South East Asia's highest peak Mt. Fansipan (3,143 m)

This 3 day trek with outdoor camping offers all of the challenges and rewards of any hike. At the summit you be one of the few to have reached up and touched the clouds.

Day 01 : Sapa, hike up to the 2700m 

The Night Before: Transfer from your hotel to the Hanoi Train Station for boar ding at 9:15 pm. You will be in shared AC soft sleeper cabins of 4 to travel North to Lao Cai town. The train arrives in Lao Cai at about 6:30 am where your guide will welcome you. Look for the sign when you exit the train station. Then take a morning drive through the clouds by car/van to Sapa (about 1.5 hours). Arrive in Sapa at around 7:30 am, have breakfast, a short rest and some last preparation for the challenging hike. Transfer by jeep/van to the starting point at Tram Ton Pass which is 15 km from Sapa town. Start hiking through the jungle rain forest along wild mountain streams. Break for a picnic lunch in the middle of an evergreen forest. More hiking to an elevation of about 2900 meters where we will make base camp. Local Hmong porters will help us to set up camp, start a small fire and prepare dinner. Share stories of past journeys and cultural myths under the stars before retiring for the night. 

Day 02 : Challenge to TOP and down to 2600m 

 
Breakfast at the first sign of daylight then final preparations for today, the longest day of hiking to the summit of Mt. Fansipan. The first section is steep and very challenging as we weave our way through the bamboo forests. At some points we are even forced to use ropes and harnesses for safety. We are rewarded with all our hardships forgotten and with the impression of standing on the top of Indochina. After a picnic lunch and a rest at the summit, we begin our descent to base camp. Clean off and refresh at a mountain stream while our Hmong porters set up camp and prepare dinner. Overnight again under the stars with the satisfaction of the day's accomplishment. 

Day 03 : Back down and night in Sapa. 

Upon leaving the base camp, we begin walking downhill back to Sapa town. The steep trail is somewhat arduous but we have great opportunities to get some fantastic views from our vantage point. See the surrounding mountains, terraced valleys and quiet hilltribe villages far in the distance. Picnic lunch on the way, then we will be picked up in Sin Chai village and transferred back to Sapa town. When we arrive back in Sapa we will check in to the hotel take a shower and a rest. Your full afternoon is free in town for relaxing, shopping or befriending some of the local children. Dinner is on your own, overnight in a hotel in Sapa town.

Day 04 : Free round Sapa. Night train to Hanoi 

 
Wake up in Sapa town, breakfast at the hotel then enjoy the morning with some of your new friends that you may have met the afternoon before. Today your guide is available to you for the whole day, although, you have the entire day for free time and visiting the lively markets. Some suggestions include a visit to the orchid gardens of Dragon Mountain, or a cultural day trek to Taphin village. In late afternoon, depart from your hotel for the Lao Cai train station at 5:30 pm. The train leaves Lao Cai at 8:15 pm and arrives after a pleasant sleep in your first class, shared AC soft berth to Hanoi by 4:30 am. Please find your own way to your hotel, a taxi normally costs you a set of 50,000 VND.

VIETNAM TYPICAL TOURS COMPANY
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Hanoi - Halong - Tam Coc - Sapa - Hanoi 7 days 6 nights

Day 01 : Arrive Hanoi 
 
Meeting at Noi Bai airport  and transfer to hotel. The rest of the day is at leisure.  Overnight in Hanoi.

Day 02 : Hanoi to Halong Boat Cruise (B, L, D)

Driver's VietNam Typical Tour transfer overland to Halong Bay northeast of Hanoi and enter into the Red River Delta, rich with rural beauty and picturesque rice-farming villages. Once reaching Halong Bay, We board the wooden junk and set sail for a leisure cruise of Halong Bay. Declared a World Heritage Site to protect its beauty, we'll cruise through its three-thousand islands and rich rock-formations, passing by Ga Choi Island, Dinh Huong Island, Dog Island, Sail Island, and even visit Sung Sot Cave. Lunch served on-board while viewing the islands. Dinner and overnight in Halong Bay on Cruise.

Day 03 : Halong Bay - Hanoi (B, L)
 
Keep cruising around the bay. Back to Halong bay harbour. Lunch. Back to Hanoi. Check in hotel. Free time for shopping and dinner. Overnight in Hanoi

Day 04 : Hanoi - Tam Coc Cave or Perfume Pagoda - Hanoi (B, L)

Option 1: Hoa Lu - Tam Coc Cave
AM : Pick-up from your hotel is at 8:00am, we have a 2 hour drive (110km South) to the city of Ninh Binh, also known as the Island Ha Long and the Ancient Capital. It will be an exciting day highlighted, by a 2 hour boat ride in a hand woven bamboo row boat down the Tam Coc stream enjoying spectacular scenery surrounded by rice paddies and towering limestone mountain peaks.
PM : After lunch served at a local riverside restaurant we make a short transfer (4 km) down a peaceful country road to Hoa Lu, Vietnam’s ancient capital eleven centuries ago. Here, there are two temples dedicated to King Dinh and King Le, the founders of the ancient capital during the 10th century. Return to Hanoi and the tour ends at your hotel around 5:00 pm. In the evening, take the night train to Lao Cai. Overnight on train. (Soft Sleepers)
Option 2: Perfume Pagoda
Depart for the Perfume Pagoda, which is not just one pagoda but many shrines and sanctuaries built into mountainsides. This famous complex of pagodas is also one of Vietnam great pilgrimage sites. After two and half hour drive through the rich farming land of the Red River Delta, we arrive at the Perfume Pagoda. Here we enjoy a leisurely boat excursion on the Yen River past the spectacular landscape of flooded rice fields and undulating mountains. After two hour river trip we embark on a rugged walk uphill to explore some of the many pagodas and the sacred grotto of Huong Tich. Back to Hanoi. In the evening, take the night train to Lao Cai. Overnight on train. (Soft Sleepers)

Day 05 : Lao Cai - Sapa - Cat Cat Village (B, L)

 Arrive in Lao Cai, transfer to Sapa. You will freshen up & have breakfast at restaurant. After that you will visit some of nearby hill tribe villages, such as Cat Cat or Ta Fin. End you will come back hotel to check in & have lunch.
PM: Free time for walking & discovering Sa Pa town. Overnight in Sapa.

Day 06 : Sapa - Lao Chai - Ta Van Village - Lao Cai (B, L)
 
In the morning, take a drive to visit Lao Chai village – home of Black H’Mong – here you will trek through terraced rice fields to villages, meet and talk with locals to learn more about their daily life and habits. Then trek through Ta Van village – home of Dzay hill tribe and get on car  back to Sapa. A short shopping in town before moving to Lao Cai station. Have dinner at local restaurant before getting on AC 4 berth soft sleeper train.

Day 07 : Hanoi (B, L)
 
A short city tour to: Ngoc Son temple and Hoan Kiem Lake; Ho Chi Minh complex: Ho Chi Minh museum, Ho Chi Minh mausoleum; One pillar pagoda; West Lake and Tran Quoc Pagoda. Lunch. At leisure until transfer to Noi Bai Airport for onward flight. Finish the trip. See you again next trip.
 
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The People in Sapa Lao Cai

The population of the Lào Cai province is a mosaic of ethnic groups. An incredible variety of peoples, some of them unique to Vietnam, are found on a relatively small area.
In fact, visitors can meet 24 ethnic groups, each with its own language, culture and traditions. This cultural wealth is explained by the diversity of landscapes and of land available for farming. History also offers clues as to why the highlands in the Lào Cai province served as a refuge for certain ethnic groups during political unrest like the Taiping rebellion in 19th-century China.
The seven most numerous ethnic groups in the Lào Cai province account for over 90% of the whole population. The following groups are found: the Kinh (the true Vietnamese) 35%, the Hmong 22%, the Tay 14%, the Dao (Mien) 13%, the Thai 9%, the Nung 4.5% and the Giay 4.3%. The other ethnic groups: the Phula, Hani, Latis, Tu Di, Pin Tao, Tu Lao, Pa Di, Sapho, Lolo and the Xa Mang are sometimes represented only by a few villages and a few hundred individuals.
The Hmong

The Hmong, known for centuries in China by the name of Miao, used to be called the Méo in Southeast Asia. Numbering about three million, they are scattered over a vast territory stretching from south-west China (2 million) to north Vietnam (600,000), Laos (about 250,000), Thailand (150,000) and Myanmar (formerly Burma) (about 30,000).
The main subgroups present in Vietnam are the White Hmong, the Hmong Leng, Hmong Pua, Hmong Shi or Sheu and the black Hmong. In Sa Pa, the Hmong Leng are the most numerous, some Hmong Sheu and Hmong Pe women – with their colourful skirts and double-breasted tops – come from the Muong Khuong district.
Originally, the Chinese hmong populations used to live in the wide plains south of the Yangtse river. As of the 16th century, they started to migrate to the south-east under the demographic, territorial and political pressure of the Chinese. During the first half of the 19th century, the Hmong left the Chinese territory and settled in neighbouring countries. At the time, the great Taiping rebellion (1850-1872) was disturbing all southern China (Guizhou, Yunnan and Sichuan provinces) causing long periods of famine that pushed numerous ethnic groups to go south. The Hmong entered the Indo-Chinese peninsula through North Vietnam, their presence near Lai Chau was reported in 1848. These successive waves of migration were probably facilitated by the hmong tradition of shifting cultivation and their close contacts with the Chinese caravaneers who had been travelling for centuries through the mountains of southern Asia.
Today, the traditional agrarian economy is still based on family farms raising pigs, chickens, buffaloes and horses, on food crops (rice, corn, manioc) and cash crops (cardamom and vegetables).
The traditional social organisation of the Hmong is based on the clan. Each clan is made of lineages, all the members of which acknowledge a common founding male ancestor. In the Hmong household, up to fourdifferent generations may be gathered under the same roof. The household is the most important economic, political and ritual unit. The villages perched on the mountain slopes house several clans.
Easily recognisable by their costume, the Sa Pa Hmong Leng – who do not call themselves Black Hmongs – still wear hemp clothes dyed with natural (black-blue) indigo. The women wear stiff indigo-blue turbans over their hair gathered into a bun. Nowadays, they hardly ever wear their batik or embroidered pleated skirts, replaced with short indigo pants. Only the collar, sleeves and belt are embroidered with geometric patterns in silk. The White Hmong women from the Bat Xat district wear long black pants, fairly short-waisted double-breasted jackets, and cover their hair with colourful head scarves. The Hmong Pua, Hmong Pe and Hmong Sheu women from the Bac Ha district wear similar batik skirts with an embroidered band. They are distinguished by the decorative patterns and shape of their aprons.
The Dao

The Dao, known as the Man or Yao in south-west China for centuries, also number a few tens of thousands in Laos, Thailand andMyanmar (formerly Burma). The Dao-Mien settled in Vietnam two to three centuries ago, depending on the area. One of the Dao's specific cultural features is their traditional writing system using Chinese characters. Preserved texts make it possible to trace their origins back to the provinces of south China. Their taoist religion is also based on texts. For major taoist ceremonies, the ritual space must be surrounded with painted pictures of the divinities and celestial generals. As a consequence, the art of painting on paper and canvas survives among the Dao. Like the Hmong, the Dao build terraced paddy-fields irrigated by a sophisticated system of canals around Sa Pa. They also have a reputation for pig and horse breeding. The different Dao groups from the Lao Cai province usually wear red headdresses or red pieces of clothing. The Dao (Ké Mien) from the Taphin and Tavan villages (Sa Pa district) wear flat headdresses, totally red, hung with silver coins. The headdresses of the Dao (Ké Mien) from Muong Hum district (north of Sa Pa) are cone-shaped and made of red flowery material. The Bac Ha (Ké Moun) Dao enhance their turbans with red and pink wool or silk threads. The headdresses of the Dao (Iu Mien) from Van Ban district – south of Sa Pa – are decorated with red and yellow pompoms, and hang low down their backs.
The Tày
The Tày grow rice in paddy fields, preferably in the plains and in the valleys. The villages consist of wooden or bamboo stilt houses and are often built in the immediate vicinity of a stream or a river. The household is the basic economic unit and tends to be a nuclear family limited to close relatives.
The Tày, Giay, Numg and Thai women wear brightly-coloured jackets, – pink, green, or blue – double-breasted, often with contrasting braid at the collar. The tartan headscarf covers their hair gathered into a bun. Traditionally, each group used to have their own style of bun, held up with long silver needles, but the custom is vanishing.

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Cat Cat village in Sapa

Location: Cat Cat Village is 2km from Sapa Townlet, Sapa District.
Characteristics: This is an age-old village of H’Mong ethnic group remaining unique customs and practices that are lots in other villages.
Visitors to Cat Cat have an opportunity to admire a lively and colorful picture. That is the image of young women sitting by looms with colorful pieces of brocade decorated with designs of flowers and birds. When these pieces of brocade are finished, they are dyed and embroidered with beautiful designs.
A noteworthy is that H’Mong women use plants and leaves to dye these brocade fabrics. And then they roll a round and smooth section of wood covered with wax on fabrics to polish them, making their colors durable.

In addition to the brocade weaving craft, many residents in Cat Cat are good at manipulating gold and silver jewelry. Their products are fairly sophisticated, especially jewelry for women.
Tourists to Cat Cat are most attracted by its unique customs, including the custom of “pulling wife”. A man can ask his friends to lure a girl he likes to his house and keeps her there in three days. During these days, if the girl agrees to become his wife, a wedding will be held. However, the girl can happily go home after three days if she does not like him.
Traditional houses of H’Mong people in Cat Cat have three rooms with three doors and covered with po mu wood roof. In the house there are three columns that stand in round or square stones. The walls are made from sawn timber. The main door is always closed and only opens when people in the house organize important events. Altar, inlaid floor containing food, places for sleeping, kitchen and receiving guests are indispensable parts of the houses.

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Sapa - Catcat - SinChai - Giang TaChai

Day 1 : Hanoi - Laocai

20: 00 pm - Pick up at your hotel in Hanoi and transfer to Hanoi railway station for boarding the Express Train to Laocai. Overnight in an air-conditioned soft sleeper wooden cabin. (4 pax/cabin or 2 pax/cabin on request).

Day 2 : Laocai - Catcat - SinChai ( 5 hours trekking, 12 km, 2 villages ) ( B/L/D )
 
6:00 am - Arrive at Laocai train station. Welcome by your local guide and driver. Transfer to your hotel. Have breakfast and a shower. Trek around 12 km to visit two villages of the Black H'mong (Catcat and SinChai). Enjoy a picnic lunch by a waterfall and see the hydroelectric power station established by the French. Walk from Catcat back to Sapa at around 4pm. Dinner at a local restaurant. Overnight at your chosen hotel in Sapa

Day 3 : Sapa - Giang TaChai - Sapa ( 6 hours trekking, 17 km, 3 villages ) (B/L/D)

Breakfast at the hotel. Head for the valley by jeep to visit two villages of the H'mong and the Dzay. Picnic lunch en route or with a local family. Visit the Red Dzao in GiangTaChai village, stopping off to see a picturesque waterfall and suspension bridge. Walk up to the road and take the jeep back to Sapa. Dinner at a local restaurant. Transfer to Laocai train station for boarding the Express to Hanoi (20:15 - 5:00). End of services.

VIETNAM TYPICAL TOURS COMPANY
Hotline : (84) 974.861.652
Email : info@vietnamtypicaltours.com
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Sapa Trekking & Home-stay

Day 1 : Hanoi - Laocai

20 : 00 pm - Pick up at your hotel in Hanoi and transfer to Hanoi railway station for boarding the Express Train to Laocai.Overnight in an air-conditioned soft sleeper wooden cabin (4pax/cabin or 2pax/cabin on request).

Day 2:  Transfer to Sapa – Trek to Tavan Village ( B/L/D )
 
Arrive in Lao Cai around 5.30 am. We will take 1hr bus ride uphill to the beautiful town of Sapa. The ride give you a glimpse of the stunning vistas and impressive rice terraces. Upon arrival in Sapa Town we have breakfast in local restaurant and prepare for a great trek down to the picturesque valley of Muong Hoa. We will walk on small paths and trails to reach Tavan Village, where we will have unique homestay experience among hill tribe people. Pinic lunch on the way. Dinner and overnight in the local house.

Day 3: Trek to Ban Ho Village ( B/L/D )

We will have breakfast in the local house before embarking upon another day of adventure. Today we will trek across mountains, bamboo forest, terraces and streams to reach Ban Ho Village, a beautiful village at lower altitude. Picnic lunch by the stream before moving on to Ban Ho. Dinner and overnight in local house.

Day 4: Trek/drive to Sapa – Night train to Hanoi ( B/L/D )
 
After breakfast we leave Ban Ho for Sapa. We will trek shortly to the dirt road for a jeep ride back to Sa Pa. Back to the town we can take shower and change clothes in hotel.
Free at leisure in the afternoon. We can explore the town on foot and have great shopping time in Sapa market. In the late afternoon, we transfer to Lao Cai for night train back to Hanoi.
Arrive in Hanoi around 5 am. Tour ends at Hanoi Railway Station.

VIETNAM TYPICAL TOURS COMPANY
Hotline : (84) 974.861.652
Email : info@vietnamtypicaltours.com
Website : http://vietnamtypicaltours.com