Our journey to Sapa began on the overnight train from Hanoi. We managed to get some sleep and woke the following morning to a completely different Vietnam. Gone was the heat and chaos of Hanoi. Outside were mountains, mist and cool air, and it all felt rather wonderful.

On the train we met Maria and Hans, two German travellers who were also heading to Sapa. We got on well and before long the four of us had decided to do some trekking together.

The walking around Sapa was spectacular. Narrow tracks wound their way through enormous terraced rice fields, past streams, waterfalls and small villages scattered across the mountainsides.

The weather changed constantly. One minute the valley would open up in front of us with views stretching for miles, and the next a bank of mist would roll in and most of it would disappear.

There was also mud.

Quite a lot of mud.

Some of the tracks that were rather casually described as walking paths involved considerably more slipping and scrambling than I had anticipated, but the scenery made it well worth the effort.

As we walked through the mountains we passed through H’mong and Red Dao villages. The women wore beautifully embroidered traditional clothing, often in brilliant colours that stood out against the green of the mountains.

We stopped along the way for tea, wandered through villages and watched people going about their everyday lives. It was these little encounters, rather than any one particular sight, that made the trekking so memorable.

One of our best nights came when we ended up having dinner in a local stilt house.

We sat on the wooden floor eating grilled meat, fresh herbs, sticky rice and a seemingly endless procession of dishes.

Then the rice wine appeared.

Local rice wine comes in small glasses, which might lead you to think it is relatively harmless.

It isn’t.

The glasses kept being refilled and before too long somebody produced a karaoke machine.

Things went downhill fairly quickly from there.

Soon everyone was singing, including us. Our Vietnamese pronunciation was dreadful, our singing probably worse, but by then nobody seemed particularly concerned.

There was a lot of laughing, a lot of very bad karaoke and considerably more rice wine than was sensible.

It was a great night.

Back in Sapa we spent time wandering through the markets, which were full of colourful textiles, silver jewellery, vegetables, tea and all sorts of things we didn’t actually need.

We attempted to bargain.

We weren’t especially good at it.

Nevertheless, we somehow ended up leaving with woven scarves, tea and a few other bits and pieces.

Sapa was one of those places that was very easy to like.

It wasn’t just the mountains or the rice terraces, although both were beautiful. It was the mist rolling through the valleys, the villages, the people we met, the muddy tracks and evenings that somehow ended with far too much rice wine and karaoke.

It was completely different from the Vietnam we had seen so far, and we were very glad we had made the trip north.