Sapa is the place where the Himalaya mountain range is slowly hiding between vertical rice terraces and bamboo trees. Fantastic green valleys covered in rice, split by rivers and waterfalls and inhabited by ethnic minorities, such as Hmong, the Dzao and Thai, which despite the time and in spite also of the flocks of tourists, still live as they have done for generations, wearing their colorful costumes and working the land that was born.
The first day we went to visit inside the valley. This is a village called Cat Bai inhabited by one of the ethnic minorities I have mentioned above. Along with some English that I met on the path we followed the path and entered into the valley. When we came here, the children were frightened and hid to see us. I walked along and tried to take as many photographs as possible. The British stopped to eat and I followed the path through the valley that I took away from the spectacular planting of rice.
The road then seemed to get lost among the weeds and here the real trek began. I knew the proximity of a road bordering the valley and follow my instincts. I started to climb a river between a thick jungle that I leave the clothes which over the dark skin of a native of the area.
After half an hour of following the upward course of the river came to a spectacular waterfalls of more than 40 meter drop that was more or less left to climb. Upon reaching the top, the sound of a motorbike. I was already tired of the noise of jet throughout Vietnam but this time I was able to return to glory hear that buzz! A couple of more jumps between the weeds and I was able to reach the road and stepping on firm ground. Just at that moment passed and I watched four Vietnamese side with rare, they also noted the hole in the thick vegetation that came and I returned to face with a look of "these tourists are like a goat!"
The local people, they invited a cigarette and holding them with my return to civilization! Tom had come to Tram Pass, a neck between valleys to 2000 meters and 16 km of road from Sapa where appropriate. The view of both valleys with the Fansipan to my side of 3143 meters were wonderful. I returned quietly by the road stomping ground and went back to find me after a while with the British and a group of Belgians who had shown them a way short and not so bumpy. Back to the people, a shower and went out to dinner and just all in a Vietnamese karaoke drinking rice wine (a kind of spirit) to the many.
On the second day we took it more quietly through the gardens of Ham Rong, a few mountains north of Sapa where he lived with another ethnic tribe in the area.
Today, final day in Sapa, rent a bike and gave us a tour of this spectacular valley covered with nearly vertical rice terraces and waterfalls that are covering the road from natural pools. And finally we were able to recognize the clothes you were Hmong and the Dzao another.
For now it seems that tourism and tradition are still in a positive balance. The village has been enriched in 10 years to move from absolute oblivion to receive flocks of tourists with dollars in hand. For now, and perhaps thanks to communism, tourists staying in Sapa where the Indians traded on the markets and take advantage of something that neither expecting nor can they stop because they are those who handle other threads and tickets fat. The salts that few kilometers from Sapa, the reality is different: it is like to escape in time, the backpackers and immerse yourself in the real world where these tribes have inhabited for thousands of years, with their oxen, their goats, their bamboos , Their opium plantations and rice and are grateful to the government unless we put a little difficult for tourists.
Tomorrow we cross the border at Lao Cai and we are living in China, where the Himalayas will grow gradually to reach Nepal and communication will be even more complicated than in Vietnam. But in the end, the culture shock is where the adventure, and that China, here I come!
