Sapa Villages: Cat Cat, Sin Chai, and Ta Van

If you only see one place in Vietnam, you need to see the remote mountain villages of Sapa, and you need to see this with the mind of a traveler rather than a tourist. You need to find a “Home Stay Services” tour, this is where you will be hiking to these remote villages and staying with a village family, eating their traditional meals, and living, even for just a short moment, in their lifestyle. It takes a lot of time and effort to get there but it is worth it and then some. The clock is ticking here and you need to see it soon as they are working on improving the railroad to make the journey in less than half the time. This means in a few years this place will be more accessible and the traditional way of life will become corrupt with tourists.

I had not gotten off the train yet and I was glad for the second time to have a guide. I could not understand the announcements and would have gotten off at the first place we stopped, it was after all the time we were suppose to arrive. However it turns out we were running late and it was the next stop in which we would be de-training , at Lao Cai station.




I was now within 2 kilometers from China, closer then I had ever been, so I decided to get ever closer and made the short journey to the border and actually see the China border crossing.


Then turn around and see the Vietnamese border crossing.


We then jumped on a bus and made the one and a half hour climb up the mountain. This road is scary and dangerous, especially on a foggy day, lucky for me it was clear. So clear in fact, that we could see the bus from yesterday that crashed and rolled down the side of the mountain. Also clear enough to see Sapa as we approached.


We stopped and grabbed breakfast and some Vietnamese coffee in town. My guide, Nguyen, told me about the plans for the day and then the conversation turned more casual. I had a chance to look around a little before we would head out. This is a very cool, small, mountain town filled with people from the remote villages selling stuff. They all have a single English sentence down, “You buy from me”, however if you wish to converse with them beyond that you either need a translator, or pencil and paper to negotiate price as they can all read and write numbers.




Just outside of town is the old jail built by the French, the yellow color is a dead giveaway. Many of the French could not handle the summer heat of Hanoi and would run to the mountains to escape it, and when they were naughty they got to sleep here. Not a bad view, hope they got tortured, or it’s more of a vacation home rather than a jail.


The views from the town are amazing, stunning, and unlike anything I have ever seen, and my vacation home is in the mountain village of Whistler, British Columbia. I tried my best to capture this on hi-def video, but the beauty of this place can easily elude even the best camera’s of the future. We could see some of the first villages we would visit from Sapa. We could also see some of the peaks in Laos, now only 40 kilometers away.









On our way out of town we walked through the Sapa market. As I said before I was introduced to many new smells on this trip and the ones here can be classified as both unique and rather foul.


They have everything and anything for spells and potions. Stands with eye of newt, dragon scales, and other stuff you only read about, and then snake wine. I had heard about this from my friends who had traveled Vietnam in the past and now it was my time not only to see it but also try it. This is a type of white wine in which a cobra is placed in the bottle to ferment with the wine. If you are lucky you can find ones with a snake and a scorpion in there fermenting. I hate Pho noodle soup, the smell and taste of that sewer water, well snake wine is the wine equivalent of Pho noodle soup, tastes like sewer water. They claim its good for stiff joints and it was at this point, after seeing all the crazy things they put in their mouth or do whatever with, that I thought, these are all really just sources of the placebo effect. They think it heals them and thus their belief and minds ultimately heal them. I figured this out when later would see that snake wine is also good for the digestive system, running nose, and increased sexual performance. So I decided to pick up a few bottles to try and smuggle them back to the US, as it turns out, with success. They say not to have more than a small glass a day because of the vemon, but I think I’ll keep mine sealed as more of a conversation item.


Part of the smell comes from the fact that these people haul in all kinds of dead animals (water buffalo, goats, and yes dogs) and butcher them right there. Plus this meat sits out in the hot air all day long getting more foul every second , but I guess I was the only one to notice. They say durian fruit smells like rotting meat, but I have to disagree, the durian fruit smells like a whole field of heavenly scented daises compared to this. At this point, after a few dry heaves, I decided to strictly eat vegetarian for my remaining time in Vietnam. They sell every last bit of the animal too, no thanks, I don’t want to eat anything that can taste me back. For those who are truly interested I’ll have more “meat” coverage in my Sapa video.


We then left Sapa behind us and headed out on foot, the total hiking time would be a little over four hours, but it felt like eight in the scorching hot air. I added a layer of sunscreen on top of the filth that already covered me, plus this would soon turn to a rocky trail heading up over the mountains, for a bonus I carried my 18 kilo pack on my back (about 40lbs), but I still smelled better then the Sapa market. Along the way we stopped at Cat Cat village, home of the H’Mong Kinh people. Each tribe has their own language, own culture, and own style of clothing, even though they might be within sight of each other. Originally there were 24 villages outside of Sapa (the furthest being 10+ hiking hours away), however about three years ago a land slide took out an entire village, leaving them with 23 villages today.




Some did not mind being photographed, others hid from me, but I always asked my guide beforehand if it was OK to take a picture.


They even have “pluming”, a kind of Macgyver setup constructed out of bamboo.


This was a short stop before we headed off to the neighboring the village of Sin Chai, home of the traditional H’Mong people. The views on the way to the village are breathtaking, mostly because of the heat and the weight of my pack had me out of breath.




As we got to the village we saw this guy walking around.


And these guys working in the fields.






I took some time to rest and reflect on life with the village elders high on the mountain over looking Sin Chai village. This was the first time today that I realized I was experiencing something truly amazing, something that few ever get to experience, and something that I will never forget. I’m just some software guy from the US, sitting on a mountain with village elders, miles and miles away from everything, overlooking a village whose way of life has not change in ages.


I happened to travel through this village on the day of their election. Every village has a member of the communist party who stays in the village and relays the government’s vision. Guess who won this election? I then for the second time this day realized that I was experiencing the amazing that few would ever get to experience. Nguyen took me inside a house, they are all open to the air and it’s not a big deal to just walk inside with their way of life. As we walked in we saw that the man of the house was copying some documents by hand to distribute to the villages. I had my video camera running and Nguyen motioned for me to use some discretion. He then said that this was a member of the communist party and talked to him in Vietnamese which I would later find out they spoke about how Nguyen’s father was once a communist member before becoming upset with them and destroying his communist cards. With my video camera still running and hidden under my hat which I now held in my hand as a show of respect I took some time to capture his house and his work on video. I can’t tell you how I felt because even today I can’t fully comprehend what I experienced that moment, I just knew it was something very special. I asked Nguyen later if it was OK that I "secretly" taped the events to which he smiled and replied that the man did not see it or asked you to stop, so you are OK. Nguyen would later speak out against communism and I was quite surprised at how open he was to speaking out against the government, I guess even out here times are changing.


We then checked out the village school. This was really cool, kids just being kids, classrooms in the shade with the restroom outside away from it, and yes they all washed their hands. And they were all dressed in their traditional black, yet I was the one sweating bullets in a white t-shirt and shorts. To them it was a nice cool day.


For fun they played on stilts, had fake sword fights, and just ran around in a game of what I believe was tag.


While the teachers watched.


It was time to head to our final village for the day and get some rest. But that would only be after a long trail over the mountain.


As we hiked we passed some villagers returning with firewood.


85 years old and he still forages the jungle in search of firewood.


Nguyen, my guide just kept walking as I wondered how much longer is it now?


Finally we reached Ta Van, home to the H’Mong Day people. Simple farmers who live with a simple rule, whatever they take from the land they give back. Wow does that make sense, never taking more then they need to survive, enjoying life, nature, and each other. After spending some time with these people I realized something. I did not feel sorry for the little they have, nor did I feel grateful for everything I had. At this moment I was content with everything, they were happy and I was happy to have them be a part of my life, even if for only a day.










I would be staying in Ta Van for the night at the Sinfeng family house. This is as real and as authentic as it gets. The old man was quite funny, he spoke Vietnamese and French but he is getting old and sometimes forgets so he would start a sentence in Vietnamese and then finish it in French. Which would only have his wife giving him dirty looks as she only spoke Vietnamese. But with my guide I was able to enjoy their company and conversation like I have never experienced before, magic was happening.


They had an indoor kitchen for things that required no heat.


And an outdoor kitchen for the things that needed to be cooked with heat that was detached from the main house. The thing in the upper right is the skin from the face of a pig that would become tomorrow’s bacon.


Also detached from the house was the bathroom. This is basically an outhouse with slightly raised foot rests where you would stand on and then squat. No comfy porcelain to rest on while you read the morning news here.


Their daughter just had a baby and here she is with her six day old girl.


That night my life changed forever. We could not speak each other’s language, but still communicated, we ate, taught each other songs, and even did some dancing, and all without the aid of alcohol. I started to laugh, and for reasons that even today I cannot fully understand, but in a way it felt as if I was coming back to something that I had forgotten long ago. Some kind of primal instinct in which I knew that at this point everything was right in the world. These people opened their lives to me without question and I wanted to give them everything in return, I knew cash had no value, so I can only hope they enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed theirs. Tonight was the single most amazing experience of my life, I did not want it to end but knew we had more hiking come first light, more travels tomorrow and I should get some rest. So I headed up to the loft and found my bed, a mattress stuffed with straw, and made up with sheets and blankets that any New Yorker would pay millions for, complete with a mosquito net.


I was dirty and there were foreign smells and sounds in the air, yet tonight I would sleep well, not just well but great, yea, everything seems right in the world now.