Sapa: two nights in a mountainside cabin and one night of luxury

On Monday (June 8), we took a Grab car to our second stop in Sapa, a homestay in the mountains. Traveling about 7 km out of town, the trip to the homestay took just over 30 minutes. That calculated out to a travel speed of around 9 mph. The two-lane city street narrowed as we left town to a sometime paved or graveled or mud one-lane road that snaked along the sides of the mountains. 

We had a roundhouse bungalow at the Rock Garden Homestay, a one room, round cabin with a full bathroom built on the side of the mountain. 

Half of the wall was floor to ceiling glass, giving us a view down into the valley. It did take me a few minutes to get used to the panoramic vista and to cross at the foot of the bed to the left side of the room.

 

There were no restaurants around, but the Homestay prepared food to order for their guests and delivered it to our room.

The view was clear when we arrived, but the clouds would form and creep up and down the mountainside.

When we awoke Tuesday morning, the clouds were thick and the view was obscured. 

I planned to walk along the road and see the countryside, but soon after breakfast, it began raining, so we stayed in the roundhouse until the rain cleared in the afternoon. The rain turned the river at the bottom of the mountain brown as streams coming off the mountain and across the lowland fed muddy water into the river.

The road went uphill and downhill from our homestay spot, so we began our walk uphill so that the return would be downhill. We had already walked uphill from our cabin to the road.

We found a vantage point on the road to get a picture of our cabin jutting out the side of the mountain. The Homestay had two round cabins. Ours is the lower, closer one. 

We were amazed at the crops growing on the almost vertical hillside.

Corn was planted on the mountainside. I would not want to be the person to plant it or harvest it!

We saw chickens and chicks checking for bugs in the vegetation.

The following day, we returned to downtown Sapa for one night’s stay in the fanciest hotel in town, the Hotel de la Coupole. A pair of Filipina travel vloggers that Phillip watches stayed there so I booked us one night to check it out. The décor was of the French Indochina era, so it had bold colors and art deco elements.

The swimming pool was the highlight for us. Huge, with designs in the pool tile and statues of swimmers. We did go for a swim, as it was a heated pool. 

The exterior had French elements as well.

Sapa lived up to its nickname as City in the Fog, as this was the view to the mountains from where Phillip was standing on the hotel bridge.

Yesterday, we took a luxury van (only eight passengers, each in a captain’s chair with a massage function) for a 7-hour drive back to Hanoi. The trip was longer than we like for a single travel event, but the driver made two rest stops and the van was comfortable. We had 30 km of mountain passes to go thru when we left Sapa before we got to a main road. Terraced fields the entire way.

We are currently in Hanoi, staying at our favorite hotel here, the Tirant Hotel. As has been the case occasionally, I had booked a room, but upon check-in, we were upgraded to a suite!