2 days in Sa Pa enough?
 

I'd love any input on how many days you would recommend we stay in Sapa. We are staying at Sapa Rooms Hotel.We look forward to hiking. I was thinking that maybe after being in Hanoi for 4 days prior to that we may like the quieter, slower pace in Sapa. But since I have never been to Sapa I don't know if it is quieter & slower! We leave for Vietnam in one week!

2 days is perfect for Sapa. There are some great hikes around the valley that last afull day or you could try an overnight in one of the villages. Sapa is a lot quieter than ha noi _ although it does get v. Busy for the sunday market

When you say two days, do you mean one or two nights? If you're planning to do a lot of hiking, or a lot of shopping, then two nights is a good idea. However, I would not describe Sapa as quiet. Well, in comparison to Hanoi there's less honking, but it's very full of tourists and tourist shops, restaurants, hotels etc.

Be warned, the train is not one of the better night trains - at least the Livitrans wasn't. Incredibly noisy going up (though that might have been just the one carriage) and very jumpy and jerky in both directions. If you have sleeping pills it would be a good time to take one.

Thanks for the reply. I always appreciate input! I mean 1 night, 2 days. It feels like 2 nights and 3 days seems too much. I'll have had plenty of shopping in Hanoi so doing more hard shopping didn't seem like what I wanted. Does anybody know if the shopping is so different in Sapa than Hanoi btw?

Oh, thursdaysd, thanks for the tip on train. Ambien!

2 nights 3 days is definitely not too much. We loved our time in Sapa. If you are there on a Sunday, the Bac Ha market is incredible. Ideally, if you leave Sunday night you can see the market and go directly to the train station from there. The first day we got to Sapa we spent the day in town and hiked down to Cat Cat village. We arranged for a guide to take us on several hikes to different villages on the third day. Sapa is not about the shopping, but the beautiful vistas and visits to the minority tribal people's villages.

I wish we were going to have time for Sapa!