Sapa

Choice views of Fansipan are the prime commodity on sale in Lao Cai's signature destination, Sapa, a hill station high in the mountains which is a vestige of the French colonial era.

Before the French came, Sapa was home to several ethnic minorities, and now that the French are gone — they're still there. Dzao, Red H'mong, and particularly Black H'mong have adapted to the tourist trade with considerable zeal, and their notoriously aggressive sales techniques should probably be attributed to how poor the region is, and how hard it is to eke out any kind of a living.

Sapa ranks along Ha Long Bay and Hoi An in terms of attracting tourists solely on the merit of its natural beauty and surrounding attractions. It's particularly rich in opportunities for treks, homestays, and (on clear days) the kinds of panoramic views that leave travel writers searching for fresh adjectives.

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 textile goods. 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.

Sapa is sharply stratified — almost all the businesses in town are owned and staffed by Viet Kinh, and the only trade the tribes do is on the streets in the form of handicrafts, fruits and vegetables.

The fact that the tribes continue to live a very basic existence is partly economic and partly cultural. To them, a rice field, a garden, some cattle and a stilt house are all the prosperity they ever hoped for, going back countless generations. Homestays in these same stilt houses are very popular, of course, though some villages are more 'authentic' than others. The most-easily accessed destinations feel more like 'theme resorts' for tourists, where they get to rough it local-style, though technically they are real villages. But if you venture to the more remote hamlets, they offer fascinating glimpses of lifestyles seemingly stolen from history.

Life is probably better for the tribes than it once was, but it still takes all day to make a few dollars profit. Despite the steady flow of tourists, supply far outweighs demand. You may notice that if you wander beyond the last tourist-oriented business on any street, there are precious few businesses thriving on local dollars alone. In a sense, it's not really a town at all — the tribes live elsewhere and come into town to do business — often trudging along on foot for hours — or nowadays just as likely to jump on the back of a motorbike . The ethnic Vietnamese, for their part, are from other cities in Vietnam. Many live in cheap, shabby rooms but it still takes a lot of postcards and sweet potatoes to make the monthly rent. And there are few other options: other than family farming, since there are no major industries in the area aside from tourism.

To describe Sapa as 'over-touristed' is a bit beside the point, since that is the sine qua non of its existence — something to think about when you are having brocade thrust into your hands or being dragged against your will into a shop. Visitors are often surprised by both the ruthless selling prowess and candour of the minorities. If you feel you've just been cursed in Hmong after refusing to buy, rest assured, you probably have. But their cunning and sales routines come just as naturally as their giggles and smiles. The Hmong in particular are as tough as they are sweet and naive as they are savvy. Patience, curiosity and a sense of humour are requisite attributes for all visitors.