Sapa Comedy of Errors

We went to bed Sunday night planning on getting up early Tuesday to head off to Sapa in the Northwest mountains of Vietnam. The Women’s Museum of Vietnam was slated for a visit “tomorrow.”

At 5:00 a.m. Ellen woke me with the statement “I think we may go to Sapa this morning!” We checked our calendar and realized that indeed, we needed to prepare and get picked up by 6:00. We rushed to get ready, and made it down by 6:00. Of course, we didn’t get picked up until 7:00. It was a somewhat ragged van, and as usual, we were the last to board. We sat in different rows, sharing them with other couples, and dreading the 6 hour trip to Sapa.

5 minutes later, we stopped and were told to all get out to transfer to the buses. Whew. We had to take our shoes off before boarding, as our bus was a sleeper bus. Turns out, it was pretty comfy. We were on the upper berths, and could see over must of the traffic.

The bus stopped twice on the way for WC breaks and sustenance. I had chicken pho at the second stop to carry me over, as we hadn’t been able to grab breakfast.

Eventually we made it to Sapa, and stopped in front of the Lustig Hostel.

A quick review of what had previously transpired: When we first checked in to our hotel in Hanoi, Tommy, the owner had convinced us to change our plans from 5 nights in Sapa to fewer in Sapa, at the hostel and several homestays after days of trekking through local villages. We had booked a hotel previously using points, and it was non-refundable. After Sapa, Tommy planned to put us on another sleeper bus to go to the beginning of the Ha Giang loop, another 5 hours away, to arrive at midnight, sleep until 8:00, then start our 8 hour “easy rider” trip on the backs of motorcycles doing the loop and more homestays. The scenery is supposed to be superb, and we liked the homestay idea.

As it turned out, the weather was very cold and wet. It reminded us of how bone-chillingly cold the Bay area can be when it is not only cool, but very humid. We set off on our initial trek to visit Cat Cat Village. It was at least 4 kilometers, all downhill, in the rain. Upon paying and entering the village, we had a further downhill walk before we came to the stairs. It looked like about 50 – 100 steps, and we said to our guide “not doing that.” Ellen was still recovering from the cold that I gave her, and it was too much for our weary knees.

We took a cart back up to the parking lot, found a cab, and headed back to the hostel.

Cat Cat is a major tourist attraction, and once again there were bus loads of Chinese tours visiting.

When we got back to the hotel, Tommy’s sister, the manager at Lustig Hostel, said to us “you can’t do the Ha Giang Loop, it’s too hard for you!” We tended to agree. Fortunately, Ellen remembered we still had a paid for reservation at another hotel. Tommy’s sister called them, they confirmed it, and her brother drove us to the Sapa Dragon Hotel. Ellen immediately filled this:

She got a good two inches of hot water before it ran out.

We headed out to dinner to determine our strategy. Not tough. The weather reports suggested it wouldn’t clear until Thursday. We’re decided to stay at the Sapa Dragon Hotel, leaving Friday morning, and doing a car tour Thursday when the weather was better. We told Tommy to fix it. And he did.

Tuesday, we were treated to an interesting restaurant experience twice. The buildings generally don’t have heat, so they build charcoal fires in braziers placed near the table.

Tuesday we got 90 minute massages, then climbed under the covers of our bed and read. Made some decent lemonade from the lemons we were given.

Here are some shots of the variety of weather from the balcony of our room:

We’ll have more to say about our stay in the next posts. Spoiler alert! It was pretty terrific.