It was eight weeks into our trip and we’d seen rice paddies up and down mainland Indochina. Rice paddies in flat squares and those that climbed up mountains. Paddies with little budding plants and those full to the brim. But it’s fair to say we hadn’t really seen rice paddies until we visited misty Sa Pa, a Northern Vietnamese town near the border of China. These are like lush carpeted steps leading to another world, the vast expanse of which is only revealed in the fleeting moments when the mist lifts.