Vietnam Day 5: Sapa (Part 2)

28/06/07

After our simple lunch, we proceeded on the trek and the path onwards was definitely less rocky and treacherous. We breathed a sigh of relief as we were worn out and sweaty under the harsh sunlight.

An old school for minority tribes children

We trekked for about an hour and i was carrying the umbrella to shield myself from the sun. I did put sunblock lotion in the packing list before the trip but i tagged it as optional. Thus, none of us brought sunblock lotion as we never thought that we would need it. After 2 days of intense trekking, this is the result of our necks.

My neck

Terence's neck

We took shelter at one or two rest stops along the way and we were so relieved to find shade, except for Edwin who is the only one among the four of us who did not get sunburnt.

'Giai Khat' means cold drinks in Vietnamese (rhymes with my name)

Padi fields galore

Vast landscape

Cute ducklings in the drain

Cute children

Sunburnt but we still love the scenery

Luckily, there is a bus which takes us back to Sapa Summit Hotel. After about 6 hours of trek under the blazing sun, we were looking forward to going back the hotel to bath. We arrived at 3 pm and spent another US$10 to book a room for half day as we had to check out our rooms early in the morning.

We freshened ourselves up and headed to the restaurant for dinner shortly after.

At the hotel restaurant

After our dinner, we packed our stuff and left the hotel by bus to Lao Cai as our 2 day 3 night tour had ended. I sat on the front right seat and had a good view of the scenery while leaving Sapa.

Hills and Mountains

Water buffaloes

We arrived at Lao Cai at 7.15 pm and waited for about half an hour before boarding the overnight train to Hanoi. The train cabin gave us a lot of problems as the air-con was not working and our cabin lock was too hard to be unlatched. The problems were finally settled after getting the attention of the train attendants and trying to converse with them via gestures and body languages as most of them do not know how to speak English.

Sapa is indeed a nice retreat from the populous cities and offers incredible scenery. It would be better to go during winter (december) as the weather is cooler and sometimes even snows. A must go for all Vietnam visitors.

End of Part 2 (2 pm to 11 pm)