February 7, Saturday – Overland to Sapa – Visit Lao Cai

Destination: Sapa Meals – Accommodations: Sapa Charm Hotel

This morning we started out early on our journey to Sapa. Sapa is a market and touristic town and ethnic minorities such as the Hmong make up the majority of Sapa’s population.

We stopped at a cinnamon farm and drank some very delicious cinnamon tea. The owner told us how he cultivates the cinnamon and sells it. He also offered us some cinnamon rice liquor which was pretty strong. After one sip, I was done.

We ate lunch along the way in Lao Cai and then we stopped at the International Border Bridge that spans the Nam Thi River, to view Hekou, China across the way.

Along the way, Thanh told us that sometimes we can see graves in the rice fields that we pass. When people who were farmers died, they wanted to be buried into the rice fields that they had spent their life harvesting. The government however has banned the practice, but does allow cremated remains to be buried. However, crematories are not readily available and many people cannot afford to take the body of their loved one to be cremated in a far away city. It has become a problem all around.

We finally approached Sapa and the bus climbed up the mountain road. Sapa is about a mile above sea level so it was quite a journey.

Our hotel is built into the hillside and seems to be very nice. We had all eaten a huge lunch so we weren’t very hungry. Thanh arranged for us to have Pho soup for dinner, but even though the broth and noodles were very good, the chicken was grisly and really inedible.

It was a long day of travel, so we all went to bed early to get ready for tomorrow.