SAPA TRIP: Mud & fog in mountains of Vietnam

Sapa is a city in the mountainous area of northwest Vietnam where several ethnic minorities live. It is an absolutely amazing place. When I first saw it on pictures I fell in love right away, but I couldn’t even imagine then that Sapa would give me even more than expected.

We departed from Thai Nguyen at 8PM on Friday in order to arrive in Sapa on Saturday early in the morning. Night bus was a perfect choice because our free time is limited since we work during the weekdays. I have previously read about night buses around Vietnam, but still I was surprised when I first saw our bus because I’ve never seen anything similar. It is literally a bus with three rows of beds on two floors. We were unlucky enough to get beds on the first floor. At first everything seemed very nice, we had nice leather beds, AC, and 8 hours of sleep before our arrival in Lao Cai. However, soon we figured out that the trip would not be so nice since more and more Vietnamese started to get on the bus. Soon, there were no more free beds in the bus so people were seated on the floor, right next to our beds. We were like sardines there, with all those people around us. Did I forget to mention that we were the only not-Vietnamese people on the bus? At first I was not happy to sleep with strangers on both sides of my bed, but very soon I figured out that it could be even worse. They started putting legs on us with no excuse. They were all around me and I didn’t know what to do, I gave them a bad look whenever they touched me with their legs but it didn’t really help, so I decided to close my eyes and fall asleep. The culmination of everything was when I woke up at some point during the night to find a foot on my shoulder, and the worst of everything is that I was actually unconsciously using that foot as a pillow. What to say, I removed the foot of my shoulder and started being more aggressive with removing legs of me. Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of this bus, but I promise next time I will take some. We arrived at 6AM in Lao Cai and found a mini bus to Sapa easily. I was so blessed when I saw a lot of foreigners, because in the city where I live there are almost no foreign people. After the ride by minibus, which was delayed because of a traffic accident (btw, the traffic is crazy in Vietnam), we arrived in Sapa on a rainy and foggy morning. 

Our plan was to do a home stay in Sapa, but we actually did more than a standard home stay. I got an advice from a friend to do a home stay that is not arranged with a tourist agency because then you get a real experience of how people really live in villages around Sapa, and trust me - it is unbelievable in which conditions they live. We found our host through couchsurfing, since she some people gave her really good recommendations. I talked to her before arriving to Sapa and the deal was to call her when I arrived there. I must say I was very confused when I first arrived in Sapa, because there were so many nice people in ethnic clothes approaching us and asking us where are we from and what are our names. Also, guys that arranged our minibus trip to Sapa also wanted to help us and make us stay in their hostel or do a home stay with them, but luckily I didn’t accept any of these offers in the end. I called Shu on her cell phone and she told me to meet in front of the Catholic Church. We found our way to get there through a chaos of street markets, tourists, ethnic people and rain. When I saw her I knew it was the right choice because that woman just has that something special that words can’t describe. Her English was pretty good as well and I was so happy because I’m not used to hear people speak fluent English in Vietnam. 

First she took us to the street market to buy groceries for lunch. I was slightly skeptical about it because it has happened to me that I didn’t always like Vietnamese food, but she made sure to ask me what we like to eat. Markets in Vietnam are just amazing, so different for us foreigners. Many people in Vietnam live of producing food for their own needs and also they sell some food on the markets, so really wherever in Vietnam you go you can find daily fresh homegrown vegetables, fruit and meat sold by farmers. She bought a lot of food for us and also helped me to get a rain coat for a reasonable price for Vietnamese standards (5$ for a really nice rain coat).

 

After shopping we started our trekking trip to get to her house. Shu lives in a village that is 2-3 hours trekking from Sapa. I definitely wasn’t ready for this trekking adventure; I took some casual sneakers that definitely weren’t appropriate for doing serious trekking. The weather was extremely foggy, I have never seen so much fog in my life. Shu told me that this is normal in Sapa and that sometimes it’s this foggy all day long. I didn’t like this fog because we couldn’t admire the view, which is amazing on sunny days. One of the things we noticed on our way is that spiders there are huge and there were so many of them. I wasn’t sure how I was going to survive this trip because I have a really big fear of spiders. When I see them I freak out, start screaming and panicking. While walking to our destination some random ethnic people joined us. At first we thought they were relatives of Shu, but at the end of our trekking tour they tried to sell us some handmade bags. I can definitely say that they were helpful to me, because I had bad shoes and the ground was extremely muddy and slippery. Whenever we walked downhill, they held my hand so I would not fall. Surely, it was a real trekking adventure, and the biggest challenge was not to fall. Sceneries we saw on our way were absolutely beautiful, so different and exotic.

We arrived in Shu’s village around 2PM. It was a small village and all the houses were made of wood. Their standard of living is extremely low. To reach her house we needed to go through fields of rice since she has no pathway from the main road to her house. Only 20 meters from Shu’s house, Luciano slipped and fell in a pool with pig shit. It was so funny, he was also carrying bananas I bought at the market and he fell right on them and turned them into a frappe. We finally arrived in Shu’s house and the first thing I noticed was a small pig barn. The pig climbed with her leg on the wall and it was like she said hi to us. Chicken were walking around freely, dog and cat were sitting together on the floor. Her kids, one boy and two girls, are very cute and were happy to see us and her husband prepared lunch for us. I don’t know how to describe her house. As I already said, it is made of wood. It has two floors, on the first floor there are kitchen, living room and bedroom. She has no bathroom, they wash themselves in the river that is around 10 minutes walk from their house. She has no toilet, they do it outside, she has some kind of a toilet that is enclosed with plastic bags so you can hide when you piss. There is a small stream of water passing by the house, so they have a tube which leads water into their kitchen. They do everything on the floor and they cook on fire. They don’t have a real job, but they do work a lot because they need to produce food for themselves and sometimes they also sell food on the market to make some money. This is how Shu learned English, by selling food to tourists at the street markets. Her English is really good, she speaks better English than most of Vietnamese that have a college degree, so I was shocked when she told me she doesn’t know how to read or write. This lady is absolutely amazing, so smart and brave. I’m sure that if she had been born in different conditions, she would have probably been somebody really important and ranked very high in society. However, no matter how poor they are, Shu’s family is a very happy family. There was always a smile on their faces and they would give you everything they have to make you feel like home. We had a great afternoon with them and the food they prepared for us was absolutely fantastic. After dinner we had couple of shots of rice wine with Shu and her husband. Rice wine was something we really needed since we went to bed extremely early, at 7PM, which is normal for them. They gave us their bed and they slept on the floor. During the night all of her animals were making noise, and the loudest one was her cat. In the morning I woke up around 7AM when I heard a cock-a-doodle-doo. After breakfast we packed our things and got ready for another trekking adventure. This was a real adventure, believe me! The weather was foggy again and it was raining during the night so the ground was again extremely slippery. Shu borrowed me her plastic boots that really saved my life. We walked through some villages to see how people live there, and then we were climbing up on the mountain to see the views on beautiful rice fields. It was really really slippery, but at the same time so beautiful and challenging. After 2 hours we entered in a bamboo wood. It was easier to walk there because you could grab a bamboo tree if you started slipping. After bamboo wood we arrived in front of a huge waterfall. We climbed down the hill and had lunch in a restaurant. I paid 1$ for an ice tea and delicious noodles with vegetables and eggs. Afterwards we climbed up on another mountain where Shu’s husband was waiting for us with 2 more guys on motorcycles and they took us back to the city centre of Sapa. It was a beautiful ride and I wish I was able to take some pictures. In Sapa we said goodbye to Shu and we promised her to call her sometimes on her phone. The city centre of Sapa is a completely different world from villages around Sapa. It is full of nice hotels and tourists. I really wonder how many of these tourists go outside of the city centre to see the real life in villages of Sapa. Probably not too many of them is ready for a life changing adventure that we had with Shu.

Those two days were a life time memory. I will never forget Shu, she is my source of inspiration. It was very hard for me to try to describe this experience in words and I would recommend it to everyone who plans to visit Vietnam. Her cell phone number is 01677924940, just give her a call and be ready for a lifetime adventure.