Sapa, the City in the Fog

I did not make up that title; it is on a monument in the town square. We have had pretty decent weather, but we have seen the fog.

Phillip and I took an overnight train from Hanoi to get here. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, but the clanking and clattering of the train on the track was indeed as noisy as reviewers said it would be. 

Phillip slept well enough that he was not tired when we disembarked the train in Lao Cai. Sapa was still an hour away, so I had arranged for a car shuttle. Our driver took a slight detour for us because the Vietnam/China border was just a mile from the train station. This is the border crossing into China, the closest we’ve been to that country.

Our car shuttle was early in the day, around 6:30 am when we left Lao Cai, so we drove in and out of clouds that had not burned off yet as the car went up and down the mountains.

We arrived too early to check in at our hotel, so we walked around Sapa for a bit. We found that town square with a round-a-about whose rules we could not discern other than “if you see an opportunity, take it.” We walked around a lake that could have used a few more benches, but it did have lovely views of the surrounding mountains. 

When we could check into our room, we were pleasantly surprised that we had been given a free upgrade. I booked a standard room, but they gave us a suite!

I’m sitting at that huge desk working on this blog while Phillip sits on the couch. The bedroom also has a wall of windows with a wonderful mountain view. 

We had a cooking class that evening, making bun cha.

The instructors were fine, but I didn’t ask for the recipe as I was not a fan of the flavor of this bun cha, too much fish sauce in the liquid and not enough spice in the meat. We still ate what we made, as it was good, just not great.

Yesterday (Saturday), we went on a full-day motor scooter ride into the mountains and thru several villages, about 60-80 km of motor scooter riding. As has happened frequently on this trip, I did not book a private tour, but because this is the shoulder season here, we were the only people for the tour. Phillip drove and I rode on the back of a 125cc scooter. Our guide, Tao, had his own scooter and went at our pace since it was just us. He took us to mountain overlooks with great views.

We visited two majestic waterfalls, the Silver Waterfall and the Love Waterfall. My favorite part of the Silver Waterfall was that we walked up the stairs to see the falls. Not the actual stairs, just that they were in the beginning of the trek.

The color of the water on the rocks is what caused the locals to call it the Silver Waterfall.

Tao pointed out that the locals were drawn here because cardamom grows wild in the area. These red berries are black cardamom, used in pho and meat dishes. It is different from green cardamom, originating in India, which is used in desserts and curries.

Our second waterfall to visit, the Love Waterfall, was a short ride away.

At this waterfall, we walked down steps, thru a valley, over and along a stream. Steps seem steeper when they are at the end of an activity!

The valley walk near the stream was very well done. Flat stones were very stable to walk on.

The air was moist and the rocks were wet, but I did not feel unstable walking at all.

And we were rewarded by the Love Waterfall, even if we did have to go back up steps after seeing it. 

More overlook stops for pictures

At this one, I got off the motor scooter and waited while Tao and Phillip (grey shirt, red scooter) drove to the middle of this narrow bridge for pictures. Too high and too narrow for me!

We drove thru the Muong Hoa Valley and saw many terraced fields. These are dedicated entirely to rice production.

Others used terracing for production of corn and other vegetables. 

We had a traditional lunch at one of the villages, with lots of food, more than we could eat. 

Phillip and I were tired by the end of the tour, but it had been a really good one, even if many of the roads we drove on were in disrepair. We drove thru that Sapa roundabout twice! We just followed Tao and hoped that other drivers could see that we weren’t locals. 

Tomorrow, we are moving to a homestay in a village for two nights. We will still be in Sapa, but our accommodation will be quite different from this hotel suite!

Hoi An, Vietnam, one of our favorite cities in the world

Phillip and I are nearing the end of our six nights in Hoi An, Vietnam. This has been our third visit here (here in 2018 and 2023) and Hoi An remains a charming location with great people and a very walkable city area with its Old Town a designated UNESCO Word Heritage site. We are so fortunate to be able to stay in contact with Vi and her family, owners of Denovo Spa in Hoi An. Our first order of business here was to visit with them. Their hospitality and generosity know no bounds. They invited us to have lunch with them at the spa, a delicious beef curry that Tracey, Vi's sister-in-law prepared. We were so happy to meet Moon, Tracey's sister who had been traveling during our last visit. 

We didn't spend our entire time visiting with Moon, Tracey, Vi and the rest of the family, we also revisited locations in Hoi An, such as the river at night with its lanterns and brightly decorated boats.

Phillip got a haircut here. The barber did a good job.

Our hotel, the Hoi An Historic Hotel is quite nice with a large room. 

The grounds are extensive with a lot of outdoor seating in the shade. We will stay in this hotel again on our next visit to Hoi An. 

We ate tasty pho and bun cha.

On Monday, June 1, we took an ATV ride into the countryside. Phillip drove the 4-wheeler the entire tour so I could take pictures. It was evident that the 4-wheelers were not taken care of as well as we took care of ours when we had the ranch. 

The ride was still fun as we passed the bovine road maintenance workers.

We had seen the tractors working in the rice paddies, but this time, we saw one parked near the field and could really look at its rear tires, specifically designed for the flooded fields.

Our guide, Hau, took us on paths thru the rice paddies. They were narrow and sometimes rutted causing Phillip to have to work at steering the 4-wheeler so we didn't end up in the water-logged paddies.

We also went thru the jungle where we saw workers harvesting the trees in an area. I didn't catch the name of the trees, but they were harvested after four years of growth to be made into paper. 

Before the tour was complete, we came up behind the truck taking the harvested trees out of the jungle.

Phillip was the most experienced 4-wheeler driver of the group. We were also the oldest participants, so Hau had put us right behind her 4-wheeler. Several times, we had to stop so that the others could catch up with us! During one stop in the jungle, I noticed this guy on a nearby tree.

After a few hours of 4-wheelering, we returned to our starting point for a delicious barbecue lunch.

Moon invited us to her house for dinner on Tuesday. She lives fairly close to Denovo Spa, but she decided it was too far for us to walk so she took Phillip on her motorcycle and I rode with one of the other family members. 

Tracey, Moon, and the other sisters-in-law prepared a delicious meal! We were all stuffed when we finished. Vi sat next to me and kept sneaking more food into my bowl until I started covering it with my hand! They had watermelon, mango, apples, and dragon fruit for dessert. Phillip and I were so honored to be invited to join the family at their home for such a wonderful meal. 

Today, our last full day in Hoi An, we finally made it the 5 km to the beach. Hoi An is on the river that leads to the beach, but not on the beach itself like Danang is. We took a Grab from our hotel to Hoi An's Cua Dai Beach then walked north. 

Hoi An suffered a record-breaking flood last year, a typhoon brought 3.5 meters of water flooding into Hoi An. The beach area, however, also had wind damage. Not everything has been repaired yet at the beach.

We walked about three miles in the sand.

Once we had to leave the beach for a few hundred yards because construction equipment blocked access. The crane that was pounding in piers is visible in this picture.

We caught a Grab back to our hotel from An Bang Beach, considered Hoi An's northern beach even though it isn't close to Old Town. Now, having washed the sand off of us, we are relaxing in the air conditioning before we head out later for our last evening in Hoi An. Tomorrow, we take a car to the Danang Airport, a plane to Hanoi, and an overnight train to Sapa. Sapa is in the northern mountain area of Vietnam, and the daytime temperature is 77 degrees! 

Our return to Danang, Vietnam

Phillip and I are now over halfway thru this trip, with no more new countries to visit, but we do have new locations in our favorite countries to see before we return home in five weeks. We have been in Danang, Vietnam for the past few days, arriving via a flight from Chiang Mai, Thailand. We've been to Danang before but on our previous visit, we didn't see its famous Golden Bridge.

During our first day in Danang, we walked along the beach and were pleased to see the exhibit of decorated basket boats. I don't know how often they update the paintings, but these were totally different scenes on these bamboo boats than what we'd seen before.

Yesterday, I booked us a tour to visit Ba Na Hills, a resort/amusement park-like area about 20 km north of Danang. This is where the Golden Bridge is as well as the world's longest non-stop cable car. Everyone must take the cable car to the attractions area and the first thing you see as you get to the top, is the Golden Bridge's hands.

It looks like a bridge held up by two giant concrete hands. 

And, several hundred of our closest friends joined us to walk on the bridge for pictures! 

The Ba Na Hills complex encompasses several hundred acres at the top of the mountain. We found another, smaller hand statue in one of the gardens.

Everywhere you turned, there were landscaped gardens like this peacock-themed one.

The complex had an alpine roller coaster and several arcade areas that we did not visit. It also had a multitude of restaurant and an area with a European village theme. We didn't find that very authentic because the cobblestones were too smooth and evenly laid! Next to the Rose Garden (not many roses blooming that day), we found about ten of these guys in a row. Not sure what they were meant to represent.

We also walked by the Helios Waterfall, with its gaudy gold statues. Not a fan at all because it reminded us of someone else who favors garish gold-colored furnishings.

We quickly moved on to another garden area, with stairs leading up to a temple. 

After three hours at the top of Ba Na Hills, our tour group came together again and rode the cable car back down the mountain.  Even the trip down had sights to see, carved into the rock of the mountain.

We were able to also see the construction supply area. A lot of concrete is needed, as more buildings were being added to the complex.

Today, we took a Grab to Marble Mountain, just 7 km away, and toured it on our own. According to the legend, a dragon flew from a nearby beach and laid an egg. A beautiful girl hatched out of the egg and the eggshell broke into five pieces, forming five mountains. These are the Marble Mountains, and they are five connected mountains that jut up from flat land of the area. Pagodas and temples have been built into the mountains for over 400 years. Only one mountain, Water Mountain, is accessible to tourists. We paid for an elevator ride up (15k VND, less than $1) but it stopped halfway to the top. Steps the rest of the journey. We saw many Buddhas, outside statues 

and ones carved inside caves from marble.

Large Buddhas,

and Buddhas in large caves.

And those steps... still hundreds of steps after the elevator. Notice that they are not level or the same height. Also, some were marble (slick) and some were concrete (not slippery).

We walked down from the top of the mountain and returned to our hotel to cool down.

Tomorrow (Friday, the 29th), we head two hours south to stay in one of our favorite locations, Hoi An.