Heads in the clouds in Sapa.

| September 17th, 2008 | Sapa

Our cabin on the night train was a fair bit nicer than any we have had before but we did pay a little extra for it, there was wood panelling all about the place and it was clean as a whistle. It started rolling about 9:30 and after about an hour we were both sound asleep.
We were rudely awoken by a train man of some sort shouting that we had arrived in Lao Cai the station we were headed to, so we all sprang out of bed and made the bleary eyed stomp all the way around the end of the train and back down the other side to the station exit where about 100 minibuses where waiting to take all the tourists off into the mountains of Sapa. Of course we managed to pick one that loves the horn and has a need for speed, trust me when your on a mountain road at 7am that’s exactly what you don’t need! The road between Lao Cai and Sapa took us maybe 30 minutes but aside from the terror and hanging on for dear life it was just beautiful, absolutely stunning in fact and as we winded up and up the narrow roads loads of grubby hill tribe children were hopping out of the way as they walked past us to school waving manically and smiling like mad. We arrived in Sapa and were dropped outside a row of guest houses so we had a look around a couple before deciding on the Pinochio guest house, our reasons were two fold, firstly the killer views across the valley and secondly it was cheap. The stairs up to our room made me seriously consider my lifestyle because by the time we were at the top I was ready to keel over I’m just glad the room was OK because I wouldn’t have had it in me to do it again at another hotel, well I say that but like the gentleman I am I of course went back down and carried my darling finance’s bag up as well. But it didn’t get any easier and its times like that that make me wish I was a gay so I could have a big strapping fellow to carry my bags up 6 flights of stairs at far too early o’clock…
Despite the early wake up, the death ride and the killer stairs we were excited to be in a new place and the view from our balcony that seems to stretch forever to the mountains perked us right up so we went straight downstairs to wind a coffee into us to make us double perked, the people who run the hotel have a small baby who went absolutely ape-shit when he saw Georgie and so she played with him while we sipped our coffee’s then we headed out for a stroll around Sapa town. Because the town itself is actually clinging to the side of a pretty huge mountain everything is hilly and damn steep, so we got as far as a nice little bakery for some breakfast and that was about it. We sat outside chatting to some hill tribe girls who were trying to sell us stuff, but we weren’t buying so they stayed just to natter which was fun then headed straight back to the hotel… Not for sleep but for a moped! Oh yes we had just enough enthusiasm to solve the problem of the steep hills, we burned about the sleepy little town taking in the rural life from the comfort of our motorised steed. We saw a lake in the centre of town then ventured out along a hillside road that opens out on some truly breathtaking views, I think Sapa itself is around 1500m above sea level and the little road was only going up more. We turned back after a little sit on a grassy null because it was catching up with us both and went for an afternoon nap…
After our lovely and much needed nap we set out again on foot for some lunch and yet another wander around a market, although in fairness this one was filled with loads of hill tribe hand sown things but I really wasn’t in the mood that much, so we got back on our little gutless moped and went off along another hillside road only to be faced with more absolutely endless views down into the valley and across the rice terraces to the misty, cloud topped mountains.
We stopped at a particularly beautiful spot to watch the sun slowly slip behind the mountains and cover the whole valley in a warm glow before completely disappearing and everything turning a cool blue hazy colour, at which point it got quickly cold… Actually cold not just cool but really quite cold. To warm our cockles we stopped at an excellent café and had a spanking hot chocolate before heading back into town, dropping off the ped and going for some dinner Vietnamese style.
Everything seems to shut pretty early here so after dinner we went back to our hotel to hatch some plans for the next day, it is so incredibly quiet here and especially at night time and the only thing we could hear was the distant wail from a karaoke bar somewhere in the hills.