Sapa is a steep, alpine cluster of shop houses, with one badly paved main street that arcs down through town and out of sight into the sheer, dark valleys below. Crumbling old French mansions line the hill-tops, many almost totally destroyed by the weather and wars that have ravaged the landscape during the past 50 years.
Closer to town, however, some of the villas have had a recent facelift and look like clumsily beautiful European follies built as bright, pastel beacons against the austere mountains and monotony of China’s southern rim.
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