Nightmare travel just to get to a place we didn't enjoy, initially

Our absolutely wonderful time in Tam Coc unfortunately ended with a pretty stressful travel nightmare, but also a big learning curve for us both.

We'd been warned that one of the challenges of traveling around tet is that many buses and public transports sell out or are cancelled. With this in mind we booked all our travel leading up to tet way in advance, and had no problem there. We weren't leaving Tam Coc until 4 days after tet so, wrongfully, assumed things wouldn't be booked up and we'd be okay.

We wanted to go straight from Tam Coc to Sapa, one of the most northern cities in Vietnam, close to the Chinese boarder. This is a very well travelled route, between Tam Coc and Sapa. Its a fairly long journey at about 8 hours, but ideally we didn't want to do another overnight bus there. Sleeper buses are great, but 8 hours just isn't long enough, it means you always arrive at about 4/5am which is just awful. We were wanting to travel on the 15th, and tried to book transport via our homestay on the 13th. Unfortunately all of their travel for Sapa that date was fully booked, so we decided the next day to head into town and wander around the various travel agents to look for other available routes. They all only had overnight buses, which we really really wanted to avoid, or massively massively overpriced transport (our homestay offered the bus for £10 pp, they wanted £25+ per person for the same bus!).

With no luck there, we decided to book via an online booking site. Somewhere we've used loads, and have never had any issues with. We tried to book three different buses, all cancelled on us after payment🫠. At this point, we were meant to be in Sapa the next day, as we already had accommodation booked, and no where to stay in Tam Coc for the following day onwards. Panicked, we spoke to our homestay host about other options and they suggested going to Hanoi first, and then traveling up to Sapa. Takes a slight bit longer, but not too bad, so we thought fine. Given it was late, we booked a bus online to Hanoi for first thing the next morning, and then a connecting bus to Sapa at midday. Problem solved, so off to bed we went ready for longer but sorted travel day.

🫠🫠🫠

Wrong.

Overnight, our bus to Hanoi was cancelled, while our bus from Hanoi to Sapa was confirmed. The irony that we has finally got a bus to Sapa booked but we had no way of getting to that bus. Once again our wonderful homestay hosts tried their best to help when we went down at 7am begging for help, they called around everyone they knew to get us a bus first thing, but could only get us a bus that left at 1pm. So leaving Tam Coc an hour after our bus to Sapa would leave Hanoi. We had no option but to take it and miss that non-refundable connecting bus. So, now here we were with transport to Hanoi, but no bus to Sapa🫠

Unsure what we were going to do, we got the bus to Hanoi. Knowing we'd have more travel company options, and more accomodation options if we ended up stuck in Hanoi for the night. We spent the whole bus ride scrolling on google maps for travel companies near where we got dropped off in Hanoi, and messaging them via email or WhatsApp to see if they had buses going that day. FINALLY we found a company who has space for us on a bus that evening at 5pm. We get to Hanoi, inhale a coffee and head to, literally, the side of the road at the pick up point we were directed to. Waited an hour. Waited another 30 minutes. Still no bus, and travel company calls us to tell us the bus will be another 2 hours, as it's running late😭

At this point, all we'd eaten that day was toast at the homestay and the coffee we inhaled. Exhausted, hungry and stressed we found a (very delicious) banh mi stall for some food. Eventually, a mini van turns up, tells us they're here to take us to the big bus... with no proof of this or evidence a very tired Chris and I climb into this van. We're the only passengers on the van. In true traveller mode though, you just have to go with the flow ahah. And we drive for almost an hour, through the middle of nowhere, to the outskirts of Hanoi where a big sleeper bus is pulled up at the side of the road.

When we board the bus, we find we are the ONLY people on this bus. Its a VIP sleeper, where each person gets not only their own bunk with a curtain, but a double bed, snacks and a working TV. And we're the only people, for the whole 7 hour drive. As a reminder... the reason this travel day was such a nightmare and all our buses were cancelled, is because they were all fully booked? And somehow we are the only people here!

Thankfully, we were finally on our way to Sapa, at 8pm, for a 6 hour drive. We wanted to avoid a sleeper bus as you arrive at around 4/5am normally. This time we'd be arriving at 2am😭 arguably much worse as even less is open! We made it to Sapa by about 2:20am, on our very VIP bus, and had to ask the staff on the bus to help us sort a lift to our homestay as no taxis were running so late.

Our absolutely wonderful homestay host stayed up to 2am just for us to arrive. We felt so awful but so thankful that he'd done this. He let us in and took us straight to the room to sleep, told us not to worry about payment or passport photos until the morning so we (and he) could sleep.

I walked into our room and just cried ahah. I was so emotionally, and physically exhausted. This was the first real travel nightmare we'd had so far, which of course makes us very fortunate, but it was just knackering andfrustrating. We lost a good chunk of money on the original bus we missed from Hanoi to Sapa, plus had to go for more expensive, and much less convient options. However, I feel so proud of how we problem solved, dealt with problem after problem but still kept pushing to work it out and get to the place we needed to be! It's amazing how resilient you can be without knowing it before hand. It was also a big learning curve, we now know 1) if we have a place to be on a certain date, book (and have confirmed) the travel first then book somewhere to stay, 2) if you're doing a two legged journey, wait till the first is confirmed, before booking the second!

After all that, we hated Sapa town🤣🤣

We found Sapa really underwhelming, SO touristy and actually a little boring? It felt like a ski resort, was very odd.

But the main reason we came to Sapa was to stay in a small village outside of Sapa called Ta Van. Its a very rural community, surrounded by stunning landscapes, and wonderful spots for hikes and walks. It was mine and Chris' anniversary, so we booked ourselves a beautiful lodge homestay nested in the rice fields for a few days of relaxing.

Literally all we did in these 3 days here was read our books, relax and go on some stunning walks. It was absolutely FREEZING in Ta Van (10° max) so we were super thankful for our cosy homestay and heated blanket!

Here are some photos of just how stunning Ta Van was! Despite most days being thick with fog.

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It was a whirlwind and stressful time getting to Sapa/Ta Van but we were thankful for the rest and glad we persevered to finally make it here. After our restful few days here, we headed onto the Ha Giang for the infamous Ha Gaing scooter loop. A definite highlight of Vietnam, and one that gets its own post! So you'll hear about this next time.