Bicycle ride to Ta Phin

The road to Ta Phin

Our last day in Sa Pa, we leave tonight on the night train back to Hanoi, we've done enough trekking so we decided to hire some bikes and go off on our own. We got two mountain bikes via the hotel 30,000 VND for the pair, what's more the brakes and the gears work (that's a first!), what a bargain.

Colour clash in the rice fields

Our route starts from Sa Pa and goes downhill on the main road for a few kilometres before turning off towards Ta Phin on a minor road.

Looking towards Sa Pa

A little way along this road is a ruined monastery where some Nuns lived until the second world war, we stopped to have a look at this and were waylaid by the inevitable ladies selling souvenirs. Just two of them this time and they weren't too pushy so I had a chat with them and came to a deal, I would buy a small item off each of them, as long as I could take their picture.

Red Dao Ladies

These are from the Red Dao people, their main village is Ta Phin, which is where we were headed. After our stop at the monastery we continued towards Ta Phin, a nice little village with an amazing main street, not the usual mud, but bedrock, worn smooth, but still very bumpy!

Herbs, spices and medicines

We stopped for lunch here at a homestay/cafe/shop in the centre of town, apparently the Red Dao are famous for their herbal medicines including baths, the cafe owner wanted to show us his bath, very odd, but I think it was just another sales ploy.

So where does that water go

After lunch we started the return journey along a small road though the rice fields, all very nice until it started to go uphill. After two kilometres we hit the main road back to Sa Pa where a sign told us we had just three more kilometres (of uphill) to go. Evening meal and showers in Sa Pa before getting a taxi to Lao Cai and the night train to Ha Noi. Not the best nights sleep ever as someone joined our room at one a.m. and left again at four thirty.