A Sapa that feels "out of place".

Recently, an Australian travel blogger, the owner of the blog Family Globetrotters, posted an article about the 10 most disappointing travel destinations in the world. Sa Pa in Vietnam was listed first on the list.

"We're not encouraging you to skip these places, but we want to lessen your disappointment. When I went to Sa Pa, I was faced with a town that was developing in a chaotic way. Deep down, I understand that tourists like me have contributed to this situation," Amy Chung, the blog owner, said about the purpose of the post.

In this blogger's eyes, Sa Pa appears as a crowded town, with chaotic development projects, restaurants charging exorbitant prices, and locals constantly trying to pressure tourists into buying souvenirs.

Indeed, anyone who visited Sa Pa 10 years ago, or even just 5 years ago, would surely find it quite unfamiliar now. Since 2016, Sa Pa's administrative boundaries have been adjusted, doubling its area to approximately 5,500 hectares, encompassing the entire town of Sa Pa and parts of Lao Chai, Sa Pa, and San Sa Ho communes. In 2017, the Prime Minister approved the Master Plan for the Development of the Sa Pa National Tourist Area. Since then, many hotel, entertainment, and restaurant projects have been invested in and constructed. And with the opening of the cable car system to Fansipan peak and the Noi Bai - Lao Cai expressway, tourism has developed very strongly. Revenue has reached up to 1,500 billion VND per year, and tourism services have become a key economic sector in the locality.

However, the downside of tourism development is that present-day Sa Pa is becoming overloaded and distorted in every aspect. Sa Pa now is the result of rapid development without any comprehensive planning, both economically and culturally. It has created a chaotic town of dust and smoke, the roar of excavators and bulldozers, and construction sites vying to build magnificent, modern, and bizarre-looking buildings.

Information such as: "Sa Pa lacks clean water," "Sa Pa encourages people to convert rice fields into tourist land"... is truly strange and shocking. Because it's unprecedented – a consequence of uncontrolled development that has harmed the identity and culture of this region.

In 10 years, will Sa Pa need Western-style houses for Western tourists to admire? Will Sa Pa need shops selling silks imported from distant lands? And will Sa Pa still be Sa Pa when the Hmong people are flocking to the streets to sell cheap Chinese goods, both in terms of price and cultural value, instead of staying home weaving coarse linen and working in the fields...?

My Tong