4 Days in Sapa: A Mountain Paradise in Northern Vietnam

4 Days in Sapa: A Mountain Paradise in Northern Vietnam

Sapa is a picturesque town perched in the mountains of Northwest Vietnam famous for its Rice Terraces and traditional Mountain Villages join us as we spend 4 days exploring this green and rugged landscape we scale Vietnam’s highest peak top of the tallest mountain in Vietnam sample some incredible food and venture out into the countryside to experience rural Village Life this is why we wanted to come a bit further out into the countryside good morning and welcome to sappa we arrived yesterday on the overnight train from Hanoi and even though we were exhausted we decided to make the most of the good weather and took a cable car up to the top of Vietnam’s highest mountain Mount fansipan we’ve just come to the train station in the center of sappa and from here we’re going to be catching a finicula up to the start of the cable cars it was $950,000 dong each for the train and the cable car for return so the finicula is just a 5minute ride to the bottom of the cable car and then I think it’s another 15 20 minutes to the top [Music] okay we’re now at Mong HOA station and we’re going to jump in a cable car to the [Music] top here we [Music] go okay that started a lot faster than I thought [Music] we’re just passing over those Rice Terraces now we’re heading all the way up to the [Music] top the cable car in front of us has just fully disappeared into a cloud [Music] we just got off the cable car and as you can see there is absolutely no view to speak of it’s another 600 steps up to the top hopefully we can get Above This Cloud and see something but I think that’s very unlikely at least it’ll be a bit of exercise today [Music] [Applause] [Music] we’ve made it to the top of the tallest mountain in Vietnam fanan mountain 3,143 m and the highest point in the Indochina Peninsula so that’s Vietnam Thailand Malaysia La Cambodia higher than all of that pretty busy though [Music] honestly the coffee in Vietnam is some of the best I’ve ever had and this is not a bad view either today we’ve come to cat cat Village which is around 3 km away from Sapa apparently it’s a little bit of a tourist trap we just paid our entry fee at the ticket station which was 150,000 dong per person so that’s about5 each which is not [Music] cheap [Music] this place is so bizarre I feel like it must be fake like all of this must be fake I mean there’s a horse there’s a guy with a hawk but it is beautiful [Music] so these two buildings here are basically just sets there’s no Interiors to these buildings they’re just here for people to have their photos taken in front of which kind of gives you an indication of how real this place is Amy said it’s kind of like how we have Victorian Villages back in the UK it’s showing like her traditional way of life that’s probably disappeared by now and they’re just keeping it alive for tourists like [Music] us okay we’re now leaving catat Village and heading back to Sapa it’s quite a surreal place it feels quite fake but it’s still quite peaceful and Serene apparently there are a couple of other Villages that people visit they might feel a bit more authentic but those are a bit further away so that’s why most people visit catat it was still definitely worth coming [Music] though we’re back in Sapa and we’re now heading out for dinner at this restaurant that does amazing vegan food we went for dinner here last night and the food was amazing and really reasonably priced compared to other restaurants in [Music] Sapa hello big table all for us so the food’s just arrived and it looks amazing so we got stir fried bamboo here uh spring rolls with tofu and oine sauted and tomatoes it all looks so good [Music] now [Music] good morning today is our last day in sappa and after visiting cat cat Village we decided that today we wanted to Trek a bit further out into the rice fields and visit a couple more Villages and hopefully see a little bit more of how people live here so we booked onto a guided track which is taking us out to two Villages uh Matra and tuffin so we’re here with our guide seay who is from the Matra village and we’re joined by a few other women that have just started tagging along apparently the group will just get bigger and bigger as we go and then once we reach the end they’re going to try and sell us stuff but they seem nice the tring industry here in Sapa seems to be very female L all of the tour guides that we’ve seen so far have been women from the different ethnic groups that are in the area so these tribes that live in this area around Sapa all originated from China and they’ve all got their own culture and languages and you can tell them apart by the way they dress so the first Village that we’re walking through tend to wear things died Blue by Indigo cuz they grow Indigo here and then the second village that we’re going to tuin is home to the red Dow people who can be identified by wearing red [Music] clothing Little [Music] Pigs we’re definitely getting further out into to the Rice Terraces and the farms and it definitely feels a lot less commercialized than cat [Music] cat so you more the color go Okay Okay cool so I just have to do this you should make it any day later blue later blue don’t wor she pull it what and it’ll go Blue later later okay in 5 minutes okay I’ll have a look in 5 minutes okay so Amy’s just rubbed some of the Indigo leaves into our hands and they’ve gone green but apparently in 5 minutes they’re going to start to turn [Music] blue look at these beautiful Rice [Music] Terraces this is why we wanted to come a bit further out into the countryside yeah it’s definitely [Music] blue so we’ve just been walking through these farms and it’s been really interesting to see how people actually live here farming seems to be pretty much the only industry and it’s mostly to feed themselves and then what’s left over will feed their livestock so we’ve just arrived in taffin and we’re going to stop in this Cafe for [Music] lunch pretty nice view our lunch is just arrived spring rolls yeah and tomato tofu which is my new [Music] favorite showing off how terrible I am of this so we just had our lunch and now we are walking another 30 minutes back to a main road where we’re going to get picked up and taken back to our hotel in [Music] seer so [Music] cute this CR and green tea okay is that green tea green tea this one this one also we take the leas and we P we make it the hot water yes drinking look like somebody already has someone’s been having some already I don’t know if you can see on the camera but there are dragon flies everywhere thousands of them hell this place is so nice so idilic after we got dropped back in Sapa we got a transfer to laai train station which is where we are now and we’re about to get the overnight train back to Hanoi so we just stocked up on snacks and now it’s time for a 12h hour train yeah we’ve just boarded the train and found our coach and this time we’ve got both bottom bunks which will be a lot more comfortable it’s quter 5 and we’re just arriving into hway now as you can see we had this cabin to ourselves all night had a much better sleep than I did on my way up to sappa good morning today we’re going to be doing an overnight cruise on har Long [Music] Bay wa this place is [Music] insane

Sa Pa is a picturesque town perched in the mountains of Lao Cai province in Northwest Vietnam, famous for its rice terraces and traditional mountain villages.

In this video, we share the best things to do in Sa Pa. We take a cable car to the summit of Fansipan Mountain – Vietnam’s highest peak – visit the popular Cat Cat Village, and go trekking through rice terraces in the Muong Hoa Valley to experience traditional village life in the Sa Pa countryside.

00:00 – Intro
00:30 – Welcome to Sapa, Vietnam!
00:45 – Taking a cable car up Mount Fansipan
03:38 – Visiting Cat Cat Village
06:18 – Exploring Sapa
06:37 – Best food in Sapa!
07:33 – Trekking the Muong Hoa Valley
13:13 – Overnight train to Hanoi
14:04 – Next time

Here are the best things to do in Sa Pa:
– Trekking in the Muong Hoa Valley
– Visit traditional ethnic villages (Ta Phin, Ma Tra, Cat Cat Village)
– Immerse yourself in the culture and traditions of the Hmong and Red Dao people
– Take a cable car up Fansipan Mountain
– See the rice terraces
– Eat delicious Vietnamese food

#vietnam #sapa #sapavietnam

If you’re new around here – 👋 Hi, we’re James and Amy and back in October 2022 we quit our jobs to travel for a year. We spent five months travelling around New Zealand and Australia in a camper van, followed by two weeks trekking up to Everest Base Camp in Nepal. Now, we’re backpacking Southeast Asia.

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