Sapa adventure with motorbike
Sapa is a pretty town
in the mountains of northwestern Vietnam near the Chinese boarder.
Originally built by the French as a medical outpost, the city is now full of
minority people from the local mountains and one of the major tourist
destinations of north Vietnam. On Friday, 19 September, Ben, his girlfriend
Huyen, Ben is college friend Paul, and I set out for Sapa. The first leg of the
journey began on a night train to the boarder town of Lao Cai. We arrived in Lao
Cai early Saturday morning and hired a shuttle to Sapa. Thanks to the infusion
of tourist dollars and French planning, Sapa is a very pretty and well-designed
town. The town sits on a saddle and overlooks two large valleys. Vietnam is
largest peaks surround the town, and these are rugged mountains with significant
elevation changes. Vietnam is tallest peak, Fansipan, is very close.
The first thing we did after checking into our hotel
Sapa GoldSea was rent motorbikes. We rented
three Honda Waves: one for me, one for Paul, and one for Ben and Huyen. Paul,
who is an actor from LA, had never ridden a motorbike before. We weren"t on the
bikes for even two minutes before Paul drove his motorbike directly into the
largest curb in Sapa. Apparently he was having difficulty turning and braking.
Luckily Paul wasn"t hurt, even though I was convinced that he was going to fly
over the handlebars, across the sidewalk, and into the bushes. Ben and Huyen
were already back at the hotel wondering were Paul and I were as 12 or 15
Vietnamese men surrounded us and shook their heads, saying to Paul, you no drive
motorbike good. The damage: the front tire was bent pretty badly. The total cost
of the damage: 400,000 VND, roughly 25 USD. While his bike was at the shop, Paul
hopped on the back of my bike and we left Sapa to visit some of the minority
villages nearby. And Paul and I discussed how to drive a motorbike, which lead
him to some success later in the trip.
The first village we came to was remarkable only because a sixty-foot section of
the road through the village was comprised of one continuous rock. We parked our
motorbikes and started walking through the town, but quickly realized that we
weren "t going to see much because each of us had three minority (Homong, I
think) women surrounding us saying, You buy from me? Very cheap for you aregood
price. We retreated to our motorbikes and did a bit of shopping for hand woven
textiles and silver jewelry, then took the road through town to the cave in the
mountain.
Outside the cave stood six young boys carrying flashlights. After haggling with
the boys, we rented four flashlights for 10,000 VND each and hired one of them
to guide us through the cave. We had been hiking into the cave for 20 or 30
minutes when we made a startling discovery: This was a cave to China. Our guide
told us that if you knew the way and had two or three days, the cave would dump
you out in China. Needless to say, Ben, Paul, and I were ecstatic. A real tunnel
to China? Amazing!
We left the cave and returned to our motorbikes to find them flocked with more
minority women, again trying to sell us things. One of them lived a short
distance from the cave s entrance and she invited us back to her house. We
accepted. The house was a barn, except that people lived there too.
She kept pigs just outside the back door. We asked to see them and she proceeded
to feed them corn. There were 12 or 15 pigs, mostly piglets, a few medium sized
pigs, and a few big mommas. I asked Huyen, our official interpreter, what a pig
costs in the local market. A big pig, one used for breeding, cost 50,000 VND, or
roughly 3 USD. A medium sized pig, the best for eating, cost 80,000 VND, or
roughly 5 USD. I suggested we buy an eating pig and hire the women to cook us
lunch, but between Paul�s protests and the realization that they wouldn't cook
for us, we headed back to Sapa pigless.
That afternoon we picked up Paul is bike and headed into one of the valleys
below Sapa. There we visited the ancient stone carvings. There not actually
stone carvings, but some black rocks (basalt maybe) that poke up like sea
monsters among the terraced rice fields. The scenery was beautiful. It was rice
harvest time, so the rice field were light brown instead of rich green. To
harvest rice, the locals cut the rice grass and lay it in bundles to dry. Once
sufficiently dry, the bundles are beaten over bamboo baskets to knock the rice
grains out. The rice grain is stuffed into huge sacks for transport to a machine
that removes the husk from the grain. At this point the rice is ready for the
market. The whole process relies heavily on manual labor, sickles, and water
buffaloes.
We came back the hotel after an interesting trip day. Having dinner at The
Golden Restaurant, we had a happy time to relax.
Further information about Adventure tours, you can visit:
Crossing Vietnam Travel
Crossing Vietnam Shop
Sapa Budget Tours
- Sapa Day Tours - Sapa Day Excursions - Day Trips Sapa Vietnam
- Sapa Walk and Bac ha Market
- Sapa Hard Trekking Two
- Sapa Hard Trekking One
- Sapa Medium Trek Two
- Sapa Medium Trek
Sapa Trekking and Adventures
- Fansipan peak conquering VIP tour (3 days - 2 nights)
- Fansipan peak conquering VIP tour (2 days - 1 nights)
- Fansipan peak conquering Deluxe tour (4 days - 3 nights)
- Fansipan peak conquering Deluxe tour (3 days - 2 nights)
- Fansipan peak conquering Deluxe tour (2 days - 1 nights)
- Fansipan peak conquering Standard tour (4 days - 3 nights)
Sapa Cycling Options
- Sapa - Binh Lu - Lai Chau(with biking)
- Sapa - Lao Chai - Ta Van - Ban Ho
- Sapa Biking Tour - Ban Ho Village
- Sapa Biking Tour - Binh Lu - Lai Chau
- SaPa - Bac Ha Market with biking
- Pedalling The Remote Sapa\'s Northwest
Sapa Luxury Holidays
Traditional Minority Discovery Packages
- Green Sapa bus (Hanoi – Sapa)
- Eco Sapa Limousine Van (Hanoi – Sapa)
- Private car Hanoi Sapa
- Hanoi Sapa Private Cabin bus
- Coc Ly market with boat trip
- Cao Son market -boat trip on Chay river- Sapa Tours
Sapa Classic Trips
Northern Mountain Discovery Packages
Topas Ecolodge Sapa tours
- Topas Ecolodge and Market Package 3D/4N
- Topas Ecolodge and Market Package-2D/3N
- Topas Ecolodge and Victoria Sapa Package – 4D/5N
- Topas Ecolodge and Victoria Sapa Package – 3D/4N
- Topas Ecolodge Package – 3D/4N
- Topas Ecolodge Package 2D/3N