La première journée annonce la
couleur, avec environ 40 km d’ascension dans le brouillard et sous la pluie
pour un total de 1400 mètres de dénivelés. On
dirait que ca va grimper les prochains jours !...
The first day already gave us a good taste
of what we got our selves into… a continuous climb over 40 km in the fog and the
rain was definitely not an easy start! Let’s just hope it is not going to
continue like that…
On retrouve heureusement le
soleil dès le lendemain… La route, presque déserte, nous emmène petit à petit à
travers de sublimes décors, entre forêts de pins, rizières en terrasses,
cascades et montagnes vertigineuses. On y croise les paysans en train de
s’activer dans les rizières, les femmes assises devant leur maison pour coudre
ou bien les enfants à dos de buffles guidant les bêtes vers les champs. Et pour
la première fois au Vietnam, on profite de la nature sans les klaxons, quel
bonheur…
The following two weeks the conditions were
very variable ranging from a bright blue sky to foggy and rainy conditions. The
mountains were like rollercoaster, some difficult days of climbing, some essay
ones descending and others of going continuously up and down.
Constantly passing through small villages
and rice fields, we learned a lot about the everyday life of the traditional
Vietnamese life. We watched people planting rice, women sitting in front of
their houses embroidering traditional dresses and children riding buffalos to
the fields. We hardly saw any foreigners on the way and for the first time in
Vietnam we enjoyed the quietness of the roads… what a beauty!
En chemin, on croise
régulièrement des Hmong noirs portant d’impressionnants bijoux, des Dzao avec
leurs couvre-chefs rouge et bien d’autres montagnards en costumes traditionnels,
souvent très colorés. A quelques exceptions près, ils se laissent photographier
avec enthousiasme et nous saluent chaleureusement.
On the route we regularly passed some
ethnic minorities who joyfully greeted us and were eager to get photographed. Among
them were black Hmong with beautiful jewelry, red Dzao with red hair scarves
and other minorities with false hair and colorful traditional dresses.
On termine en beauté en atteignant
dans le brouillard le plus haut col franchissable du Vietnam, situé à 2000
mètres d’altitude, et après une ascension de 1400 mètres. Sapa est alors en vue
et met un point final à ces deux semaines d’effort.
The final day was another tough ride with
some bad road conditions, climbing a total of 1400m and crossing the highest
pass in Vietnam at a height of 2000m slowly getting surrounded by the fog.
After two weeks of pushing our selves again and again, we were glad to arrive
at our final destination: Sapa.
On arrive épuisés mais heureux de
pouvoir profiter a notre aise les jours suivants des vues splendides sur les
vallées entourant la ville. A moto ou à pied, on prend de la hauteur pour admirer
les flancs de montagnes modelés en terrasses pour y cultiver le riz. La plupart
des rizières sont d’un vert éclatant, d’autres offrent de jolis reflets en
attendant d’être plantées.
Located at 1600m, Sapa overlooks a
beautiful valley with cascading rice terraces. The surrounding scenery is home
to many minority villages. The tourist explosion has attracted many hill tribe
women and children to the city to offer their services as tourist guides and to
sell handicrafts to the tourists, unfortunately neglecting the children’s
education. It is not rare to see one or two tourists surrounded by a massive
crowd of traditionally dressed women walking the surrounding rice fields.
We escaped this circus by renting out a
motorbike and trekking to get off the beaten track a little bit. Everywhere we
turned to, the views were just amazing! The green of the cascading rice fields
was overwhelming and their reflections in the water made up for some great
picture opportunities!
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