Friday 16th October

The Tirant Hotel in Hanoi proved to be a good base for our first night in Vietnam. We arrived pretty much on schedule at 10.30pm and Tinh was his ebullient self meeting us with great gusto.  Carol and Paul had arrived 3 days earlier and they were in the foyer for a meet and greet.

After a quick trip to the foreign exchange office to get some Dong we headed off on the first leg of our 300km+ journey to Sapa via the new expressway north. The 32kms from the highway to Sapa is an adventure in itself and the winding road to the town has not improved since my last visit in 2012. Dodging large trucks and every other type of vehicle whilst negotiating tight bends with a steep valley on one side is character building to say the least. Sapa is home to the Red Zao and Black Hmong hill people but it is becoming very commercialized and the building development since 2012 is quite amazing.

Sapa is suffering to some degree from a lack of planning and the narrow streets are barely catering for the plethora of buses that now visit the town bringing the much needed tourist dollar. There also seems to be no conceptual plan in place and building design is left to the developer. The variety of architectural styles give the place a distinctive character however and the backdrop of stunning mountain scenery certainly adds to the character of the town.

Our main goal today was to get there and check into the Sunny Mountain Hotel and also to give our travelers a bit of time to unwind and get the body clock into sync with local time which is 4 hours behind Sydney. 

A few of the group getting ready to head off from the Tirant Hotel in Hanoi on Friday morning.

The view from the restaurant on the 9th floor of the Sunny Mountains Hotel.

The traditional craft market has been moved from near the tourist hotels to a less congested place closer to the center of town. Most of the sellers had gone home but this Red Zao lady was able to show some of her handy work.

Tomorrow promises to bring some wow moments when w trek into the valley and visit the Cat Cat village.