Sapa is a small market town that has been a gathering spot for many local hilltribes for nearly 200 years.
Hmong and Dao people, among others, still come here to conduct trade, socialize, and attend an ephemeral “love market,” where young men and women choose one another for marriage (these days, it’s unlikely you’ll see anything more than a staged re-creation of it). But seeing this as early as 1860, French missionaries said “Mon Dieu!” and set up camp to save souls; their stone church still stands sentinel and is well attended at the center of town. Sapa, with its mercifully cool climate, became a holiday escape for French colonists, complete with rail connection, upscale hotels, and a tourist bureau as early as 1917. The outpost was retaken by the Vietnamese in 1950, attacked and destroyed later by the French, and left in ruin, only briefly occupied by Chinese troops in 1979. The town reopened for tourism in the 1990s.
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