Lao Chải Sang Hai

Sapa & Valley Hike

Michelle was leaving today so we wanted to do a small hike in the morning as Sapa was known for its trekking. For the first time in almost 2 weeks I didn't have to pack up and check out which was a nice change of pace. On the way to our meeting point, I went to a bakery and grabbed a mystery bun as well as a chocolate doughnut. One thing I've learnt about bakeries in Asia is nomatter how good something looks, its always mid at best. The mystery bun that the person said was chicken turned out to be bright purple on the inside, yellow on the outside, and green on the edges. Whatever it was, it sucked and I had no more than 2 bites before I stuffed it back in my bag never to be seen again. The doughnut was as expected, bleh.

After battling with the AllTrails app to get the trail to stay (I eventually would realise I was using it wrong the next day) we managed to find the start of the track. It was pretty well defined so we didn't really need the map but I've fell victim before to following a well marked trail and going the complete wrong way so I checked on it every now and again. It was only 9km so shouldn't take that long so we weren't in a rush. The first half descended into the valley, giving nice green views of the rice fields, mountains, and small villages. I managed to slip over and stopped myself from stacking it with my hand. Unfortunately though, the months of wrist pain had come back after not having any issues with it for my whole time in Asia.

On our way back up, we stopped at a café for a smoothie, which unfortunately tasted more like milk than mango but was much needed in the heat. The way back wasn't as scenic and took us up a road most the way into Sapa but eventually we got back just in time for lunch. On the way, we encountered a local lady who wanted us to go trekking with her. When we said no, she said we should buy something from her as we weren't going to trek with her. Unfortunately, this is pretty common in Sapa and its hard to walk anywhere without the people harassing you for trekking and shopping. This lady was a little bit different though as she decided to follow us until we brought something from her, literally saying "if you buy something I stop following". Even when we sped up, she would run to catchup. Eventually, I spat out all of the Vietnamese phrases that I had learnt and she stopped following us. This was meant to be pretty common in Sapa which is why alot of people stayed in the villages outside of Sapa instead, and sadly was why I didn't really like Sapa too much.

We went to a restaurant for lunch, and I grabbed a chicken burger and chips where I got maybe the smallest serving of fries I've ever seen, as well as the driest piece of chicken. Depsite that, a bit of strange Asian ketchup and it was pretty good. Apparently, being Belgian, Michelle said that the Belgians make the best fries in the world and if I ever went I needed to try them.

I said goodbye to Michelle, hopefully to see her again in Laos, before heading back to my homestay for a bit. I decided I'd spend the rest of the day walking around Sapa to get a feel for it. Dodging countless motorbike, trekking, and shopping requests, I walked around the lake for a bit. There was a small supermarket nearby so I grabbed a drink and a snack then sat by the lake for a while, whilst what seemed to be a parade went on by.

With the amount of bottled water I had been drinking, I (embarrassingly) wanted to do a taste test of water from the major companies (Coca Cola, Pepsi, and Nestlé) to see if I could taste a difference and if I had a favourite. Before I could buy all the water I wanted, I ran into a couple French girls from my homestay and they invited me to eat some dinner with them. Not having anything better to do than to taste test water, I joined them to a vegan restaurant where I tried a mixed rice dish, with vegetables and tofu. It was definitely different to the kind of food I had been eating and that was probably a good thing as it wasn't the nicest thing. Depsite the taste, it filled me up, and we were ready to head to the main square in Sapa for what seemed to be a big show.

Sapa isn't very big but for some reason all the accommodation was pretty much fully booked. I didn't know why this was, whether Sapa was generally quite busy as it's close to China, whether there were lots of Vietnamese people as it was a weekend and there was a public holiday next week, or if it just always was busy. Then, I think what it was is that there was this massive show going on, with a big stage and sound system that officials from all over neighbouring countries had been invited to, so had probably brought alot of tourism with it. For me, I didn't know any of this was going on and just so happened to be here.

The square was set up with 1000s of amphitheatre style seats but that still didn't seem to be enough for the amount of people that had flocked for the show. Us 3 waited through an extremely lengthy introduction of all the various officials that had joined, which nicely enough was also repeated in English, before the show actually started. The show was a mixture of dancing and singing which was cool but ultimately wasn't enough to keep my French friends awake as they had been up since 3am for the Fansipan hike, so they headed back. I watched the rest of the show then headed back myself.Read more