Sapa – taking a motorbike around the mountain scenery and hilltop villages
Summary
There is so much about this trip that should place it high on anyone’s itinerary for Vietnam – the misty rice terraces around Sapa with stunning vistas of just about every shade of green imaginable; the hill tribes that are very distinct from the rest of Vietnam and even mountain to mountain; the train journey up through the mountains that gives a break from the usual tourist buses that form the backbone of any Vietnam trip; and the access to this pure mountainous jungle that surrounds you at all times
My biggest tip is to jump on a motorbike (if you can’t ride, it is super easy to arrange for someone to take you) and head off across the valleys to see all of this. Having the rice terraces and mountains zip by amongst the small hill villages on a motorbike is the most “Vietnam” experience I felt in all of my trips there and is not to be missed
Smaller tips:
- I went in July time, which was still fun but be aware that it is likely to be hammering it down at this time of year which restricts the views and the hikes you can do
- Sapa is nice enough and it’s lovely to see the various hill tribe outfits and the pride that the local people have in them, but the real highlight is heading into the valleys and mountains to see the villages and natural scenery
- Renting a motorbike or a driver to go with you should be super cheap – USD5 a day
- To get to Sapa its a no-brainer to take the overnight train, rather than the bus which takes up to 10 hours. Just make sure to book the best cabins – the basic cabins / seats in trains in Vietnam may not meet your expectations of comfort (or cleanliness)
- And for ideas on how a trip to Sapa can fit into an itinerary for experiencing the highlights of Vietnam, see this entry A 3 week itinerary for the highlights of Vietnam
highlights
#1 Making your way by the gorgeous rice terraces carved into the valleys all around Sapa
#2 Catching the views of the nearby mountains when you get a break in the clouds as you zip by on your motorbike
#3 Meeting some of the local hilltribes who show real pride in their local dress patterns that differentiate them from the other tribes in the mountains
#4 The luscious greens of the rice terraces - green, green, green!
#5 Seeing the latest extreme of "What a Vietnamese can get on a motorbike"
#6 Feeling pretty happy with yourself under an umbrella as it thunders down with rain
#7 Watching as the tropical deluges come booming down the sides of the mountains and overflow the rivers
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other Hilltop Village Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone