Whether on Pinterest or Google, there are thousands of pictures of beautiful Sa Pa out there, but almost all are from June-August, due to it being the Summer holidays of most Western tourists visiting, and also because it’s when the rice is fully grown and ready for harvest, which makes for an incredibly picturesque spectacle to behold.
However, visiting Sa Pa off-season (in my case April) turned out to have several advantages: The crowds are obviously smaller, you’re able to follow the farmers in their preparatory work on the steep hill sides and because there is no rice yet you are able to walk on the edges of the actual paddy-fields, making for a very immersed and intimate hike.
Even though there are fewer people around during off-season, there are still a lot! Luke and I decided to book a private guided hike, because it was only slightly more expensive, and we really wanted to enjoy the views without too many people around. Our local Black Hmong-guide, was only 20 years old but already had two sons, one of which was with us on our hike – not carried by his mom, but by his granny! I was hugely impressed by the fitness level of our guide’s mom, seeing as she was able to seemingly easily hike at the same tempo as us even though she was about 50 years old, carrying a 2-year old baby on her back and did not wear shoes that even resembled sneakers!
With us on the hike were also two other older ladies, who knew the ins and outs of the route and even helped me with my balance a few times! They were very sweet but I was fairly clueless as to why they were with us, until our guide told us that we were expected to buy something from them afterwards. A pattern then started to emerge with more and more women and girls, never men or boys, would start to follow us on our trek. Luke and I felt uncomfortable turning so many of them down, but we knew that we wouldn’t have space in our tiny and already full backpacks for local handicrafts, even though we wanted to help them out. After speaking with our guide we were also instructed to not buy anything from the children, because their parents then would be encouraged to keep them on the trails instead of on the school bench.
We ended up buying two small wallets from the two women that had accompanied us on the hike (which was what our bags and own wallets could manage), but had to turn down an army of others who expected us to buy something from them as well. It brought out a mixed bag of emotions in us, but as long as you are prepared for it the beauty of the intricate, mountainous rice fields and the first-hand experience of seeing and meeting people from several local tribes make it all worth while!