Sa Pa historyThe Sa Pa plateau was identified in 1901 during the first topographic plotting of the area. A military post was built in 1903. In 1906 the first westerner to settle in Cha Pa, named Mr. Miéville, worked with the department of agriculture. The number of French permanent civilian residents was never very high, only twenty odd people in 1942, plus a small colony of English-speaking protestants of unknown origin.
Originally, Cha Pa was created for medical purposes: the bracing climate of Cha Pa was beneficial to westerners exhausted by a long stay in Vietnam, especially «people with chlorosis, post-infectious anaemia, previous history of malaria, and a whole array of neurotics: people with neurasthenia, phobia, overworked people or hypochondriac women». Certain diseases, such as «chronic bronchitis with associated emphysema or asthma and certain skin diseases» could also be cured. The military sanatorium, completed in 1913, was built on the hill on which the municipal cistern and its pumping station now stand.
As of 1914, the main purpose of the civil authorities was to create in Tonkin a veritable summer capital in the mountains. In the summer of 1914, the offices of all the local services were moved from Hanoi to Cha Pa. The works had started in 1912, the tourist office was created in 1917 and in 1925, there were already 80 kilometres of footpaths offering a great variety of hiking trips. The forestry service planted evergreens, some of which are still standing today. In 1922 the building of the most sumptuous hotel in the station, the Résidence du Tonkin started on «governor’s hill».
In 1909, thanks to Miéville, the « Cha Pa Hotel » was inaugurated to the east of the station on the road to Lao Cai, while the «Fan Si Pan» hotel was only built in 1924. The « Métropole », a luxury hotel with 50 rooms and ten suites sited at the foot of the Ham Rong on the bank of the lake, was inaugurated in 1932. The «Hôtel du Centre», a more modest establishment, was built in1937.
The first villas were built in 1918 by the Hong Hai Coal Board and by the Haïphong cement factory (at the place where the Victoria Hotel now stands). A hundred or so other villas were built between 1920 and 1940 on neighbouring land given for free, some specimens of which can still be seen. In the lower area are located the private villas, administrative buildings and hotels. In the higher area, one finds the big military sanatorium and the governor ‘s summer palace. The church was built in 1934, followed by a protestant temple sitting on the hill overlooking the road to Cat Cat. By the end of the 1930s, Cha Pa had reached its peak and over a thousand colonials went there to rest and have fun. Until the mid-40s, Cha Pa was to remain the fashionable mountain resort of the Hanoi colonial society.
In order to meet the increasing demand for food, the local authorities created agricultural stations. The aim of these stations was to feed the summer visitors and « put an end to the typical problem of hotels where bread is wanting because a party of six had the unfortunate idea of turning up without sending a telegram two days earlier ». Vietnamese people launched into agricultural production, providing the town with « all sorts of foods »... The Taphin estate produced pork, chicken, vegetables, fresh fruit, jam, milk, potatoes, cheese and… wine. Trade was flourishing in the hands of Chinese people and Vietnamese from the delta area.
The growth of Cha Pa was an incentive to modernisation and between 1924 and 1927 the public authorities had it equipped with running water, a sewage system and an electricity network supplied by a power station built on the Cat Cat waterfall, whose renovated buildings are still in operation, as well as a telegraph and telephone network. In 1942, untypically for such a small place, a complete town plan of Sa Pa was drawn, which included over 400 plots of building land.
In February 1947, the Viet Minh attacked Cha Pa and destroyed the military installations and part of the hotels (among which the Métropole) as well as villas. In March, the Foreign Legion occupied Cha Pa again until October 1949 when the French troops left the region for good. In March 1952, the French headquarters ordered the air force to bomb the town. The Governor’s Palace, the sanatorium complex, public buildings and most of the villas were destroyed. The Vietnamese population fled the ruined town and did not return until the early sixties. Not until the early 1990s did Sa Pa start developing again.
The FanXiPan: represents the biggest natural reserve in Vietnam: HoangLienNational Park. The park covers nearly 30,000 hectares and is unique in all South-East Asia for its tiered forest ecosystems. It contains over 2,000 plant species and about 500 animal species, among which the black gibbon, of which there are only a few families left.
Two other features of the landscape immediately attract the visitor’s attention: the paddy-fields tumbling down the slopes in vertiginous staircases and the innumerable limestone peaks and crests emerging from the clouds in the morning, a sort of HalongBay transferred to the mountains.
The terraced paddy-fields: are built by the Hmong and Dao on the slopes where the water supply is sufficient to provide irrigation throughout the growing season. It takes a tremendous amount of work to create and maintain the paddy-fields and, in the absence of all instruments, it requires an elaborate ancestral technique, already used by the Chinese peasants before they emigrated during the second half of the 19th century. The surface area of the projected terraces is calculated according to the available water-flow. All the terraces must be perfectly horizontal, so as to maintain a constant water level before they pour into the terrace immediately below.
The fields of steep limestone peaks, usually covered with thick forests, are the result of the dissolving action of rain-water on limestone. The brown or red earth found at the foot of the peaks is the residue of this dissolution, the fertile « terra rosa » used by the peasants despite the numerous rocky residues mixed with it. The local populations clear and exploit the forests and find there many useful food and pharmaceutical products as well as raw material for handicrafts
The Markets:
Bac Hà market: The biggest ethnic market in the Lao Cai province, where you will find buffaloes, horses, blacksmiths, saddlers, but also traditional medicine doctors, with their thousands of mountain herbs and plants, and lots of traditional clothes and local artefacts. Several groups of deep-coloured Hmong are found there, as well as Dao, Tay, Nung, and Phu La. Make sure to arrive before 9 a.m., the market ends at about 12 :30. Sleeping in Bac Hà, on the Saturday offers an opportunity to watch the preparations for the market and the successive waves of villagers going there. Tasting the local corn spirit is a must, but be prudent, it may be up to 55° proof!
Can Cau market: Every Saturday from 6 a.m. to 12, in the middle of the paddy fields and corn fields, the various hmong groups from the highland villages sell their farming products and buy fabrics, farming tools and kitchenware. The local Hmong wear traditional costumes that are so gaudy and heavily embroidered that the Chinese, the French and the Vietnamese have nicknamed them the « Flowery Hmong ». Numerous Hmong farmers travel back to their villages on horseback, the only way to carry heavy loads in these steep areas.
Tuesday Coc Ly market: still off the main roads. Several Hmong, Dao, Tay, Nung and Phu La groups are there. You may opt for a boat trip on the river Chay, in the middle of stunning landscapes and villages that have remained totally traditional.
Pha Long market: Saturday morning from 6 a.m. to twelve. Very rural seldom visited market, where you can meet ethnic groups that are only found in this particular district of Vietnam, mostly Hmong, Nung, Tou Zi, Pa Zi and Tou Lao. Along the road, in a landscape of mountain peaks, numerous Nung et Hmong villages. Lots of traditional houses with baked earth tiled roofs.
Muong Khuong Sunday market: Big market with a wide range of ethnic groups: Hmong, Dao, Nung, and merchants from other ethnic groups who come all the way from China to sell their products. Several Pa Zi women sell traditional incense made from the bark and resin of scented trees.
MuongHumSunday market: every Sunday from 6 a.m. to 1 p.m.
This market, the biggest cardamom market in the area, was already there during the French colonial period and serves as a meeting place for the ethnic groups living in the mountains: Giay, Dao, White Hmong, Hani. Those living in the highlands, like the Hmong and the Zao (Dao) come down to sell their specific products such as cardamom and other spices and mountain plants.
In Mường Hum, you should taste the paddy rice brandy (made with unhusked rice) from the dao village of San Lung. Its fruity flavour and mildness have made it famous well beyond the limits of the Lào Cai province.
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