train station by the transport people and loaded into mini buses for the hours windy journey to Sapa. Given our instructions and shown to our hotel, we had breakfast and rejoined our trekking group at 9:30.

The Hmong had come to town to help us on our walk to their village

More organized kaos....waiting for people to turn up, make sure you had suitable foot ware....you can hire some gumboots if you like! Off we go marching down the streets of Sapa , we are mysteriously joined by a group of Hmong women, all asking the usual questions and " you be my friend" stunning valley views and breath taking moments.

Those big earings

Time to leave the road....and down the well worn paths through the rice fields.

My  assistant

Stunning landscape

Tony's assistant

Chicken and rice lunch on trek

Landslips meant detours

A new hydro scheme being completed

No trouble communicating our tour leader

Just stay here while I have a rest please

Hemp dying and drying

Intricate embroidery

Everyone is just so friendly

Yes trekking in Sapa is easy - provided there are no landslips, but if there are, the local ladies will take you by the hand and ensure you are safe and don't slip over. But beware they need to be paid - yes you are their latest best friend and you need to buy their beautiful wares, after all you need more than photos to remind you that you have gone all that way to experience their way of life. So after the trek to the villages we are loaded onto a minibus for the one hour journey back to the city of Sapa, back to the comfort of our hotel and try to find a drinkable coffee.

Sapa  - just magic

The next days trek was to Cat Cat village, now this was all downhill, via steps. Unfortunately Gina's knees are not what they used to be and half way down needed to purchase a walking pole. The waterfall and entertainment at the bottom was well worth the walk....but guess how we got back?

The road to Cat Cat village

The way through Cat Cat village

Everyone has a job

Cat Cat Waterfall  near Sapa

Traditional Dancers

What else can I fit on the bike?

It is all very grand in Sapa

Yes we came back on a bike! We had the rest of the day till 6pm to explore the town of Sapa before we were loaded back onto mini buses and sent back to Hanoi on the over night train again, so we visited the market place. 

Interesting things you find in bottles

Women are always busy

And you get your muddy shoes cleaned

On arrival at the train station it was a repeat of the first journey total Kaos to exchange the travel voucher for the train ticket, again we had someone to complete this task for us, otherwise I doubt we would have made it onto any train. so it's back to Hanoi and onto Halong Bay World Heritage site cruise. We also met some of the people we traveled to Sapa again and swapped stories. Amazingly some of these travelers were to pop up again during our adventure in Vietnam.