Sapa is a small town in the Hoang Lien Son Mountains in northwestern Vietnam. I took a seven hour sleeper bus from Hanoi and arrived there at around 7pm. Little did I know it would be another two hours of driving on a (very unsafe seeming) cliff side dirt road and having to walk half a mile in the dark because the car couldn’t cross a bridge before making it to my hostel in the tiny village of Ta Van. I was feeling pretty worn out and sick of buses and traveling by the time I went to sleep under my mosquito net in Sapa, but the morning view reminded me why it was all worth it.
This was my breakfast view. Be jealous. 
The view from my room.
After my huge breakfast with a view (awesome) I set out for a hike through the rice terraces. I attempted to follow a map (see below) drawn out by the owner of the hostel, but it was an epic fail. On the way, I met a French backpacker who was also attempting to hike without a guide. He barely spoke any English so we mostly communicated through google translate, but we worked together to find any semblance of a trail. After asking for directions only to be stared at blankly by local villagers, falling and sliding in the mud a lot, and literally running away from persistent local guides who wanted us to pay them to show us the trail, our supposedly 3 hour hike took 7 hours. The views were worth it though, and I think getting lost so much meant we saw more than we would have had we been more competent (bright side).
The least helpful map ever created. 
The guide that my French companion and I ran from. (yes, she is a small, older woman. Don’t judge!) 
Muuuddddd (about the same amount that ended up on my clothes when I fell). 
Beautiful rice paddies. 
Let’s all just admit I should be a pro photographer, right? 
Look at the views!! 
SWAG.
We ended up near a cute little restaurant (at the top of a very steep hill) where we enjoyed noodle soup with a view of the rice terraces. It was a bit weird to be eating above where workers were plowing the rice fields, but it was overall a good day.
Fearless kids leading water buffalo wherever water buffalo go. 
These people work HARD. 
After 7 hours this soup tasted like heaven (and the cold beer wasn’t so bad either).
😀