Trekking in the ricefields of Sapa in Northern Vietnam
Sapa is a gorgeous little town in Northern Vietnam, quite close to the Chinese boarder. It's somewhere in the middle of nowhere up in the misty mountains, surrounded by endless evergreen rice terraces.
Most people come here for trekking. Local Hmong women will pick you up at your guesthouse and walk with you through the ricefields to their village. Usually you spend the night at their home and have dinner with them. Next day you return back to Sapa.
Honestly, after 12 hours in the night bus I didn't feel like walking at all. And I've had my local homestay experience in different places before, so I was mainly looking forward to getting a good of night of sleep and some decent food in town.
Next day I decided to just walk by myself for a bit. You can do that easily without a guide, really. I followed a road downhill for about 2 hours, enjoying all those different types of greens while walking through beautiful nature and rice fields.
If you are confident driving a scooter I highly recommend renting one for a day or two. You will be able to follow all those windy roads and landscape will become more and more beautiful the further you get away from town.
At some point I arrived at a small village. Time to get lunch and a delicious Vietnamese coffee. And this guy was looking at me, but I have a weakness for water buffaloes 😍
If you have some time left and you are looking for a quiet and peaceful place to relax for a few days - Sapa is definitely the place where you want to be. Make sure you go in the right season though, it can get pretty cold up there ❄