With its mist-covered mountains, colorful local tribes-people and the faint but undeniable feel of a French Alpine town – albeit one with rice terraces – it’s pretty easy to find reasons to visit Sapa. If you are truly travelers, just join our
Vietnam motorcycle tours to ride away from Hanoi, passing several places before you reach Sapa. Here are our several reasons to visit Sapa:
1. Sapa’s Picturesque Setting
The town of Sapa has a picture-postcard setting, located in a valley with a small lake and surrounded by majestic mountains often enchantingly blanketed in mist. A room with a view is a must here so you can take in the changes to the vistas, especially how the clouds mesmerize with their continual flow into the valley and over the hills. When the clouds and mist decide to clear off, the views of the surrounding mountains are simply jaw dropping.
2. Sapa’s Hill Tribe Culture
There are some eight different hill tribes that live in mountain settlements and villages around Sapa. The Black H’mong is the most common of the ethnic minorities that you’ll see, the women easily identified by their black skirts and leg warmers, accented by flashes of silver from their jewelry. Many tribeswomen trek daily into Sapa to sell their handicrafts to tourists and each wears a different costume so you’ll soon be able to distinguish the difference between the Black H’mong, Red Dao, the Giay (‘Zay’), Xa Pho, White H’mong, and Flower H’mong.
3. Sapa’s Hill Tribe Village ride
Depending on how long you stay, you can start daily Vietnam motorbike tours to some village staying overnight in village homestays. Part of the 30,000-hectare Hoang Lien National Park, the scenery, almost as soon as you head out of town, is bucolic. Rice terraces are carved into impossibly steep mountains, including Vietnam’s highest peak, Mount Fasipan. You’ll get much more out of the experience by going with a local guide and getting the chance to meet families in villages and gaining a glimpse into local life.
4. Sapa Markets
The local Sapa markets are a feast for the eyes and the taste buds. Fresh produce, just plucked or picked that day, is in abundance while steam rises off giant pots of stock from which vendors ladle out endless bowls of soup. The market is also the place to buy souvenirs, with an array of colorful textiles, costumes and crafts to choose from, often being made right at the stall while the ladies wait for customers. It’s one of our favorite markets in Southeast Asia.
5. Eating and Drinking in Sapa
In Sapa, there are a plenty of tourist restaurants, but the local eateries, hole-in-the-walls, and food stalls offer far more delicious food. Expect to find full-flavored ‘trekking chickens’ (free-range chickens that have their run of the hills), succulent pork (also farmed in the mountains), and freshwater fish (from surrounding lakes, streams, and farms). Dig in! Just go easy on the rice wine…
6. Sapa’s Fascinating French History
One thing that makes Sapa fascinating is its French colonial history. On a day when the mist encircles the steppe of the Sapa church, just off the main square, you could be forgiven for thinking that you’re in the French Alps. It’s this atmosphere that attracted the French here in the first place, thinking it would make a great summer retreat and a European style ‘wellness’ center. By 1924, the road from Lao Cai was completed, making a link from Hanoi possible overnight. By the 1930s the town had over 200 French buildings, running water, a sewage system, telephone and telegraph lines, and electricity. The complex history of the French presence here saw them eventually leave in 1949 – and bomb the town in 1952, resulting in many of the fine French villas being destroyed.
Now, you know why Sapa becomes a very popular destination in our motorbike tours Vietnam?
