Vietnam: Sapa
Sapa and Mu Cang Chai are two towns way northwest in Vietnam. Both are quaint little towns surrounded by picturesque rice paddies offering great photo ops and a cultural dive by home stays and village visits.
The two are geographically close, but by public transportation takes about four hours of travel along windy and narrow roads. Often people will visit both towns due to their proximity and difficulty of getting there from other cities. Sadly I didn’t have enough time to fully enjoy both, due to the sparsity of the buses between Sapa and Mu Cang Chai. So I opted to visit the more easily and frequently visited Sapa, saving Mu Cang Chai for when I have more time in the future.
Sapa is surrounded by beautiful hikes and hill tribes like the Hmong, but the city itself is disappointing. This tiny city is built around a beautiful turquoise lake, but the truth is that the lake itself is polluted and trash is littered all over. The morning market can be a sight, but instead of the cheerful friendly faces and warm toasty food and exotic foods you expect to see at these markets, it’s instead filled with grim and wary people with fly larvae laden foods.
The hotels are all low quality, and though I opted to stay at a higher end hotel, upon arriving I saw that the photos were misleading in how nice the facilities looked. I ended up having to wake up in the middle of the night twice to tell my neighbors (who had their doors open, about 8 people in each room running back and forth between the two rooms) to quiet down to let me sleep. I stayed at Phuong Nam hotel, which did have a pretty fantastic breakfast buffet.
Walking to the edges of the town, you can definitely see glimpses of the amazing views that a hike out would offer! Though the immediate views might be littered with actual trash and construction sites.
Sapa Attractions
The Cat Cat village is a staged village built close to Sapa for tourists to visit. I chose to not visit out of rebelliousness. Anywhere near the center of the city (near Sapa Station) is going to be half tourists and half local villagers who will come by to smile and ask where you’re from and never leave you alone until you buy something from them. Apparently they are known for their handicrafts like little keychains and pouches, but the whole city and the all these interactions seemed so forced and fake that I grew to dislike this town.
Another attraction of Sapa is the cable car up to Fan Xi Pan (a mountain peak at 3k m, 10k ft)). To be correct, it’s actually a cable that goes up to level 1, then a funicular that takes you up to level 2, and then a short series of steps that takes you up to level 3, which is the true view point.
I have a few problems with this legendary mountain, they call it. It costs 700,000 VND for the cable car (~$30) roundtrip which is incredibly expensive considering the cost of living of Vietnam. Then you have to pay another 70,000 VND to take the funicular each way, or you can choose to walk up a few hundred steps. This path isn’t particularly clear until you ask the staff in detail.
Another issue is that the weather in Sapa is crazy. It won’t snow and tornado at the same time, but it will often be so foggy you can’t see farther than a meter, and it could all fade away in ten minutes. It can be really sunny and then suddenly pour cats and dogs and blow dangerously high speeds of wind. The staff downstairs will tell you that you can still see things in the extreme fog.
But I’ve heard the view can be awesome, so head on over and see for yourself. There will be no legitimate lines at the ticket counter — shove your way to the front and hand over some money. They’ll accept card but it’ll be slow.
If you’re not keen on taking the chance to see if you can make out any sights through the clouds, here are two alternatives:
- Grab a meal at Chic, in the De la Coupole Sa Pa hotel. The restaurant offers fantastic views of the rest of the town from the edge, and the hotel itself is beautiful. Would recommend staying at this hotel, though I have no idea what the rooms are really like. (I bet they’re awesome)
- Head over to View Cafe Tao Ngo Vien. This isn’t as high up as either Fan Xi Pan or the hotel, but it’s an open patio with decent views of the rice paddies below. Grab a beer for $1, and almost all the usual Vietnamese menu items are offered here.
All the restaurants here are about the same, and the ones closer to the lake are going to charge you 15–20% extra for everything. Didn’t try any places that were particularly amazing or good, even, to bring them up.
Some unique things you can try in Sapa and not elsewhere:
- rice wine, corn wine: both are grown abundantly in northern Vietnam, and the local villages make a ton of these wines. The corn wine smells like tequila but tastes really, really alcohol-y, sort of like smooth gasoline.
- water buffalo meat: water buffalos are the treasure of farmers here. they are the main source of power for farming, and you can see many of them roaming the streets by the rice paddies.
So perhaps use it as the stop over point for Mu Cang Chai or to the famous Topas Ecolodge (my experience there was completely different than that in Sapa), but no need to plan to spend a day here.
How to get to Sapa
There are a few ways to get here! And from Sapa you can easily take a bus, or taxi to Mu Cang Chai.
- Hire a private taxi. Of course this is the most convenient but the most expensive option. There are plenty of companies online that will provide you with a door to door option. Most expensive.
- Hotel transfer. Some of the higher end hotels/lodges in the area will offer Hanoi pick up, like Topas Ecolodge, for an extra cost. This will allow you to skip the transition time in Sapa if you’re in a hurry.
- Join a group limousine. Like the taxi option, there are a lot of ‘limousines’ (as in just nice vans) that will take you from Hanoi to Sapa. These are as nice as the taxis, and a fraction of the price — $20 one way. hanoisapatrain.com is one reputable website, but there are plenty of others.
- Take the sleeper bus. (what I did) For $10, you can get a mini lie-almost-flat seat in a sleeper bus — sort of like the knight bus of Harry Potter. (I booked it on bookaway.com). This option is great if you want a flexible schedule and to book a seat late, travel cheaper, and if you are overall smaller in stature. The seats aren’t made for 6ft tall people, as they are rare in Asia, so it might not be extra comfortable. Check in at the Inter Buslines station in Hanoi, take your shoes off, and hop on board for a they-say-4-but-really-it’s-6-hour trip.
- Train (not recommended). Perhaps it was before the highways were built as they are today, or perhaps social media, but taking the train to the Lao Cai station has become very popular. Many travelers take an overnight train from Hanoi to a town near Sapa, where they transfer onto a separate bus that rides for about two hours in the wee morning hours to get to Sapa. Not only does this take longer, it costs more, and the train is extremely uncomfortable. It’s shaky and it’s loud, and the beds are cheap and hard. The only cool thing is the idea of it.
