Still talking about Sapa.

I think we are finally getting settled into Chicago enough so that we can finish up writing about our trip to Vietnam - it's talking far longer to get this posted then we expected.

After our nice three hour walk through the haze the day before we were pleasantly surprised by nice blue skies on our final day in Sapa. With the weather the way it was we went down and booked a trip to see to waterfalls that were just a short ride out of town.
The first one was just off the side of the road and did have a walkway that allowed one to get up closer to it. A quick 20 minutes of climbing stairs and taking photos and we were driving off again to a nice lookout point to get some views of the valley.
From there we drove to another spot where we were able to walk about 40 minutes to the second waterfall.
The weather was perfect, and we were the only people around so it was a nice relaxing afternoon. After the hiking we went back to town and enjoyed a nice meal, leaving Sapa in the evening for a ride back to the train station. Another overnight train ride and by 05:00 the next morning we were back in Hanoi for our final two days in Vietnam.

Sapa Trek

We've been a little crazy since arriving back to the U.S, so our blogging has been intermittent at best, so we do apologize.

Zoom, our guide picked us up at 9:30 for a three hour trek through a couple villages in Sapa. We started walking to one village, Can Cat which was primarily a tourist trap, that sold trinkets, but once past that, you walk down to see a pretty waterfall. Here we had about 30 minutes to take pictures, wander around, and have a tea break if we so desired. We opted for taking pictures.


After the falls, we climbed back up, to begin our 2 1/2 hour walk where we would end our trek at Y Linh Ho Village. It had rained the evening prior, so the trails were a bit muddy and tricky at points, but the view was beautiful.

Some parts of the trail were quite narrow with a huge drop down to the river and here like many parts of Asia, there are no railings to protect you, meanwhile other parts of the trail were rocky, and muddy. The local women carrying their children on their backs, thought nothing of it.

Our trail

We passed a second village, and here I thought we were done, but apparently we had a mountain to climb before we were finished. Here the paths widened, though quite steep but we finally made it. The village, well, it was a bit of a disappointment, though the walk itself was quite picturesque. It was definitely worth it, even if the villages weren't that appealing.

After our healthy walk, we had a nice Indian lunch, and wandered around Sapa realizing we had seen everything we managed to find a nice British pub where we had a couple of games of Scrabble.

On to Sapa...

Waking up nice and early after staying at the home stay up in the small town in Lao Cai we enjoyed a great breakfast and then wandered back down to stroll through the small market that we had walked through the evening before. That next morning was completely different, with an incredible crowd gathered selling anything at all you could want.
After finishing up snapping tons of photos we returned to the van for another long trip through the hills to the town of Sapa. A small town where lots of different tours of the surrounding countryside all start from - we were staying there for two nights and had a 3 hour hillside walking tour planned.

We got in and took a quick stroll around the town, it's cute but very touristy and with of shops selling cheap versions of Columbia and Northface jackets.
It looked great, and we were excited about getting up bright and early the next day so that we could head out for our good three hour walk.

Tomorrow evening I fly up to Toronto to meet up with Tina for the weekend. Tina headed up to Canada on Wednesday to spend time with friends and family, so until we are back on Monday there will be another quick break in the telling of our Vietnam trip - sorry about that.