Setting off from Sapa one morning, our first stop is Ta Phin monastery, about 12km away from Sapa town. You can hire motorbikes for about VND 100,000, if you feel like blowing the cobwebs off, and traversing the hills of Lao Cai. But with the threat of rain in the air, we opt for jumping on a bus instead.

But even still, we enjoy the sweeping landscape of mountains, valleys and terraced fields as local farmers work on paddy fields amidst a light layer of mist. It’s a stunning tapestry that wows any resident of a city like Hanoi. From a distance, the monastery appears. It has been a landmark of the area since being built in the early 1940s. Today it’s one of the area’s most popular tourist sites.

Construction began in 1942 and at first the monastery was more of a nunnery. A group of nuns belonging to a congregation of devout Reformed Cistercians stayed here raising poultry and growing vegetables with farming tools donated by the French colonial authorities, who hoped to boost dairy and agricultural products in Lao Cai, where some tourists came in search of cool mountain air visitors, but where there was also a military presence. » Read more: Vietnam Heritage, Lao Cai Village People