About SaPa

Located 38km from Lao Cai City, Sapa is a mountainous district of Lao Cai Province. Sapa District is very well-known with Sapa Townlet, a beautiful and romantic resort.

At the height of 1,600m above sea level, the average temperature of the area is 15-18°C. It is cool in summer and cold in winter.

Visitor to Sapa in summer can feel the climate of four seasons in one day. In the morning and afternoon, it is cool like the weather of spring and autumn. At noon, it is as sunny and cloudless as the weather of summer. And it is cold in the evening. With no advance warning of a thunderstorm short and heavy rains may come at noon on any summer day. Subsequently, a rainbow appears, transforming Sapa into a magic land, which for years has been a constant source of poetic inspiration, lights up the whole region.

The best time to witness the scenic beauty of Sapa is in April and May. Before that period, the weather might be cold and foggy; after that period is the rainy season. In April and May, Sapa is blooming with flowers and green pastures. The clouds that settle in the valley in early morning quickly disappear into thin air.

Sapa has many natural sites such as Ham Rong Mountain, Silver Waterfall, Rattan Bridge, Bamboo Forest and Ta Phin Cave. Sapa is also the starting point for many climbers and scientists who want to reach the top of Fansipan Mountain, the highest mountain in Vietnam at 3,143m. Hoang Lien Mountain Range is also called the Alps of the North Sea area since Fansipan Mountain is not only the highest peak in Vietnam, but also in the Indochina Peninsula. The pyramid-shaped mountain is covered with clouds all year round and temperatures often drop below zero, especially at high elevations.

The first thing you notice when approaching the resort town are some detached wooden mansions and villas perched on a hill top or hillside, behind thick pine forests and almost invisible on this foggy morning. Old and new villas with red roofs now appear and now disappear in the green rows of pomu trees, bringing the town the beauty of European towns.

Fresh and cool air in Sapa is an idea climate condition for growing temperate vegetables such as cabbage, chayote, precious medicinal herbs, and fruit trees such as plum, pear…

Sapa is home to various families of flowers of captivating colours, which can be found nowhere else in the country. When Tet, the Lunar New Year Festival, comes, the whole township of Sapa is filled with the pink colour of peach blossom brought from the vast forests of peach just outside the town. Sapa is regarded as the kingdom of orchids. Here, orchid lovers are even amazed by the choice, when trekking in the forest filled with several hundred kinds of orchids of brilliant colours and fantastic shapes, such as Orchid Princess, Orchid of My Fair Lady’s Shoe. Some orchids are named after lovely singing birds such as the canary, salangane’s nest, and more.

Sapa is most beautiful in spring. Apricot, plum and cherry flowers are splendidly beautiful. Markets are crowded and merry, and are especially attractive to visitors. Minority groups come here to exchange and trade goods and products. Market sessions are also a chance for locals to promenade and young men and women in colorful costumes to meet, date or seek sweethearts.

Visitors to Sapa will have opportunities to discover the unique customs of the local residents.

Things to do in Sapa.

Trekking

Most hotels offer trekking all throughout Sapa’s surrounding hills and valleys. There are one-day trips out to Lao Chai, Ta Van and Giang Ta Chai and two- or three-day trips to Muong Huong, Cao Son and Coc Ly or through the lowlands to any one of a number of minority villages. Overnight stays are usually spent drinking and eating with the locals — a great chance to brush up on the local lingo while knocking back some plum or gecko wine.

Cat Cat village

Alternately you can make the trip on your own with a trip down to Cat Cat village and a bike ride back up passing most of a day. Another popular DIY trip is out to Taphin village, which should take four to five hours.

With so many agencies vying for your dollar, it’s hard to know who will give you the best value. The truth is that even a reputable agency can occasionally deal out a bum tour, and even a scammer can have their good days. But the region is beautiful in and of itself, and the ethnic minorities don’t change from tour to tour, so as long as you’re not paying more than you can afford, you’re liable to have a memorable trip no matter what hassles and complications arise along the way.

On our most recent visit to Sapa we made a circuit of the major agencies and just felt them out in terms of quality of service. The clear winner was Sapa Life, where we got free maps, plenty of info, literature to walk away with, and a nice cup of Lipton tea to sip on while we were talking. They offer more tours than we could possibly summarise here — market junkets, hard treks, easy daytrips, Fansipan climbs — the whole kit and caboodle.

Handspan is a popular option, but they were too busy to even talk to us when we stopped by, and when we asked about tours, they just pointed to the info posted on the wall.

Few tour companies relish publishing fixed prices for tours — this is not simply because they are hoping someone will come along and pay too much, but sometimes they have to dole out more than expected on their end when a reliable guide or driver falls through at the last minute, or someone they are dealing with in a local village suddenly has additional needs. This is business in Asia. But as a rule, the more common trips are about US$15 per person per day for a group of four or more, and for a customised, labour-intensive trek such as Fansipan, expect to pay more than twice that per person per day, depending on group size.

Climbing Fansipan

Fansipan Mountain, the Roof of Indochina

Fansipan is Vietnam’s tallest mountain and more than a few tackle its summit. It will take you three to five days of trekking to get there and expect to spend some time in a tent on the trip. At 3,143 metres, it is below the lie of winter snows but it will get cold enough. From June to August trips should be avoided due to rains, which can bring on landslides. Most groups require at least two passengers and charge US$70-150 per person.

Waterfalls

The Cat Cat Water Falls

If you’ve already scheduled a trek elsewhere, there’s no need to squeeze this into your itinerary. But if you’ve got an idle day on your hands, the weather is fair, and you’re up for an excursion, this is an easy and very worthwhile option. There’s no real consensus on what to call the falls — some call them the Cat Cat Falls (Cat Cat is just the Vietnamese transliteration of the word cascade) while other call them the Sapa Falls.

To get here, just head down Fansipan Road and keep going. The road creeps along the edge of the mountain with some beautiful views. After a few kilometres, you’ll find the entrance to Cat Cat Village marked by a gate, easily spotted in a cluster of cafes and restaurants. Proceed down the steps, through the rice fields, to the falls.

You can take a dip by crossing the bridge near the falls and sliding down the embankment on the other side. Not the most spectacular falls in the world, but it’s a very pleasant way to spend half a day. On the other side of the bridge, there is the Hmong village called Cat Cat as well as an old hydroelectric damn built by the French, both of which can be visited, if you’ve got the legs to add it in. Some agencies charge for this trip, but that is sort of unnecessary — it’s impossible to get lost. To finish up, continue past the falls to along the path to the entrance gate, about a kilometre further on. From there, you can walk back, or take up one of the motorcycle taxi drivers on their offer of a ride — usually about 50,000 VND per person. If you’re on a motorbike and not keen on walking, blow past the Cat Cat gate and continue down to the entrance gate where you can park and walk to the falls, 1km each way.

Ban Ho village trek and hot springs

Ban Ho village

A popular trekking and homestay option starts in Sapa and goes 25 km to the ethnic Tay village of Ban Ho, where stilt house homestay are available. The road hugs the side of the mountain with unobstructed views of the valleys and mountains to the south, with some truly jaw-dropping outlooks onto the stepped rice paddies climbing up the slopes. It can all be done via transport, but many prefer to trek it, and if you go with the right company, they will take you through villages in the valley rather than sticking to the main road. It makes sense to do it this way, because on a motorbike you’d be likely to drive off the edge for being distracted by the sense-tingling views.

Walking will take a full day, six to eight hours, each way. If you are going under your own steam, head out of Sapa along Muong Hoau May road and just keep going. There is an entrance gate soon after, where tourists pay the 15,000 VND entrance fee to the area. After about 20 km there is a road down to the right into the valley — you can’t miss it because it’s the first opportunity where the valley slope is gentle enough to allow for any type of road at all. Five km further is the village, and homestays can be arranged on spot for 100,000 VND, plus money for meals. The signature dish here is thit lon hun khoi, better known as smoked ham. You’ll find it strung up over the fireplace, and a good piece of meat is smoked for as much as five months, using only dried bamboo as fuel to get the best flavour. It’s usually served sliced with rice and hot sauce.

There are some hot springs here that are a good way to relax your sore muscles after the trek. As you enter Ban Ho village, you’ll cross a bridge over a small stream. The first right, before the village gate, head up the hill, and from there you can pick your way along alleys towards the river (Suoi Nong). If you’re on your own, you’ll have to ask for directions. The last bit has to be done on foot, but you’lll eventually find a bamboo bridge across the river, and on the other side are three tiled, cement pools containing hot spring water pumped from underground. On our visit, the water was only tepid, but the owner assured us that the colder the weather, the hotter the spring water. The Vietnamese, of course, bath wearing as much clothing as possible, but if you hop in in your birthday suit, no one will arrest you — just be prepared to get giggled at.

A dip costs 10,000 VND, and you’ll want to show up during daylight hours, because crossing that bamboo bridge in the dark would seem extremely unwise.

Markets

Sapa market

The local markets here are unlike anything you’re likely to have seen elsewhere in Vietnam. These aren’t town and city markets with meat and veggies for sale — these are genuine country markets, with livestock trading and, myriad handcrafted goods. Minorities living high in the hills walk hours on end to get here just to pick up a new plow-head or a wooden saddle. They are also social centres for clans living in disparate circumstances and the scenes on display are like something out of National Geographic. The markets in the western part of the province, in and around Bac Ha, can be visited on daytrips from Sapa, but it’s a long time on the bus, so we highly recommend visiting those out of Lao Cai, or better yet, Bac Ha. One worthwhile market that is more convenient from Sapa is the Sunday Muong Hum Market, 30km to the northwest. As yet un-reviewed by us, but we ran into some folks who raved about the trip.

The Queen of the Mountains, Sapa sits regally overlooking a beautiful valley, lofty mountains towering over the town on all sides. Welcome to the destination in northwest Vietnam, gateway to another world of mysterious minority cultures and luscious landscapes.

The spectacular scenery that surrounds Sapa includes cascading rice terraces that spill down the mountains like a patchwork quilt. The mountains are often shrouded in mist that rolls back and forth along the peaks, offering tantalising glimpses of what lies in wait on a clear day. The valleys and villages around Sapa are home to a host of hill-tribe people who wander in to town to buy, sell and trade.

In a beautiful valley close to the Chinese border, Sapa is a former hill station built in 1922. History has not always been kind to Sapa, and the series of conflicts that swept over Vietnam nearly saw it wiped off the map. From WWII, successive wars against the French and the USA, not forgetting the more recent border skirmish with China in 1979, took their toll. The old hotels built by the French were allowed to fall into disrepair and Sapa was forgotten by all but a handful of residents.

With the advent of tourism, Sapa has experienced a renaissance. Bad roads have been upgraded, many streets have been given names, countless new hotels have popped up, the electricity supply is reliable and the food has improved immeasurably. Inherent in all of this prosperity is cultural change for the Montagnards, many of whom are now well versed in the ways of the cash economy and are reaping the financial rewards of the tourism influx. The downside is a building boom that has seen one hotel after another raise the roof in a continual quest for better views. Height restrictions are rarely enforced and the Sapa skyline is changing for the worse.

Another inconvenience that will not change is the weather. If you visit off-season, don’t forget your winter woollies. Not only is it cold (like 0°C), but winter brings fog and drizzle. Quite why the French alighted on this spot is difficult to comprehend: it must have been one of those rare clear days when the views are to die for. The chilly climate does have its advantages, however. The area boasts temperate-zone fruit trees bearing peaches and plums, and gardens for raising medicinal herbs.

The dry season in Sapa lasts from around January to June. January and February are the coldest (and foggiest) months. From March to May the weather is often excellent, and the summer is warm despite the rains between June and August. The window from September to mid-December is a rewarding time to be in Sapa, though there is a bit of lingering rain at the start and the temperature dips by December.

Sapa would be of considerably less interest without the H’mong and Dzao people, the largest ethnic groups in the region. The billowing red headdresses of the Red Dzao are visible all over town, a surreal sight amid the accelerating development. The H’mong are more numerous and canny traders. Their villages may look medieval but most will have a mobile phone and an email address to stay in touch. Traditionally, they were the poorest of the poor, but have rapidly learnt the spirit of free enterprise. Most of the Montagnards have had little formal education and are illiterate, yet all the youngsters have a good command of English, French and a handful of other languages.

If possible, try to visit during the week, when Sapa is less crowded and more intimate. Crowds flock to Sapa for the Saturday market, but a smaller market is held every day. There is plenty to see on weekdays, and there are lots of interesting villages within walking distance of the centre.