Sa Pa

The road winds up and up, on and on. Then, at one bend, the whole car seems to slip straight into the clouds. The air turns cool all at once. As the clouds part, the rooftops of Sa Pa appear. The town sits at an average height of 1,500 to 1,800 meters, and clouds drift around its streets almost all the time.

More than a century ago, this highland already had a name on French paperwork. In 1903, the Geographic Service of Indochina called the place Cao trạm Sa Pa, the Sa Pa high station. As for the name Sa Pa itself, local people tell a story about it. They say the place was once called Cha Pa, meaning a sandbank, and the French pronounced it wrongly as Sa Pa. Linguists have not settled the question, but the story is a lovely one: a sandbank lying in the middle of the sky.

Six years later, in 1909, the French resident in charge of Lào Cai proposed building a sanatorium on the Sa Pa high station. It would care for the health of the French army and receive foreign visitors. The French chose the Hùng Hồ area as the center, because the land there was flat, the scenery was beautiful and the climate was cool. By 1943, the center of Sa Pa had as many as 200 villas and other buildings. That is how a hill resort town was born among the high mountains.

Today, a square lies in the middle of Sa Pa, and right at the edge of the square stands the Stone Church. The church was built of stone in the shape of a cross, in the Gothic style, and Hàm Rồng mountain shelters it from behind. Its stained glass windows represent the 14 Stations of the Cross. Through all the changes in this mountain town, that old building still looks quietly out over the square.

Stand there and take a deep breath, and it becomes clear why the French loved this place. The average temperature in Sa Pa is only about 15 to 18 degrees Celsius. In the Hoàng Liên mountain forests right next door, winter temperatures often drop below zero, bringing ice and even snow.

About 2 kilometers from the center lies Cát Cát, an old village of the Hmong people, beside Tiên Sa waterfall. The houses here have three rooms, and their frames stand on round or square stone slabs. The people of Cát Cát grow hemp to weave cloth, then dye the cloth with indigo. Once dyed, the cloth is polished by rolling a round log over a flat stone smeared with beeswax. The village also keeps the craft of silver engraving, and its finest work is women's jewelry.

The road leads farther still, to the Mường Hoa valley, about 10 kilometers from the center. The Mường Hoa stream runs a long way along the foot of the mighty Hoàng Liên range. On both sides of the stream lie rice terraces, step after step, hugging the hillsides. Hundreds of years ago, the hard-working hands of the Hmong, the Dao and the Giáy shaped each of those fields on the steep slopes. These farmers then brought water down from the peaks to grow rice.

In 2013, the Sa Pa rice terraces were recognized as a national scenic heritage site. They cover 749 hectares across the lands of Lao Chải and Tả Van. They reach into Hầu Thào as well. In late August and early September, when the rice ripens, the whole valley seems covered in a layer of shining gold.

In the middle of that valley lies the village of Tả Van. More than 150 households live there, most of them Giáy people, in small wooden houses among the hills and rice terraces. Many families open their doors to guests who stay the night. Staying one night here means sleeping in a village with a crystal-clear stream running right through it.

In another direction lies Tả Phìn, where the Red Dao keep a herbal bath remedy. In the Dao language it is called Đìa zảo xin. The remedy began as soaking baths prepared for mothers after giving birth and for newborn babies. Each batch can hold from 10 to 120 different kinds of medicinal leaves and stems. A wooden tub full of hot leaf water, in the chill of the mountains, is a gentle gift the forest gives to people.

And above it all stand the forests of Hoàng Liên National Park. It is an ASEAN Heritage Park, with a cold temperate climate. In these forests, people have found nearly 3,000 kinds of plants and more than 500 kinds of land animals with backbones. Someone who met one new plant each day would need nearly eight years to greet them all. One tree is found only around the summit of Fansipan. It is the Fansipan fir, which grows on mountain cliffs higher than 2,600 meters.

The highest peak in the park is Fansipan, 3,143 meters above sea level, and it is called the Roof of Indochina. In the past, reaching the summit meant two days of climbing. Since 2016, a cable car from the Mường Hoa valley has cut that trip to about 15 minutes. From the cabin, a rider watches the forests and mountains drift away below, then clouds slide past the glass. The road to the sky turns out to be much closer than it seemed.

More than a century after that proposal for a sanatorium, the whole Sa Pa area has been planned as a national tourist area, covering more than 68,000 hectares. But for the Hmong of Cát Cát, this place is still home first of all. So it is for the Giáy people of Tả Van. So it is for the Red Dao of Tả Phìn. For all of them, it is a home with fields, streams and forests.

On the way out, the road twists back through its bends. One last look back, and the Mường Hoa valley has already sunk into a sea of white cloud. Only a few rice terraces peek out, like steps leading up to a place no one can see. Then the clouds close behind, and the sandbank in the sky keeps its streams, its houses and its terraced fields to itself.