Sa Pa

Hi everyone,

Unsurprisingly, we were very happy to leave Hanoi. After doing extensive, and very tedious, research (and by research, I mean running from fake travel agency to fake travel agency) we finally found a night train to Sa Pa. We had heard wonderful things about it from many other travelers, and were offered many a tour from the scam artist tourist agencies. We decided to go it alone, as we believed that we would have had better luck organizing ourselves outside of the nest of deceit that is Hanoi. On the train, we were lucky enough to be in a compartment with two people from the U.S. (John and Melissa) and two people from England. The Americans had booked a private tour in Hanoi (having found some expats to do the booking), and we decided to travel together.

They had arranged a private tour, involving a jeep for the day, and out of the way sights to which most tourists do not venture. We were lucky to be included. That said, the trip did not go as expected. The jeep had "broken down" and we were given access to a mini-bus. Predictably, the mini-bus was running on the schedule of the driver, and we were required to wait for it for hours at a time. Perhaps as a result of this, or perhaps simply because the people running the tour were incompetent, those out of the way sights were never to be seen. Instead, we did a very basic tour of the surrounding areas, and were driven to a small village, where we spent the night "in the home of a minority". This turned out to be run entirely by the Vietnamese government, which have treated the minorities rather like an irritated cow treats a fly. The government chose the minority person with whom we stayed; it was about as authentic as professional wrestling. The next day we were all feeling sick from the food, and saw only a few sights before returning, though I should mention that a jeep eventually arrived, looking as if the odometer had spun around so many times that it must have been dizzy.

Putting the gripes aside for a moment, the landscape is fantastic. It is easy to see why the Lonely Planet raves about the city. It is as picturesque as any I have ever seen, and I am sure that a better run tour would have provided a great view of the lives of minorities in northern Vietnam. That said, their lives appear to have been changed quite a lot since the tourists have arrived. While the men continue to work in the rice fields and on the rice terraces, the women spend their days attempting to overcharge tourists for textiles (I wish I was kidding). They start very young, know how to ask you to buy things in many different languages, and are everywhere. Having visited the Museum of Ethnology the day before, we had learned a bit about the traditional lives of these people, though it was only evident in their dress. It is very strange to see cable television in a traditional Red Zao hut, for example. I am not entirely sure whether tourism is a positive force in their lives. It gives them access to money and knowledge, but they will soon be in danger of losing their ethnic identity and culture.The day American Idol has a north Vietnamese minority contestant, I will know that all is lost. Until then, there is still hope!

Our good luck with trains continued on the way back to Hanoi. We had been booked in a car with a family (3 people, 2 beds, and one screaming child) but we found empty beds in another car, and hoped no one would remove us from these adopted places of rest. While the people who had booked those accommodations did arrive, they were nice enough to find another place to sleep, as it was the middle of the night, and we were already settled in. Our friends were not quite so fortunate, having been given fake tickets, and having been forced to ride in what they describe as a train car from hell. We consider ourselves lucky that we did not have to endure that. I am quite certain that I would have lost my mind had that been the case, as every relevant employee would have been given a piece of it.

Sa Pa really was a great place to see. I believe that if the government had not tampered with it quite so much, and if the tourists had not arrived in such great numbers, it would have been one of the best experiences on the trip. As it was, it ranks somewhere in the middle. While we were not particularly enamoured of Sa Pa, it is certainly not a place to be avoided.It is worth a visit. It would simply be nice if the tours were honestly run, and the experience had not contained the phrase "buy from me" quite so often.

Did I mention that the scenery was amazing? We could not have posted nearly enough pictures on the blog, so please click on Sa Pa Pictures, or enjoy the slideshow below:




Thanks for reading!

note: posted by Mike