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We were both excited to see Sa Pa by day, reap the visual rewards for the long journey there and bask in the beauty of the Tonkinese Alps. As we opened our bedroom door out to the shared balcony area though, we were disappointed to see that we were in fact in a cloud…and unfortunately as well, the long journey or my first bowl of the famous northern Bun Cha had affected my tummy. So our first day of exploring the town was reduced to a relaxed day and a gentle walk around the town to find some cheaper accommodation for us and a couple of our friends that were joining us the next day (Alex & Bea from the UK that we met in ThaKhek).
I don't think Sa Pa was what either of us expected; it was not the small, quiet hill station we'd envisaged. Instead it was quite a big busy town with a big tourist presence - and the restaurants and bars to match. No bad thing though when you're craving western food for an upset tummy! We'd read and heard some horror stories about the local Hmong tribe ladies hassling tourists to buy their goods, following them around and generally just being a pain, but they weren't bad at all and generally gave up pretty quickly - just don't say 'maybe later' and you'll probably get away. Apparently Sa Pa can see 4 seasons in one day, and on our first day, we definitely saw a few; one minute it's baking hot and the next thing, the cloud has blown in and it's pretty cold! There was a small storm that evening as well, fine though until you realise that you are pretty much inside the storm cloud…
Our friends arrived on the night train from Hanoi and we met them at the new hotel we'd booked. It was quite a good find and we managed to negotiate a cheaper rate that included breakfast. The rooms were huge and they had an enormous window that looked straight out to the mountains (when it wasn't cloudy)…couldn't have been better…until 6.30am the next morning when we were woken up by the sound of metal being cut and welded on the building site under our window!!
There are loads of treks around the area and we decided that we'd all prefer to just do a few walks under our own steam. The first day we headed east out of the town to a viewpoint and a café a few kms away - we never did find the viewpoint and the café was more like a little shop with a ledge to sit on - amazing views though! Most of the villages charge you a fee to get in and by the time we made it back to the town, we couldn't really work out what the fee really gave us. The next day we walked south on a loop through the Cat Cat village, it was very very downhill on the way there (not a good sign for the way back!) and there was a lot more going on. We had a stop off at the waterfall and scampered along the rocks for a bit - a few hairy moments on the slippery rocks and a few leaps of faith, but good fun. We then picked up a trail and just started walking, hoping that eventually it would loop back round the valley and take us back to where we started…but it didn't. In need of some lunch, we decided to turn back and start heading towards home. Later from our lunch spot back up the hill towards the town, we were trying to work out which little valley we'd been in - if we'd kept on walking, we would probably have made it back to the town, but it would have taken a while, by which time the cloud would have been in and we would have been pretty hungry…lesson learned for next time though - take snacks.
There was a huge storm that night which knocked the power out for a few hours. It was incredible, every flash of lightening felt so close to us, it was so bright you couldn't even stand it inside the room! Although it was probably a good sound cover as, continuing the dodgy tummy theme, I was quite sick that night and as it turned out, so was Bea. We're not sure if it was a bug or something though as we felt pretty horrible and achy (and Alex got sick a few days later)…it was just a shame that we had to check out of our rooms and hang around until our night train back to Hanoi later that evening.
Sa Pa doesn't actually have a train station, so we got the last bus at 5pm to Lao Cai, about an hour down the mountain. As we'd booked the tickets together, we were in a 4-berth cabin together which was quite good fun. Especially not feeling too hot, it was nice to be with familiar faces! Night trains are generally a great option to save on a nights accommodation, however when they arrive at your destination at 4am, you sometimes have to wonder if it's better or not.
And so we arrived in Hanoi at 4am in the back end of beyond, about 20km from the centre - a slight mix up on booking meant we couldn't get straight into Hanoi central station...but no harm done, thankfully there was one taxi waiting, and only us to get in it. It was a tight squeeze though with 4 of us and luggage.
We were happy to be lead on this part of the adventure as Alex and Bea had already experienced Hanoi, they'd booked us a place to stay in return for us sorting it out in Sa Pa, and they even knew of another hostel that had a 24/7 open reception where we waited for a few hours for breakfast. It was interesting to arrive so early in the morning where our day was just beginning and other people's previous days hadn't quite finished. Our hostel didn't open till 7am but we got out of where we were as soon as possible - we were surrounded by a lot of very young travellers heading out on a 2 day (drinking) tour of Halong Bay…we all felt very old and in need of a freshen up. Unsurprisingly (would have been nothing short of a miracle) our room wasn't going to be ready till about 11am, so we dumped our stuff and went for a morning amble around the lake.
It was such a peaceful Sunday morning, out before most other people and traffic. The lake though is a hive of activity with hundreds of people, young and old, doing various exercises around it, some dance classes (samba maybe?!), tai chi classes, runners and people moving various legs and arms that must constitute some kind of exercise - some were even out there in their pyjamas! Amazingly, we even managed to catch a cycle race (24 laps around the lake), complete with police guard on bright yellow mototrbikes - turned out to be the beginning stage of a north to south bike event (the Vietnamese version of the Tour de France!).
We only had one day in Hanoi this time as we had plans to go to Cat Ba island and use that as a base to explore Halong Bay - we hoped it would be a slightly less touristy base - so we booked our train tickets for the next day and spent the rest of the time recuperated from illness and travelling. We also met up with another couple that Alex and Bea had met in Laos, an Aussie couple (Ronny and Brenton) who were going to join our little group for Cat Ba. Our first experience of Hanoi was good though and we were both looking forward to coming back and exploring some more.
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