Two waterfalls in a day

Tuesday 3 December

I wanted to head for the Silver Waterfall and Love Waterfall, on the recommendation of the hotel. I fancied walking there so I could take pictures along the way. I had been given estimates of 12 to 14 km as the distance which didn’t sound too bad. I set off at about 10.00 and the first hour at least was all quite steeply uphill. Then it got easier and I eventually got to the Silver Waterfall a bit before 1.00. On the way, especially the second half, there were indeed lots of lovely views and I took rather a deluge of photos – maybe to justify the walk. 

 

I also came across the extraordinary sight of a broken down lorry right in the middle of this ‘A’ road with a man underneath working on what looked like a stripped down transmission system. I suppose it begs the question of what else is there to do with a broken down lorry over here?

 

I spent almost an hour at Silver Waterfall before heading onwards and upwards to Love Waterfall. Once you get to the entrance the waterfall is about 1 km away down a pleasant enough path. 

At the waterfall, I came across a Vietnamese quartet, one of whom was making no concession to the hiking idea and was sporting some quite extreme stilettos. Still, she managed. I also came across a young and slightly dotty couple who seemed to think I’d be a great addition to a photograph of the girl. Quite flattering really! 

By this stage it was 3.30 and I didn’t feel like walking all the way back along the road. A trek through the countryside didn’t apparently exist – indeed at the Love Waterfall I was in the wrong valley. Luckily, there was a mini-bus who agreed to supplement his income by adding me to his tour of people on their way back from scaling Fansipan. The main punter was a Danish girl who said the night in the camp on the way up at 2800 metres had been quite freezing and that the walk itself had been demanding. I think I’ll wait another year. Unfortunately when the minibus got me back to Sapa, the driver short-changed me which I found irritating. I questioned it and was told he didn’t have any change ‘Is that OK’. My instant reaction was ‘no’ but in retrospect I wish I’d handled the incident of ‘wealthy tourist diddled out of 30p’ better’.