An active day was in the agenda and we started off by hiking up Ham Rong mountain that is located in the middle of sapa offering great views of the city and valley. Part of the park has been turned into a garden and has a few touristy photo opportunities. All in all a fun climb in the cool morning.
We wandered down from the mountain and set out with the intention to walk down into the valley and visit a couple local villages. The walk to the villages was longer than the tourist map suggested, very dusty due to alot of road construction, and hot as the majority of the walk was exposed to the midday sun. The views down into the valley were lovely despite the dust and the haze. Eventually we arrived in Linh Ho and were less than impressed. The town had very little authenticity left and seemed to be a string of restaurants along the river. We stopped for a fruit smoothie at a place that had terrible service and only a mediocre smoothie.
We continued our walk through a second town, Lao Chai, this one was definitely nicer but still very much a place full of home stays and restaurants to try and convince tourists to come down and stay in the valley. We are very happy with our decision to stay in Sapa as many people recommended staying in the villages in the valley. After spending a few hours walking through a couple villages it we had seen more than we desired. We found a cab outside of the town and enjoyed the air conditioned ride back out of the valley.
Dinner that night was devoured as we tried to recover some of the calories lost during the 13 miles of walking done that day.
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| Pig was happy eating in a rice field just off the deck of where we had a smoothie |
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| Rock formations on top o the mountain |
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| Stone Church at night |
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