Cloudlands

I have parked myself in one of the most incredible landscapes I have ever seen. Sapa is a well equipped tourist town perched on the side of the mountains in the far north west of Vietnam. It is freezing cold here. Cold enough for me to come home in the middle of the day and hop into bed, switch on the electric blanket and lay very still until my bones are defrosted. It’s so cold that I relented yesterday and bought socks, gloves, and a trekking jacket. Until yesterday I was wearing up to six shirts, two sarongs around my neck as scarves and two pairs of pants at a time. If I had more clothes here I would be wearing them too! 

The day I arrived in Sapa it was sunny and clear. I couldn’t believe the view from my hotel window as it swept across the valley overlooking rice paddies. I could smell the mountain air, so different from Bangkok and Hanoi. 

Sapa was established as a French Hill Station some time ago, and remnants of French architecture give this place a really gorgeous, interesting feel. Despite the misleading clear weather on my day of arrival, almost every other day has been completely alien. We are so high up in the mountains here that most of the time it is like living in a cloud. Each morning I wake up and look outside and through the window a bright white light glows – the sunshine coming through the cloud I’m inside – and I can see nothing else, nothing! 

On Chinese New Year’s Day the weather cleared, it was glorious. I trekked to some nearby villages (randomly met two European Social Workers!) and soaked up the silence and the sunshine. The silence was almost as good as the sun. It was the kind of silence that you get when you are in the country on Christmas day. The sound of contentment and nothing much happening, even the animals were quiet. I took a million photos, proof that there is a landscape through the clouds.

The next couple of days were cloudy again, clouds everywhere, clouds blowing in the hotel window while I lay in bed. Amazing stuff! Incredibly hard to photograph. Eventually I got fed up and decided to go trekking in the no-visibility conditions anyway. I met a Red Tzau woman in Sapa town. She had two gold teeth and I liked her sense of humour. We arranged to meet the next morning to trek to her village – no cost, just buy some handicrafts she said. I was so excited that I barely slept, but in the morning when I woke up the weather was the worst yet, rain and mist! I ventured into town to meet her, but try as I might I couldn’t find her. The weather was that bad, the visibility so poor, that I couldn’t even find her to postpone for another day. I hope she took one look outside and decided to stay in bed. I like the idea of that much more than thinking she was there sitting in the rain and clouds waiting for me to find her!

I did eventually manage another couple of treks, including one overnight trip to stay in a small village. Even through all the mist, maybe because of the mist, this is a really surreal place. I have spent nine days in Sapa. I didn’t intend on staying here this long, but the mountain magic has held onto me, and I don’t mind at all.