Sa Pa

This is the Sa Pa Vietnam wants you to see and there is no doubt it’s there.

But what is also very much a part of this picturesque place is the need for investment, environmental protection and economic justice.

It’s only in the last decade or two that Sa Pa has become a tourist destination. You can see new construction everywhere and you can see the architecture of the city changing from rusted and rundown to new and a bit over the top. What you cannot see is all that money from tourists and investors trickling down to the average person.

Any view like the one above is framed by crumbling infrastructure and poor living conditions as seen in the photo below. The two scenes are only steps from each other. It is really just a matter of how the photograph is framed. A step to the right or left. Forward or back and things look completely different. Life looks completely different.

I hope that as the town grows the profits are used to help the population achieve a higher quality of life.