What a place to end the Vietnam portion of this trip. I am absolutely in love with Sa Pa. I kept saying I want to come back in my next life as a H’mong native person.
Starting from the beginning, we were unsure about this city and how we would go about organizing a trekking tour through the rice fields. We read some blogs and our little guide book and they only left us with more questions. We checked into our hotel just after noon and right there on the desk, we see the trekking options that are organized through the hotel. The girl at the desk was of course trying to push us to go on the private tour ($35 per person) instead of the group tour ($22 per person) for a whole days trek including lunch. Seems like a lot… so, still not sure. We don’t like group tours with strangers and we don’t want to pay so much. We tabled the idea to think it out.
We had a bit of a wander around the town to see if any tours were offered elsewhere. We got approached by many tiny little women and children trying to sell us bags and headbands and pillow cases made by hand and dyed with the indigo plant, a specialty in this area. This, paired with the fact that the whole city was swimming in eery grey clouds and you couldn’t really see far into the mist, made for a creepy vibe. One woman who approached us on our way to the museum mentioned trekking with her and made a joke when I replied with a lie that we alreay booked a trek. Her English wasn’t terrible and she had a sense of humor. And she followed us all the way to the museum and waited for us outside until we were done. Persistence.
Her and I hammered out some of the details and we were convinced. We would pay her 20$ per person for a personalized private trek to her village, including lunch at her house and motorbike ride back to the city at the end of the day. Although we were quite hesitant to trust someone who approached strangers in the streets, we had our fingers crossed that this was a good decision and we weren’t gonna get scammed. It definitely was and we definitely didn’t!
The start of the next day was as grey and misty as the day before, and the ground was wet from the nighttime rain. We met our lady, MeMe, down in the city at our designated meeting point (phew! She showed up!) and went to the boot rental place to get our trekking boots.
We started out on the paved street and then it quickly got very intense. Wet clay mixed with mud mixed with buffalo poo basically equals nothing you want to slip in and land on your bum.
I could not take enough pictures and videos. It was overwhelming how beautiful the surrounding scenery was. Every turn was a new WOW!! out of me. MeMe told me how to say beautiful in her Hmong language, but I wouldn’t know how to spell it. It sounded kinda like jangoo. And every view was more jangoo than the last!
Her house is on the hill just above the town called Lao Chai. A 15 minute walk out of the way she said. Yeah, 15 minutes straight up! But it’s ok, we were treated to a delicious lunch of eggs, pork and carrots, and roasted pumpkin while her whole family was hanging out around the house, chickens and puppies included.
Then we headed out for the last leg of the trek. Honestly, the journey was the adventure here. Our destination on the trek was a village called Ta Van and after we just saw all this picturesque-ness along the way, a village of mostly homestays and souvenir shops was, while also beautiful, definitely not the highlight of the day.
It must also be said that the town of Sa Pa is also very beautiful, once the clouds dispersed and you could actually see it.
On the second of our two days here, we had a much easier and shorter walk to the nearest H’mong village called Catcat. Still very hilly and lots of steps to climb, but it was only about an hour and a half to walk there. This is nothing compared to the 6 hours we spent on the hills the day before. Here are some pics of Catcat.
Hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed sharing!! This was a highlight of the last 2 months for sure! Coming up next is Laos.
Stories of Exploration and Travel 
Unbelievable!! You would pay thousands of dollars for an experience like that with a tour company. All though, it does seem a little risky to go “trekking” with someone who followed you around the streets. Is that really how it’s done over there?
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Not the only way, no. Most people go the safe route and book a tour through their hotel… for twice the price! 🙂
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