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Jump to the full entry & travel map Sapa and Hanoi, VietnamPeople, Ellen among them, sit in the lobby each morning with giddy smiles on their faces waiting for guides to appear with their routes. I study them all with anxiety hoping we'll be grouped together with the older or out of shape. Sadly, most are physically fit. I don't ask what our route will be. I know I'm not going to like it.We're in the town of Sapa, Vietnam, in the Tonkinese Alps. (The dot on the map north-west of Hanoi, near the Chinese border.) The only reason people come to Sapa is for trekking, a sexy word for walking up and down hills. It's not that I'm unfit and can't handle these five hour, 10-12 km daily hikes in the sun over boulders, through streams and water buffalo stool, it's simply that trees, pot-bellied pigs rolling in mud and up-close terraced... [read full story]
