Prior to arriving in Vietnam, we had a couple of cities in mind to visit. It looked like we would have been able to see 4-5 cities, but would have been limited to ~2 nights at each cities w/ all the travel time in between. So we had to decide between Sa Pa and Hue. As you can guess from the title of this post, we opted for Sa Pa. This is a little town in the northern hills of Vietnam, close to the Chinese border known for the rice terrace views and the minority people that live there, the Hmongs (pronounced Mongs). We're sad to report that we might not have chosen wisely. As beautiful as the hills and the views were, it was nothing compared to the views that we had in Sagada in the Philippines. Sa Pa is just a little bigger than Sagada and the town is much more used to tourist as we were constantly asked to purchase a trinket or get a ride on a motorbike somewhere. Even Cat Cat village, where you get to see the Hmong people live, felt like it was staged for the tourist. It's pretty sad that we've become the jaded traveller and had a difficult time enjoying the beauty of Sa Pa without it's comparison to Sagada. And we're left wondering if we would have felt the same about Sagada had we visited Sa Pa first.
We still made the most of our time in Sa Pa by renting another scooter and scooting around the little town and to a nearby waterfall.
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| A View at Breakfast |
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| Love Waterfall |
The other upside to our visit to Sa Pa was getting to be closer to the rice terrace and the caribiou (water buffalo).
which one is anthony?
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