Sapa Valley, Vietnam: A trip to the mountains

For our second stop in Vietnam, we decided to change things up a little by swapping the chaotic streets of Hanoi for the pretty and peaceful mountains of Sapa Valley.

Trekking through Sapa

After taking an early morning bus to Sapa town, we met with our guide for the day, who was from one of Sapa's hill tribes and was dressed head to toe in traditional H'mong clothing.

After everyone in our group had met each other, he started leading us away from Sapa town’s busy little restaurants and shops to the much quieter hills where we were going to start our hike.

For the first part of the day, the weather was super cloudy. Despite all our guide’s assurances that “the views are usually incredible from here”, I started to think we wouldn't actually be able to see anything through the mist all day!

Luckily, a couple of hours later, the sun was out and we were left with nothing but stunning views of rice paddies, mountains and valleys all around.

But it wasn’t just the views in Sapa which were amazing. Meeting the people of the hill tribes along the way was an incredible experience as well.

Children from the villages were running around playing with their puppies while the women were busy dyeing fabrics and making bracelets outside their houses. Most of them actually knew our guide well, so they showed us the work they had been doing that day, and they all seemed really happy and relaxed in their everyday routines.

Towards the end of the day, our whole group split up to stay in different homestays with some families of local rice farmers. Following our guide through the paddies as the sun set was quite a surreal (but amazing) experience because I felt completely cut off from the rest of the world walking through the quiet and beautiful Vietnamese countryside.

Eventually, we arrived at our homestay for the night, where we ate a simple but tasty Vietnamese meal of rice and chicken (which our hosts insisted everyone had to eat about three bowls of!)

After dinner, our hosts also introduced us to Vietnamese rice wine (which they called ‘happy water’); a really strong spirit that tasted a lot more like vodka than wine! I got off quite lightly (along with most of the girls) but Ben had to do a lot of rice wine shots to the tune of the Vietnamese drinking song that the homestay owners taught us!

We also had quite a loud group of Polish guys sitting at our table, who ended up asking the owners for another full bottle of happy water, so it ended up being a pretty messy night for some of the group! Still, after a full day of trekking, everyone was asleep by about midnight.

The next day, we woke up bright and early and got ready to trek through Sapa again.

The first place our lovely guide Sue (or maybe Xiu – we never saw it written down) took us was a beautiful waterfall, where our whole group spent the morning swimming, climbing the rocks and enjoying the amazing views.

Us and our guide at the pools by the waterfall

In terms of the trekking, this day was a little tougher because it was really hot outside and even hillier than the day before. But the views over the valleys were also better than ever.

On our last night, we stayed in a different homestay run by another family of H’mong rice farmers. That night, we all had to sleep on lines of rock hard mattresses in one room next to each other - making it probably the least comfy night we've had so far in Asia! - but we were lucky to have a friendly and chatty group with us again so it still ended up being a fun night.

Our entire stay in Sapa has felt like a really authentic rural experience. After staying in busy Hanoi for the last few days, it’s been great to switch things up and see two really different sides to the country already.

I’ve loved the few days we’ve had here in Sapa but now it’s time to head south towards Ha Long Bay, where the views will hopefully be just as amazing!