14.11. Sapa's beautiful surroundings

Originally, we had planned to continue to Ha Giang, another mountain village, today to ride the so-called Ha Giang Loop with a motorbike. However, this is not really safe and since rain and fog were forecasted, we decided against Ha Giang and stayed one more day here in Sapa.

After waking up and having breakfast in front of an indescribable mountain panorama, we set off to Mount Ham Rong. At its foot was a botanical garden that looked enchanted and mystical with its moss-covered stones, lichen-covered trees now bright trees.

The mystical lower part of the park

As we walked through this part for a while and got higher, the style of the park changed a little and became more colorful with flowers and bushes. The mist that covered the nearby mountain ridges and quickly disappeared within two minutes was also impressive.

The more colorful second part followed

We continued up the mountain, where we could enjoy the view of Sapa and the surrounding valleys from the top. From above, this city doesn't look particularly beautiful. Only one building, a shopping center, stands out as it looks like an old train station and dominates the city a bit.

Fortunately, we survived the way back without any incidents, as it was sometimes very slippery, as you often simply slid forward on a stone slab. From there, we went down to Cat Cat Village. On the way there, we could again enjoy the fantastic view of the mountains around Sapa, including a lot of downhill. Which meant that the way back would be very strenuous.

At the bottom of the large valley that stretches across the entire mountains here, we strolled through the village of the local ethnic minority group and hiked up to the end of the mountain slope. There, we were briefly chased by two slightly aggressive geese, who could be really fast and whose beaks did not look particularly trustworthy.

At the bottom of the valley, there was a small area where a few women were working on looms and presses or painting patterns on a cloth or blanket with small wax strokes. It is always nice and interesting to see how the local population works and how their work progresses calmly and diligently. Here you can see strong contrasts to the European working world. While work is important to people and they take their profession seriously, they do not devote everything to it and talk to friends and family during work or take breaks whenever they feel like it. A short distance from this place was another beautiful waterfall and next to it, a group of young adults performed their traditional dances to depict stories or emotions.

Afterwards, we climbed back up the steep mountain to Sapa, where we spent the last hours before our bus left the city at 10 pm sitting in the cozy café from the previous day and enjoying the last hours in Sapa. As mentioned yesterday, we really enjoyed our time in our now penultimate station in Vietnam and were very happy about our great weather. Now we are heading back to the noisy Hanoi, where we still have four full days before we have to say goodbye to Vietnam.