Taking a little break from writing about heart stuff.  Here’s one of my favorite places…

After walking across the border from China into Lao Cai, a border town in northwest Vietnam, it was a fairly short trip to the “frontier town” of Sapa.  Sapa (or Sa Pa) is the capital of the Sa Pa District in the Lào Cai Province of Vietnam. It is one of the main market towns in the area, so it is routinely visited by members of the local Hill Tribes, some of the many ethnic minorities who reside in Vietnam.

Sapa was under French colonial rule for quite some time and provides an interesting fusion of Vietnamese-French-Hill Tribe cultures.  It’s a popular first stop for travelers moving south from China.