Spending a ton of time wandering around the mountains on a motorbike was one of my main reasons for wanting to make the long trek all the way out to Sapa along the Chinese border. I had envisioned cruising around under a golden sun over high mountain passes, past beautiful rice farms and through thick luscious jungles. Instead, I found myself coasting up Tram Ton Pass at 20 kph as I squinted through the mist (clouds) trying to see more than 10m in front of my struggling junk rental motorbike. Even though I had my Patagonia shell on, I was drenched to the bone as I fought violent bouts of shivering. (I definitely see the benefits of the massive ponchos that locals wear.)
It was a miserable ride, but being in the clouds made for a peaceful and surreal hike out to the 100m love waterfalls. The uneven cobblestone path winds through the lush bamboo forest and all I could hear was the sounds of the forest and the gentle stream. Passing a small cascading fall, the trail went up some steep stairs eventually leading to the main falls. Unfortunately, the stream coming off Fanispan Mountain was a trickle for me, but once again, surreal as the cloud cover became even thicker, almost entirely obscuring the falls.
And because I’m feeling lazy, the copy/pasted story of the falls:
“Once upon a time, the fairies were very excited with fascinating landscape of this place. Therefore, they often landed here to bathe. Until one day, the 7th fairy saw a young woodcutter playing flute by the Yellow stream. The sound came from the flute was very beautiful and immidiately attracted the fairy. One day, because of being absorbed in listening the sound, she forgot to come back home. When the night came, the fairy could not stand the coldness in the forest. Thus, she came to the fire of the boy to warm herself. Her appearance took the man by surprise at first and then they started to make friends. The boy introduced himself as O Quy Ho, the eldest son of Spirit Mountain on Ai Lao range. Due to the passion with bamboo, he decided to live here and made a magic flute from the bamboo to blow whenever he was happy or sad. Because he was too interested in the nature of this place and neglected his duty of taking over his father’s career, Spirit Mountain got angry. He turned his son into an ordinary person and asked him to live in this mountain to plant bamboos and play flute. By the flickering fire, the boy used his flute and blew passionate melodies. The flute’s sound was so sweet that many animals in the forest flocked to there and danced with the melodies . They only stopped dancing when the sun rose and the fairy flied to the sky in hurry. This happened again many times until her parents caught up and forbade her to follow her sisters to the human world. The fairy missed O Qui Ho so much that she spent every afternoon at heaven’s gate looking towards the waterfall and waiting for the sounds of the flute. Still, she did not see him there. This upset her so much that finally she transformed into a yellow bird flying around the mountain and constantly called “O Quy Ho”. Her cry touched the heart’s of people and they decided to name the peak near the waterfall “O Quy Ho”, the mountain where the man went across “Xe Mountain” and the waterfall was called “Love Waterfall.”"
