One of the aspects that make a trip memorable is the people you meet and the conversation you have with them. I’m not that outgoing and it’s beyond my comfort zone to start up conversations with random strangers I meet during a trip. However, usually when I did have a conversation with someone, often times that turned into an interesting discussion especially when the other person was as interested in a particular topic or shared something in common with me. Sometimes what it takes is a conversation starter and the courage to approach others. Then those who were strangers before can become your friends, even for just a short period of time.

During our time staying in Sapa, Vietnam, we stayed at a hotel that had many foreign guests. In most cases each group of guests went on their own, and didn’t really mingle with others. But after staying for a couple of days, there were some that we came across in many different places at the hotel or somewhere else in Sapa.

When we were done with our trek to Cat Cat village, we decided to spend the remaining three hours we had available before the journey back to Hanoi at the Sapa Rooms Hotel restaurant. We had not had lunch, and it’s a cozy place to hang out (plus we already checked out from our room and our luggages were at the hotel’s front desk). Since it was late afternoon, most of other guests were already left of were out and about. For some time, Kristi and I had the whole lounge/restaurant area for ourselves. It was nice to stretch our legs after walking on the trek for the last few hours. We ordered some appetizers and drinks from the restaurant — only in less than two days we became quite a fan of their mixed fruit juice creations that we looked forward to try out different kinds while we were still there.

Not long after, a couple came to sit at the table next to ours. They looked familiar — we saw them for the first time the previous day when we were driving back to Sapa Rooms from the Hmong Mountain Retreat after finishing our trek. This couple stayed at the Hmong Mountain Retreat the night before, so they shared the same minivan ride with us back to Sapa. We also saw them in the morning when we came down to check out from our room. It looked like they were in similar situation like ours — on their last day in Sapa and having to spend the day in town before heading back to Hanoi at night.

As we were enjoying our appetizers, I took out my camera to review the photos I took in the morning during our trek. The gentleman sitting at the next table saw that, and made a quick comment: ‘That’s a nice lens you have there. I’m a Canon shooter too.’ (referring to the 24-70mm f/2.8 L lens I had on my Canon DSLR — a workhorse lens that is very recognizeable among the Canon DSLR users given its distinguishing red ring). I said thanks to the compliment, and before long we started talking about our photography gears that we brought for the trip. Then I learned that he and his wife (their names were Andrew and Cathy) were from Sydney, Australia, and they’re doing a tour of Northern Vietnam for a couple of weeks. They had been staying at Sapa Rooms for a couple of nights, though for one of the nights they decided to try out the new secluded property that Sapa Rooms proprietor just opened up in nearby village called Hmong Mountain Retreat. Overall they seemed to enjoy their stay like we did. They had done several treks during the three days they were in Sapa, so they shared a little bit about their experience which was slightly different but largely had similar highlights as ours. They also had May as their tour guide for one of the treks, and they liked her as well.

We ended up spending the next couple hours together at the restaurant chatting and enjoying our food, and afterwards we ended up going together on the same minivan ride to head to Lao Cai for the journey back to Hanoi on train.

Here is Cathy and Andrew at the Sapa Rooms restaurant area. You can see the nice ambience of the restaurant seating area that was very cozy to stay, and having friendly people to talk to and share experience with made it even better. I’m glad Andrew started the conversation, because otherwise we would’ve been sitting in that big room on our own and treat each other as complete strangers and wouldn’t have the enjoyable conversation to share the experience.

Sapa Rooms is a boutique hotel in the resort town of Sapa in Northern Vietnam. We found Sapa Rooms on TripAdvisor. Aside from generally excellent reviews from the past guests, there were mentions about the emphasis from the owner and staff to be ‘ethically responsible’ and make positive impact to the local economy, so that was a good starting place to check it out.

I had an email correspondence with Pete, the owner/manager of the hote, to arrange our visit. He provided us with really good information about the hotel, transportation option from/to Hanoi, and the trekking tours we could take there. In the end, we decided to book the transportation from/to Hanoi (train tickets between Hanoi and Lao Cai, and passenger van transit between Lao Cai and Sapa) and the hotel rooms through them (plus the trekking tours arranged through their front desk once we got there). The cost for the transportation option might be a bit more expensive in comparison to what you could get if you do it yourself, but considering the potentially confusing process of getting train tickets at the station, and then getting a ride between Lao Cai and Sapa at early morning or early evening, it’s worth paying the extra cost.

The trip between Hanoi and Sapa was an interesting experience that I wrote about in the last few days. When we finally arrived in Sapa, the driver dropped us off at the hotel. Since we arrived before our room was ready for check in, we waited at the hotel’s lounge/restaurant area and were served complimentary breakfast.

Our room for the one night stay was a large suite with a king-sized and full-sized bed plus separate shower and bathroom — it was large enough for a family of 4-5 to stay. The room was very nicely decorated and very cozy, definitely perfect for resting after spending time outdoors trekking in cold and wet weather. We were able to freshen up at got a little rest before we continued on with the day.

The photo below was taken in our room. You can see the two beds inside the large but cozy room.