Sapa Again! Festival, Cafe, Sapa O'Chau. Sapa.

Well I'll skip the bits about how or why, but im now back in Sapa. Spending time with Sông and doing some volunteer work for a group called Sapa O’Chau (O’chau means Thank you in Hmong). You may have seen the link at the top of my blog. Ill tell you a bit more about them later in this post.

I arrived back in Sapa just towards the end of Tet and there were loads of festivals and parties on in the small villages.

All dressed in traditional cloths ;)

The festivals all had lots of activities and things to and everyone was dressed in there traditional cloths. It was a lot of fun and there was almost no other foreigners. I went along with Sông and her friends to 2 main festivals.

The Festivals start out with Tug of war, groups of 10 men on each side of a road in a rice field trying to pull the others over the line. Well it had been raining so you can imaging the mud.

There is also a climbing pole with candy at the top, the pole is a large bamboo pole and its easy at first but get harder as you climb up. The entire day only 1 man made it to the top. The kids got close but as you can see on this boys face it was hard yaka.

There’s also “love tag” normally played with a duck but this time they only had a goat, 2 people (normally a man and a women) are blind folded in a ring with a duck and have to catch the duck (his case a goat). The thing is people are screwing out where the duck is and more often then not the 2 players run into each other. Much to the crowds amusement…

To end the festival a paper circle is placed some 15m high on a bamboo pole, the people then throw small bags of compressed sand with a string attached up in the air at high speed to pierce the paper. Doing so officially ends the Tet week for the village.

Smart kids walking on
stilts to see above the crowd.

It was amazing to see 2000+ H’mong and Zao people at the festival and I had a great time.

But back in sapa,

The center was started by a lady called “Shu Tan”, she’s a local Black Hmong who grew up without a typical education and selling trinkets to tourists in the streets of Sapa. 

Shu and Victoria
(a volunteer who helped start the Cafe)

With the help of some foreigners she opened a boarding school for the local tribes in sapa. A place where they can come and live during the week and learn English and math’s. Then trek back to there villages on the weekend (some up to 12km away even more).

The center is not government funded and relies on charity dontations from tourists (up until 2 weeks ago), recently they opened a café.

Volunteers and Staff at the new cafe

The café is now not only a place to met and learn about the project but also a training center for those children who don’t want to become trekking guides but work in hotels and restaurants. It also introduces them to business structure, contracts and computer as well as running a budget and customer interaction. All these things to try and give the kids a better future and all volunteer.

You can read more on there website: sapaochau.org, or see the link at the top of my Blog. Any help is always welcomed, or if you come to visit vietnam, come visit here.

They recently got into the new lonely planet guide as well (minus the café which is new).


I’ve been volunteering to help on there website to help them get one up and running and also helping as a training assistant for the owner and staff to self manage there IT services.

We had a party for the leaving of one of the vollenteers, most of the towns expats and freinds were around, and we had a good old BBQ. It was amazing I had not had potatoes in soooooo long. It was a great night. 50L of beer for $20 very cheap night ;)

Other than that I took a brief trip to Ninh Binh 1 hour south of Hanoi. It was nice but only a day trip while I waited on my visa extension. We did a bike ride in the most muddy, wet roads and once my NEW shoes were dirt I didn’t care and I was covered in mud from head to toe. The car driver was not impressed… hehehe.

We also went to a lazy boat ride on the local river.

It was nice but only a 1 day get away from Hanoi deal. So nothing overly interesting and the weather was dreadful… oh well the food was nice!.

Back in Sapa though,

I’ve also spent loads of time with my beautiful girlfriend, we met in Hanoi when I was in Vietnam last time and caught back up when I returned. 

When the weather is good around sapa it’s a perfect time to rent a motorbike and go for a day walk some place, when the weather is bad nothing but sit and watch movies. This place is amazing when its sunny, the views the atmosphere. Its intoxicating.

I’ve also made a bunch on new friends here in sapa and learnt a lot of Vietnamese. I could stay here for a while I think there loads to keep my interested. ;)

So for now that’s all, Ive spent the last 3 weeks working as a web designer and as a teacher (computer studies) at the Sapa O'Chau cafe/centre. I've mainly been helping Shu setup her business and get things in order. All voluntary of course, as the school is struggling to keep up with the students as it is at the moment. Its nice to know you can help to something greater.


I will be here in sapa for 2 more weeks then im jet setting off to another location, but you have to wait to read about that ;) 

Till next time! HAVE FUN!.

Steffen.