My two favorite activities are writing blog and traveling. So I was ecstatic when my friend who was working for Eviva Tour Vietnam invited me to spend a week at his company as a visiting blog trainer. Hence this was the first time I visited Viet Nam; I wanted to see as much as I possibly could. So I began planning a 10 day trip to explore the Vietnamese culture and beauty, as well as visiting the company in Hanoi.
After a long flight, I landed in Noi Bai airport, and immediately went to the North in a train at night. I shared a sleeper cabin with a Swede couple, and a girl from China. They were all very nice, and we chatted for hours before going to bed.
At around 5:30AM, I woke up at Lao Cai train station, and found a car to drive me to Sapa. It took an hour through foggy, small and winding roads, to the town of Sapa. The mountain town was a colorful carpet with green terraced rice paddies, colorful flowers fields, markets glowed green with leafy vegetables. And I could see groups of local women wearing their customary handmade and selling embroidered bags and scarfs for tourists. I love the fresh air and the peaceful life in this high land.
I spent the next three days trekking, eating special food and taking photographs in the countryside surrounding Sapa. My local travel guide was A Sang, a wonderful and strong man from the Hmong tribe. He spoke English well thanks to years of guiding western tourists around Sapa. He took me to waterfalls, jungles, terraced fields, small villages, across precarious bridges and along mountain trails.
I had an amazing trip to Sapa, but it was time to prepare myself for the training week at Eviva.
Tour Vietnam. Hope you will have a good trip.
by Elisabet Lydia Flascha (GERMANY)
