Sapa Bac Ha Market

Sapa Bac Ha Hill Tribal Colorful Market 4 Days

Bac Ha Sunday market gathered by diversified minorities: Flower H'Mong, Tay, Fula, Thai, Nung...is one of the biggest market in the Northwest of Vietnam. This trip is a combination of trekking through villages in Sapa, stay overnight with a family of Dzay people in Ta Van, and a market visit to Bac Ha.

- Length of the trip	: 4 days
- Trip Starts from	: Hanoi city
- Trip Ends in	: Hanoi city
- Trip hightlights	: Hill tribal village, trekking, Bac Ha market, Homestay
- Required booking time	: 15 hours for individuals and 5 days for group in advance
- Rates per person	: 295$ - (Vietnamese meals)
- Rates are valid from 1 Janualy 2008

Itinerary:
Day 1: Hanoi - Train to Sapa (No Meals)

Meet your tour guide and be transferred to Hanoi train station for your overnight train journey from Vietnam's capital city to the border town of Lao Cai. The train departs at 21:15 pm. (no meal included)

Day 2: Sapa - Trekking - Lao Chai - Ta Van Village (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)
Arrive early in Lao cai at 06 00 am, we get picked up by shuttle bus and start our drive up the spectacular Sapa pass, which is 1300 m high, 33 km long. The ride uphill takes a little over an hour giving you a glimpse of the stunning vistas and impressive rice terraces.

At 10 am we start trekking. The first part is on the road but we soon turn to the right and walk on a small path down the valley to the Muong Hoa River and from here to the Black Hâ€™mong village Lao Chai. After this you continue to Ta Van village (1.200 m) to visit Zay people. We stay overnight with a local family in Ta Van and have our dinner here.

Day 3: Ta Van Village - Giang Ta Chai Village - Sapa (Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner)

After the breakfast we continue to visit Red Dao people at Giang Ta Chai where we also see a waterfall. The Red Dao women have very colorful red embroideries and coins on their clothing. On their head they wear a red scarf. Some of the women have shaved off their eyebrows because of a nice Red Zao' Legend.

We continue along small paths in the rice fields, cross the Muong Hoa River and trek up to Su pan where you will meet the jeep transfer back to Sapa. O/N in hotel

Day 4: Sapa - Bac Ha Market - Train to Hanoi (Breakfash, Lunch)
Start early in the morning at 06 00 am, we have our private car drive from Sapa to Bac Ha market. Arrive Bac Ha market. Discover the market with ethnic minorities (1h30). Lunch in Bac Ha town.

In the afternoon, we have a short walk to visit Ban Pho - a village of Flower Hmongs. (3 hours â€“ 7 km) Visit the H'Mong King Palace. (30min)

Transfer by car to Lao Cai.

Arrive Lao Cai train station. Overnight train back to Ha Noi.

Day 5 Monday Arrive Hanoi

Arrive Hanoi around 05 30 am. Met and transferred to your hotel. Tour ends. (No meal)

Tour price:

Price	Group	Private				Booking
Standard	N/A	1 pax	2-3pax	4-6pax	over 7pax	BOOK
Standard	N/A	493$	290$	223$	190$	BOOK

The trip includes:

Transportation by Air-con vihicles
English speaking tour guide
Meals specified in tour program
All entrance, permission and visiting fees
Accommodation at homestay
Accommodation at 2-star hotel
Permittions
Train ticket Hanoi - Lao Cai - Hanoi with Aircon-soft sleeper cabin (wooden cabin)

The trip excludes

Visa to Vietnam
Departure airport tax
Meals which are not included in the program
Personal travel & medical insurance
International flights to and from Vietnam
All personal & daily expenses
All gratuities and tips to drivers and guides

Note:

Surcharges for peak seasons, Christmas and New Year Holidays, lunar New Year Festival, extras for room, air tickets upgrades shall be applied
Group tour: To join with other people on available daily tours. These tours are fixed itinerary and deparute time. It is possible to join in even your group of only 1 or 2 people. Customer do not to find other people to form the group. It is our company duty to gather the tourists for each tour. For these tours, you have to share the coach, boat and tour guide with other tourists who come from different nationalities. The number of people of this group is normally less than 16 persons.
Private tour: To do the tour privately. The tour is not fixed, it is possible to be customized for your group. All service is reserved for your group only. You do not have to share the bus, boat, tour guide with other tourists. One exception, if you stay at the boat in Halong bay - it is like the hotel in Halong - you still have to share the boat with other people.

General information about Bac Ha:

Overview

The moniker 'Little Sapa' is applied to the remote town of Bac Ha in eastern Lao Cai province more because of its proximity to local attractions than because of the atmosphere or services.

It's a very convenient place to explore the surrounds, and basing yourself here rather than Sapa will knock off about three hours of travel time each way on a daytrip to any of the local weekly markets. And, at less than half the altitude of Sapa, the weather here is likely to be more clement in winter months, with an average year-round temperature of 19 degrees Celsius (4 degrees, on average, warmer).

But don't expect any pizzas or breathtaking mountain views. Bac Ha is still, first and foremost, a local market town, and the tourist industry is only being added on, wherever it fits in. This is of course part of the attraction -- a walk down the street here is wonderfully free of hawkers or motorcycle-taxi drivers, and locals are not in the habit of trying to squeeze every dong they can from every foreigner that passes by.

The town gets a weekly assault of tourists on Saturday at about noon, as daytrippers return from visiting the Can Cau market. Many stay the night to visit the Bac Ha market in town Sunday morning, and then it's back to Sapa. We can only imagine the locals of Bac Ha spend the rest of the week being thankful they live here and not there.

On our 2008 visit, Bac Ha's town square (shaped like a triangle) was being torn up and revamped, and the whole place felt like one, big, muddy pile of bricks. Hopefully it'll be a bit more charming by the time you get there, and Bac Ha definitely has the potential to charm.

There are some good accommodation options (and more on the way) where market views are the prime selling point, with very authentic local food and drink available, and unless the local economy changes radically overnight, the Sunday morning market in town will continue on in the foreseeable future as it has done for generations past.

There are also some less-travelled trekking and homestay trips available in the area, with visits to a variety of ethnic villages, particularly the Flower H'mong, who, as the name suggests, are a much sweeter crowd of folks than their Red and Black kin to the west. In fact, if you visit Bac Ha after a stay in Sapa, you may notice that many of the goods being fobbed off as 'local hand-made products' in Sapa were actually bought wholesale here. About half the tribes in the area are H'mong, with the rest being Tay, Dzao, Tu Zi, Nung, Phula, La Chi and Lo Lo, among others.

There's very little to do in Bac Ha if you're settling in for the night. Market days are party days for the H'mong men, so you might be able to find a cluster of thoroughly pickled blokes to join in with, and let them rail on at you in an incomprehensible patois of Vietnamese, Chinese and Flower H'mong. Even our Vietnamese guide had no idea what these guys were trying to say, but they seemed to be very happy about whatever it was. If that's not your scene, bring a good book.

Orientation
There's no banking for foreigners in Bac Ha. There is a post office and internet is available just down the street (if the power hasn't gone out) for 6,000 VND per hour. Bac Ha is not a good place to handle travel logistics, so make sure you have all your ducks in a row before arriving.

There are precious few departures from the main bus station, which is mostly useful for getting back to Lao Cai. If you're headed almost anywhere else, you'll need to stand along the right road and flag down the right bus. No tickets are sold at the bus station -- just buy when you board.

Street names are elusive in Bac Ha, but just south of the square is the road that leads to Pho Lu, (Route 153 on most maps). You'll find the post office and internet on that road, just south of the intersection with the road towards the market.

Tour services are available at the Sao Mai Hotel and at Sapa Green Travel at the Hoang Yen cafe across the street. Sapa Green also runs the Hoang Vu Hotel and you can enquire there as well.

Post office: South of the town square, Bac Ha. T: (020) 880 200, F: (020) 880 285. Hours: Summer, 07:00 to 21:00, Winter, 07:30 to 21:00
Sapa Green Tours: Hoang Yen Bar, Across from the Sao Mai Hotel, Bac Ha. T: (020) 212 710 (0912) 005 952, (0945) 378 198, (0977) 453 755. hoangyenbar@gmail.com
Sao Mai Hotel: West of the market, along the main road, to the north, Bac Ha. T: (020) 880 288, (0912) 060 862, F: (020) 780 352. www.saomaibacha.com.

General information about Bac Ha:

Overview

Sapa began life as a hilltop retreat for French colonists desperate to escape the searing heat of the Vietnamese plains. They chose the lofty cool of Fansipan's surrounds, and it's easy to see why the humidity of Hanoi peels away as you ascend the mountain peaks skirted with finely-sculptured, emerald-green rice terraces.

If you're only in Sapa for a few days, be forewarned that the views do not come with a money-back guarantee. The 'best' time to visit Sapa is in the summer months of August to December, when skies are more likely to be clear. These months are rainier but they are also warmer, and sometimes you can't beat a nice summer rain for atmosphere -- showers are typically brief, but it pours in buckets. Winter can be cold, foggy, and rainy, but every three or four days, the weather clears and the views are more gorgeous than they are any other time of year. No matter what time of year you arrive, Sapa has its drawbacks and advantages. Your top priority when selecting a room in January and February should be heat. Some places have electric blankets or heaters built into the bed frame, but that means the rest of the room is going to be freezing. Electric space heaters are better, and best yet, many places come with wood-burning fire-places. Make sure the fireplace works before you hand over your passport -- some we saw were only ornamental.

Here you can come into close contact with a multitude of ethnic minorities. Chief among them are the Black Hmong, so named partly because their dress is black, ornamented with colourful brocade and silver jewellery, but mostly because of their black, fez-like headgear. The Red Hmong dress in black as well, but the women wrap up their hair in a red scarf bedecked with silver-beaded tassels. The Dzao also have distinctive headwear -- a pile of coiled, braided hair, with an elaborate, rectangular ornament of silver metal sticking out of the top. They will happily remove their headdress for tourists to show that it's just a hat and not their real hair.

Since the advent of tourism these tribes have reinvented themselves as hawkers of handmade trinkets and retailers of goods made by the Flower Hmong, who live elsewhere in the province. They are the genuine 'native' inhabitants of the area, and they clearly regard all of the political nonsense that has been going on for the past 1,000 years as background noise. People invading and leaving. Governments coming and going. Many tribes straddle the border with China, which they ignore, circulating freely on both sides. As far as they are concerned, the lowland ethnic Vietnamese who have shown up in recent years to make a buck are simply arrivistes.

Sapa is sharply stratified -- almost all the businesses in town are owned and staffed by Viet Kinh, and the only trade the tribes do is on the streets in the form of handicrafts, fruits and vegetables, and, to an extent, drugs. You can expect to have a 60-year old woman grab your arm and offer you marijuana, hashish or opium. Heroin and other hard drugs are also a problem here, especially among the young Vietnamese who arrive looking for work and don't find it. Whatever you may do back home, think twice about the ethics of doing it here and making a bad situation worse.

The fact that the tribes continue to live a very basic existence is partly economic and partly cultural. To them, a rice field, a garden, some cattle and a stilt house are all the prosperity they ever hoped for, going back countless generations. Homestays in these same stilt houses are very popular, of course, though some villages are more 'authentic' than others. The most-easily accessed destinations feel more like 'theme resorts' for tourists, where they get to rough it local-style, though technically they are real villages. But if you venture to the more remote hamlets, they offer fascinating glimpses of lifestyles seemingly stolen from history.

Life is probably better for the tribes than it once was, but it still takes all day to make a few dollars profit. Despite the steady flow of Hill Tribal Ethnic People Sapa Vietnam tourists, supply far outweighs demand. You may notice that if you wander beyond the last tourist-oriented business on any street, there are precious few businesses thriving on local dollars alone. In a sense, it's not really a town at all -- the tribes live elsewhere and come into town to do business -- often trudging along on foot, six hours each way. The ethnic Vietnamese, for their part, are from other cities in Vietnam. Many live in cheap, shabby rooms along the steps at the bottom of Cau May street, alongside the Royal Sapa Hotel. Such rooms cost about US$25 per month, but it still takes a lot of postcards and sweet potatoes to make the monthly rent. And there are few other options: other than family farming, since there are no major industries in the area aside from tourism.

To describe Sapa as 'over-touristed' is a bit beside the point, since that is the sine qua non of its existence -- something to think about when you are having brocade thrust into your hands or being dragged against your will into a shop. Visitors are often surprised by both the ruthless selling prowess and candour of the minorities. If you feel you've just been cursed in Hmong after refusing to buy, rest assured, you probably have. But their cunning and sales routines come just as naturally as their giggles and smiles. The Hmong in particular are as tough as they are sweet and naive as they are savvy. Patience, curiosity and a sense of humour are requisite attributes for all visitors.

Orientation
Sapa town is set on a roughly north-south orientation, and you'll be heading north as you head up the hill away from Mt Fansipan into town and on towards the road to Lao Cai. The chief landmark is the old church sitting just above the pentagon-shaped town 'square'. It's actually a stadium built into the hillside, though we've never seen it used as such. The road along the south side of the church, crowded with market stalls, is Phan Xuan Huan -- following the road to the end leads to some cheaper accommodation with lesser views. There are two sets of steps that lead down to Cau May, which may provide a good short-cut between the church and your hotel.

Cau May (Cloud Bridge) is the main thoroughfare for foreign tourists, and is crowded with restaurants serving western food. This street starts at the south side of the town square and terminates in a steep set of stairs lined with cheap rooms, let out by the Vietnamese who have come here to work. At the top of the stairs, you'll find one of the town's two ATMs that takes foreign cards.

To the right and up a bit is Dong Loi, the alley where you'll find Tau Bar and Chau Long Hotel. To the left, the road takes an extreme turn and technically becomes Muong Hoa, but places along both streets may refer to either name. Here you'll find places like the Lotus Hotel, the Pinocchio and the Royal View. There's little to see past the Pink Candle restaurant 500m down the road, but 25km further on is Ban Ho village.

The other road of interest is Thac Bac (silver waterfall) which ascends north from the town square up into the hills. Here you'll find Baguette and Chocolate, and further up, the Summit Hotel -- and much further still.

It's more than likely you'll get free internet at your hotel, but for a full range of services, one stand-out place is the Cybercafe on Fansipan Road, for CD-burning, printing, and whatever gadgets and thingamabobs you need to make this talk to that.

The road that crosses Cau May features a banner announcing it as the way to Cat Cat Village. Cat Cat is literally 'cascade', the French word for waterfall, subjected to the Vietnamese rules of pronunciation. The road is called Fansipan, after the mountain, via a variety of curious phonetic spellings involving the letter 'X'. This road leads to places like the Cat Cat View, Pink Floyd, and then on to the local waterfall.

There's very little to lure you further north than the post office on Thach Son, along the fish-shaped park above the town square. Not even the bus station, since all the buses to Lao Cai and Lai Chau depart from in front of the church. Across from the bus station is the BIDV bank along with the town's other ATM. North of the bus station is the artificial Sapa Lake, which takes about an hour to walk around.

Tours and treks can be booked in advance in Hanoi, or on the spot in Sapa. You'll pay a bit more for the former, but to make sure you get the tour you want when you want, booking ahead in Hanoi provides more ease and security. Tours are offered absolutely everywhere in Sapa, and trying to pin down the best agency with the best tours for the best price is like trying to catch a wave on the sand. The bottom line is, don't pay more than you can afford, and Sapa is so beautiful, and the surrounds so intriguing, you'll walk away feeling you've got your money's worth, even if you paid a bit more than someone else for the same thing.

If you really want to re-distribute your western dollars directly to those who need it most, forget about the tour agencies and head to the bottom of Cay Mau outside the Royal Sapa Hotel where you'll find many independent guides looking for clients. Many Hmong girls make a living this way, and their English is often excellent. As for the Vietnamese, some are drug addicts, and some are working hard to support their family in a remote village to the south. It's pretty easy to tell the difference. It's best to work out a plan on your own first, and just tell your guide where you want to go. This is the same 'talent pool' the agencies often use when they have extra work, so you'll just be cutting out the middle man. We found a wonderfully low-key and easy-going independent guide who speaks English well. Tran Thi Huyen T: (0916) 640 048.

BIDV Bank: Ngu Chi Son (across from the bus station), Sapa. T: (020) 872 569, , F: (020) 872 636. Hours: Winter: 07:30 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 16:00, Summer: 07:00 to 11:30 and 13:30 to 16:30. Travellers cheques for dong, 2.2%, credit card advances, Visa cards only, 3%
Cybercafe: 30 Fansipan, Sapa. T: (020) 872 192, (0912) 372 893. Hours: 07:00-23:00
Main post office: Thanh Son, across from the park, Sapa. T: (020) 872 298, F: (020) 872 282. Hours: 07:00 to 21:00. Long distance phone service available.