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Mountaintop Sapa began life as a hilltop retreat for French colonists desperate to escape the searing heat of the Vietnamese plains. They chose the lofty cool of Fansipan's surrounds, and it's easy to see why -- the humidity of Hanoi peels away as you ascend the mountain peaks skirted with finely-sculptured, emerald-green rice terraces.
If you're only in Sapa for a few days, be forewarned that the views do not come with a money-back guarantee. The 'best' time to visit Sapa is in the summer months of August to December, when skies are more likely to be clear. These months are rainier but they are also warmer, and sometimes you can't beat a nice summer rain for atmosphere -- showers are typically brief, but it pours in buckets. Winter can be cold, foggy, and rainy, but every three or four days, the weather clears and the views are more gorgeous than they are any other time of year. No matter what time of year you arrive, Sapa has its drawbacks and advantages. Your top priority when selecting a room in January and February should be heat. Some places have electric blankets or heaters built into the bed frame, but that means the rest of the room is going to be freezing. Electric space heaters are better, and best yet, many places come with wood-burning fire-places. Make sure the fireplace works before you hand over your passport -- some we saw were only ornamental.
Here you can come into close contact with a multitude of ethnic minorities. Chief among them are the Black Hmong, so named partly because their dress is black, ornamented with colourful brocade and silver jewellery, but mostly because of their black, fez-like headgear. The Red Hmong dress in black as well, but the women wrap up their hair in a red scarf bedecked with silver-beaded tassels. The Dzao also have distinctive headwear -- a pile of coiled, braided hair, with an elaborate, rectangular ornament of silver metal sticking out of the top. They will happily remove their headdress for tourists to show that it's just a hat and not their real hair.
Since the advent of tourism these tribes have reinvented themselves as hawkers of handmade trinkets and retailers of goods made by the Flower Hmong, who live elsewhere in the province. They are the genuine 'native' inhabitants of the area, and they clearly regard all of the political nonsense that has been going on for the past 1,000 years as background noise. People invading and leaving. Governments coming and going. Many tribes straddle the border with China, which they ignore, circulating freely on both sides. As far as they are concerned, the lowland ethnic Vietnamese who have shown up in recent years to make a buck are simply arrivistes.
Binh Lan Hotel
Hieu Thao Hotel
Doan Long Hotel
Hoa Dao Hotel
Dai Duong Hotel
Mountain View Hotel
Hoang Long Hotel
Southern Hotel
Giac Mo Hong (Pink Dream) Hotel
Violet Hotel
Viet Hoa Hotel
Tulip Guesthouse
Sapa Golden Sea Hotel
Anh Dao Hotel
Lotus HotelHere are some discussions off the Travelfish forum, perhaps related to Sapa. You can find the full forum here.
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