Sapa

Sapa is in the north of Vietnam, really close to the Chinese border. It is 1600m above sea level and thus not to hot. The town itself got wrecked by the tourist boom. The Hmong people follow the tourists really annoyingly and yell "buy somethiiiing". That's why you can't experience the real Sapa in the town itself. Hiking around on the huge rice terraces is the best way. We did that for two days in a row. The first one took 8 hours which is a lot by it self, but if you add the terrain - it is a pain in the ass. We were able to walk through Hmong villages and experience their true daily life. It is hard work to take of these terraces and differently than in China, they can only harvest during the wet season (That's probably why they pick on tourists so desperately).
the second day it was a similar hike but in a different direction. Sadly the waterfall we aimed for was out of reach, because we did a bit more adventurous route, which turned out to be really demanding. But maybe after 7 hours of walking in the surprisingly hot sun we returned to Sapa. Definitely worth visiting...