Trekking in Sapa

On leaving Hanoi our overnight travel karma finally came around and sorted us out with a great sleeper train. No rats, no urine, no over eager locals to ruin our game of scrabble. The carriage was almost empty and we had a cabin to ourselves for half of the ten hour journey. We were in the cheapest sleeper carriage with hard beds and hideous toilets but the next carriage down was first class and we were able to sneak in and use pristine porcelain during the night. 

We arrived in Sapa, up in the mountains on the Chinese border, at around 9am and were met with the blissfully cool temperature of 1,500m altitude. Within seconds of us stepping foot in the town we were surrounded by hotel owners shouting to have their rates heard over one another. Among the hotel touts were half a dozen local tribes women in traditional dress bombarding us with offers of shopping, trekking, 'visit my village', and all manner of other offers designed to part us with our money. We tried to escape them by ducking into a cafe for a coffee but they followed us. It was a bombardment. Not a great first impression of the town but after a few days we found it funny watching these women flock after tourists like ducklings following their mother.

Sapa's main square (which is actually an oval) with the Fanxipan mountain range behind.

The area around Sapa is home to many different ethnic minorities that settled in the fertile mountains hundred of years ago. The largest tribe is the Black H'mong, who live in villages around the town and make a living harassing tourists. The other major ethnic minorities are the Red Dao, Tay, Xa Pho, Giay. Each tribe has a distinct language, religion and clothing, for example, the Black H'mong are so called because their traditional clothing is black-dyed hemp.

It's possible to visit some of the ethnic minority villages by trekking out of the town into the mountains. Our first trek was to the tourist-friendly village of Cat Cat, an easy 20 minute downhill walk out of Sapa. The village itself was totally geared towards tourism, with handicraft shops lining the street and signs in English. The best part of our hike was the return to Sapa where we turned off the main road and walked alone through luscious farm land in the valley. 

Children pass the shops in Cat Cat village.

View from Cat Cat towards Mt. Fanxipan (hidden by cloud).

For the real hiking we got ourselves a guide, Jiao, a Black H'mong lady from Sapa Sisters Trekking Company. We set off for a steep climb to Hang Da village where we stopped for lunch at Jiao's grandmother's house. We gathered around the fire pit in the kitchen of the mud-floored wooden house as Jiao and her 95 year old grandmother prepared a lunch of rice fried pork with vegetables and soup. Inside the house was dark, with only one fluorescent bulb lighting the alter where Jiao's grandfather, the village shaman, performs his ritual blessings.

Cooking with guide Jiao and her grandmother.

After a lunch we said goodbye to the grandmother and started a steep and slippery decent down the other side of the mountain. I barely managed to stay on two feet as we skidded and slid down the clay-like mud; it was extra slippery as it had just started to drizzle with rain. We descended through recently harvested terraces of rice and corn. Jiao pointed out the marijuana plants that the H'mong plant among the corn; they harvest the hemp to make clothing, apparently. 

Looking out over a local school.

We arrived at Lao Chai village at the bottom of the valley and crossed the river to find flocks of H'mong ladies with their baskets full of 'shopping' waiting to follow us with their wares. On the far side of the village we climbed steeply again, losing our ducklings, to Jiao's sister's house where we were to stay the night. The house was similar to Jiao's grandmother's house, only the clouds had cleared from the valley to reveal a beautiful sunset over the terraced rice paddies. On the opposite side of the valley we could see the ridge of the mountain where we'd eaten lunch. Jiao's sister, Xu, had just finished harvesting the rice in her fields and was celebrating with the neighbours that had helped her in the labourious task. The family had killed a pig in honour of our arrival and in order to celebrate the harvest. We ate ALL of the beast: ground bones and fried bamboo, pork fat noodles, intestines fried with cabbage, blood soup... for the most part it was disgusting, but at the same time it was great to see how no part of the animal was wasted. It made me think how unethical it is to kill a pig and only eat the meat, or to kill a chicken and only eat the breast. That said, I don't have any plans to start eating bone any time soon.

Rice terraces with the mountain emerging from the clouds.

The ridge on the other side of the valley where we stopped for lunch.

Our home for the night.

After our interesting dinner the men of the village went to bed, too drunk after the celebration. The women stayed up to ply us with extremely potent rice wine; one by one the ladies approached us with a shot to welcome us to their home. Once everybody had welcomed us it turned into a pattern of gestures, awkward laughter and yet more shots. The children of the village eventually warmed to us and approached with their school books keen to practice English. There was a lovely merry atmosphere around the table and we felt really welcomed into the lives of our hosts. After a visit to the village toilet, positioned next to a fish pond - very dangerous after a few shots of "happy water", we went to sleep under a star-filled clear sky.

Helping the children with their homework after dinner.

The next morning we were up at the crack of dawn with the roosters and the children. The family prepared a feast for breakfast and we ate happily before heading off to Te Van village where H'mong and Dao tribes live together. Most of the people in the villages we visited live very traditional lives; they are farmers who grow their own food and raise their own animals. Most houses don't have bathrooms; bathing and toilet business is done in the stream. Meals are cooked over an open fire. Despite knowing about the toilet in the river business, we still couldn't resist swimming in the river, the cool water was just too tempting in the humid morning heat.

Jiao's niece in traditional H'mong clothing.

We ended our trek with a delicious lunch in a local restaurant, after passing waterfalls and more stunning scenery. We barely saw another tourists during the whole two days and it was amazing to be out in the mountains by ourselves. Our guide Jiao was really lovely, if not a little bonkers, and meeting and staying with her family was such a special experience.

Back in Sapa we passed time admiring nearby Mount Fanxipan, the highest mountain in Indochina, and eating in the many traveler restaurants lining the streets. 

How To Get To...

Cat Cat Village: follow the signs, walk down the hill.

Sapa Sisters: 9 Fansipan St. sapasisters@gmail.com 

It's worth mentioning that according to our guide, Sapa Sisters is one of the more ethical agencies in town, they employ local women as guides and pay them a fair rate. Jiao told us the local Tourist Information Service provides tours that only pay the guides $7/£4 per day!

We Stayed At...

We stayed in two different hotels in Sapa, before and after our trek: Hotel Mimosa had stunning views, great rooms but terrible service (never anybody around to help us), $10/£6 per night. Graceful Hotel is where Sapa Sisters are located, the room was a bit rubbish but the beds were comfortable (a rarity in Asia), $10/£6 per night.

The Many Caves of Ninh Binh

I wasn't looking forward to our night train from Hue to Ninh Binh; India has traumatised me and all I could think of were the rats, the cockroaches, the smell of urine, the overcrowding and the dozens of Indian eyes peering at me through the dark above handlebar moustaches.

The Vietnamese train, on the other hand, was lovely: fresh bedding, a six bed berth with a door that closed, a nice table by the window. It was even clean. We'd just settled into a nice game of scrabble when the man sitting opposite us decided he'd use the 10 hour journey to learn English. He rudely interrupted our game and started writing random words on my piece of paper. For the next 30 minutes I was completely ignored whilst the stranger pestered Ric for pronunciation tips. When he gestured to me and asked Ric my name I got so cross I had to go for a walk. Sexist scrabble botherer!! 

To top it off, we were told the train would arrive in Ninh Binh at 5am but it arrived two hours early, leaving me and Ric sitting in the train station in the middle of the night, being bitten by mosquitoes, waiting for the sun to rise. Not the best start to our day.

90km south of Hanoi, Ninh Binh is home to some of the worst hotels and restaurants in the whole of Vietnam. We dragged our tired selves around several river-front hotels that could have passed for derelict buildings, before finally finding a place to rest.

Fortunately, for what it lacks in accommodation and food, Ninh Binh makes up for it in natural geographical wonders. 

First we took a boat ride through caves and around limestone rocks at Tam Coc, where our skillful guide rowed the boat with his feet! 

View down over Tam Coc from Mua Cave.

We were up early the next day to explore the incredible landscape on bicycles. First stop was Bich Dong temple, built into the side of a mountain with pitch black caves full of bats and Buddhist shrines. At the top there was a sign that says "do not climb up". We learned the hard way that the sign was right; the 100m climb was too difficult in our flip flops and we arrived at the rocky summit drenched in sweat, to find the only patch of shade was home to a nest of wasps. 

Outside Bich Dong.

Cave shrine, Bich Dong.

From the temple we continued along a dusty back road lined with rice paddies to Han Mua; another cave temple at the foot of 500 steps. The labourious climb was worth it for the panoramic views down to Tam Coc and out across Ninh Binh, however; I was not impressed with the Japanese tourist sat at the pagoda at the top playing a horribly out of tune Asian wind instrument! Talk about disrupting the peace.

View Ninh Binh from Mua Cave.

To end the day we took a three hour boat trip around Trang An where we traveled through yet more impressive caves. The karst landscape is really beautiful but once again there was somebody to upset my peace and quiet; this time a large, over-excitable Vietnamese family who shrieked and screamed and cheered their way along the river, having raucous boat races. Ric said I was being a killjoy but he soon changed his tune when the father of the family asked Ric to pay his portion of a tip to the boat driver!

Trang An landscape.

Trang An caves.

Ninh Binh has some amazing scenery, well worth a visit but the town itself isn't very pleasant. We left after two nights with a mild case of food poisoning as a souvenir.

How to get to...
All the caves! All the sights in Ninh Binh are within cycling distance, although hired motorbikes are probably preferable as the sights are quite spread out (about a 30km round trip), and the boat trips are long (Tam Coc 2 hours, Trang An 3 hours).
We stayed at...
Queen Mini Hotel. For $8/£4.80 the room was much nicer than anything else we'd seen in Ninh Binh. All the hotels along the waterfront are disgusting. The services in the Queen Mini Hotel were very overpriced compared to other local agents.