From Hanoi into the mountains of Lao Cai: the Hmong village of Cat Cat, the Muong Hoa valley, and the cable car to the 3,143-metre roof of Indochina.
Photo: Vivu Vietnam / Unsplash
Day 1
We collect you from Noi Bai Airport or your Hanoi hotel and drive up the Noi Bai – Lao Cai expressway, about five hours to Sa Pa. You arrive in the early afternoon, check in and rest to adjust to the altitude. Late in the day we walk the central square and visit the Stone Church, built in dressed stone in 1895 and the most intact French building left in Sa Pa. The evening is free at the night market, where the local habit is grilled skewers.
Day 2
The morning is spent walking down to Cat Cat, about 2 km below the town, where Black Hmong families live along the stream; you see indigo dyeing of hemp cloth, looms in use and water-driven rice pounders, and finish at the waterfall on the valley floor. In the afternoon the coach follows the Muong Hoa valley, stopping at the ancient rock field where more than 150 slabs carry spiral and human figures nobody has firmly dated. The day ends at Ta Van, a Giay village, before we return to town.
Day 3
The morning starts on the Muong Hoa funicular and then the Fansipan cable car, a three-rope line crossing the valley to just below the summit; from the upper station you take a lift or climb 600 steps to the 3,143-metre marker, passing the Kim Son Bao Thang pagoda complex and its bronze Amitabha Buddha on the way down. We come off the mountain around midday and stop at the O Quy Ho pass viewpoint if the weather is clear. The coach returns to Hanoi in the afternoon and drops you at the airport or your hotel.
Sa Pa sits at around 1,500 metres and can be cold, fogged in or drizzling in the middle of summer. That is the first thing we tell international visitors before they come, because plenty of people arrive in Vietnam with nothing but short sleeves in the bag. Bring a windproof jacket and shoes with grip.
We schedule Fansipan for the last day rather than the first. The summit is often in cloud and the cloud here changes by the hour; putting it last means we have two nights to watch the forecast and some flexibility to move the cable car time if the morning comes in thick. Nobody can guarantee the view from the top, and we do not promise one.
Cat Cat and Ta Van are villages where people live, not displays. Please ask before photographing anyone, particularly children, and if you want to buy woven cloth, buy it directly from the woman who made it. Your guide will interpret. Group size and hotel category are agreed before the contract is signed.
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