I will confess I am both struggling to settle on a story structure for this part of the trip as well as just finding the time to cull through a thousand photos that make the story make sense … but I’ll give it go, she’ll be right. The experiences are happening at such a clip that it gets hard to remember even by the time I get back to hotel. The days are long with little down time, so writing has been a challenge.

At the very minimum you’ll get to see some good photos.

Around Sapa there are a number of small villages that are still very traditional in their way of life. There are four main ethnic groups in the Sapa area that have interesting and unique cultural traditions:

• The Hmong (52%)
• Red Dao (25%)
• Tay (5%)
• Giay (2%)

Getting to see and experience these tribes was one of the reasons that I really wanted to do this route.

It was cool and foggy when we showed up at the hotel, I could barely see a thing out my window. Sapa is know for its fog.

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Ride 1: 48 km, 1010 m. ascent

After we had made it to the hotel from the train, we got our gear ready for the ride. I had a bit of a panic as my stem on my rear wheel was not sealing properly. Luckily, I had brought extra stems, so I quickly changed it and all was good. It is a bit stressful to bring your own bike as you are responsible for it working properly. It wasn’t a long ride for the day, but it did end with a big climb back up to Sapa.

Thao, our guide, lived in the Sapa area and he wanted to make sure we got to see how some of the villagers lived. We headed out and down the steep drop. Luckily the fog had burned off enough that we got a pretty nice view of the valley below. At all the view stops, there was a crowd of women selling stuff. They are quite friendly but definitely work the hard sales pitch. They let me take their pictures, so I felt a bit obliged to buy something from at least one of them. I am now the proud owner of an embroidered neck purse.

We dropped down the base of the valley and worked our way through a number of villages. It was fun riding as we were on little tracks without cars. There were quite a few tourists that were out on day treks through the area.

We headed back up and out of the valley on a narrow track. As I tried to shift into my lowest gear, it went too far and ended up wedged between my cluster and my spokes. Ugh. Never a good state of affairs. True to the nature of the Vietnamese, a dude came out of his shop and started to help me get it unstuck. Clearly, I had not checked out the derailleur well enough before heading out.

The Black Hmong are one of 5 tribes with the Hmong group. They are called this, evidently, because of the color of clothes they wore. At the higher altitudes around Sapa, the only dye they could make came from the indigo plant. After the shifting/chain debacle was resolved, we stopped in a place that made traditional Black Hmong clothing.

We continued along a small track that had some great views down the valley. It was really nice relaxed riding.

We continued along the path for a while and then up a steep grinder. The views were stunning. Sadly, the rice had already been harvested so the fields weren’t as picturesque as they can be, but it was still pretty darn lovely.

We got back on the bikes and headed back toward Sapa which required riding up a Category 2 climb with a pretty extended 15% grade. I was quite a bit faster than Thao, so told him I was just going to ride ahead at my own pace. It was the first introduction into the challenging riding that makes up Northern Vietnam.

We walked down to dinner and celebrated a wonderful first ride. I think all of us were thrilled to have a guide that really wanted to show us the local culture.