Published:  17:41 Tuesday - October 08, 2013

I sit gently to view sudden rains in cloud through streets. On the streets, umbrellas are passing, which creates colorful rivers. In Sapa’s summer, it is so cool in early mornings and sky is covered with white foggy. In the mid-day when it shines clouds are wiped out and the sky will become purely blue. In the evening, it can be surrounded by clouds, sudden clouds and rains water the flowers in front of houses or dampen umbrella and ricky ways to Sapa church.

A day in Sapa includes all of the four seasons: spring, summer, fall and winter, which can make people who unintentionally forget coats shudder with cold or fists are closer in nights.

Way to Sapa through moutain hills and through bobbing clouds 

Going to Sapa is so easy now. The train overnight from Hanoi to Lao Cai with many arrivals and many tickets both in sitting and lying. Tourists can get to Lao Cai mountainous town in early sunrise. Transportation cars  in Lao Cai-Sapa route are ready to pick up tourists. It costs you 30 thousand dong to travel by car thrug slopes, valleys of clouds and terraced fields in transplanting season, Sapa is in far away, after passing clouds and pine forests about 40 kilometers with one-hour driving, we are among clouds and sky.

Sapa is unchanged as its image of many years ago. There is still Sapa church lonely in cold foggy and standing still weekly market and houses with verandas looking at slopes. In brocatelle markets, the black Mong children speak both Vietnamese and English to welcome guests and tourists.

Each time when I travel to Sapa, I always stay at the familiar hotel which has a side to look the valley of clouds and a side to look to the field of corns. I walk and elbow myself into the crowds in never-ending streets and then drop in by a low restaurant or wander in verandas to eat baked corns and potatoes. In the end of my walk, I often reward me a cup of café in a small shop.

A Dao woman is completely wrapped up in her embroidering 

Café is simply café. However, tourists can taste café in a corner of the town to take an overview to the long street below or launch your eyes to the church and valley in distance. In streets, the crowds are constantly passing: a couple of foreign people in the colorful coats are stepping into a brocatelle stall, a Mong girl is sitting with her chin in her hands or a young couple are stepping from the market with so much chayote peaks in their hands. Maybe they will leave Sapa today.

A crowds of 5 to 6 people who are walking and happily chatting together occasionally stops to take photos. A car, which just stops at the corner of the town, park and go rapidly. Some tourists have just got off from the car, their hands and legs are covered with mud because they have conquered Fanxipang summit which is commonly considered as the roof of the Indochina. Their faces are not merely covered with tiredness because the way they smile shines the pride of their conquers.