The Hidden Part Of Sapa

Duration: 5 days / 6 nights

Price from: $170

Description

Admiring wild nature of Hoang Lien Son mountain range, exploring a sere of the remotest ethnic minority villages to discover their colorful and fantastic culture, experiencing part of local life and enjoying the most magnificent and beautiful landscapes…this trip including 4 days hard trekking and 3 nights home stay in tribal villages is really a great challenge to hikers who love adventure.

ITINERARY

Night 1: Take overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai

Please, be ready at your hotel lobby at 20.00 for a short transfer to Hanoi railways station for taking the overnight train (first class 4 beds cabin with air-condition) which arrive in Lao Cai city, near the Chinese border next morning.

Day 1 : Sapa Town - Silver Waterfall and Tram Ton Pass

Your guide and driver will meet you at Lao Cai station upon your arrival and an hour transfer uphill the Hoang Lien Son mountains to Sapa. Great views of valleys and terraced rice fields along the way! After Breakfast, you will walk for a brief introduction of this charming town. At the market, you will meet many ethnic minority peoples from different groups, wearing their traditional costumes made by themselves, selling local products includes vegetable, bamboo shoot, mushroom, medicinal herbs and souvenirs…
Afternoon, your Sapa guide and driver will pick you up at about 14.00 for a drive up hill to the famous Silver Waterfall and then onto Tram Ton, the highest mountain pass in Vietnam at 1,800 m above sea level for enjoying the magnificence of Hoang Lien Son Mountain Range as well as over viewing spectacular landscapes of the whole area. On the way back, you may wish to enjoy a short trek for about nearly 2 hours to Cat Cat Village or just wandering around town. It is good preparation for your trip the next 2 days.

• Breakfast and Lunch included. Dinner on your own

• Accommodation: hotel in Sapa

Day 2: Sapa - Tavan - Seo Mi Ty

After Breakfast at hotel, be ready for the 4 days trek, you should leave heavy belongings at the hotel, just take with you clothes, camera with charger and things you need for 4 days.
Leaving Sapa by car southwards to Muong Hoa valley you will start trekking will from Ta Van village of Giay minority. The morning trek is really challenging because the path is tough and mostly uphill but you will enjoy many short breaks for resting. The scenery gets more beautiful and the view gets wider as after every hundred meter you walk. As you get to a high elevation of the Hoang Lien Son park, you’ll find yourself in the middle of nowhere but trees, birds, cloud and wind…the forest here is well preserved.
After a long break at a nice place for Lunch, the trek gets easier and the trail winds its way through an area of the nature reservation. Enjoy your discovery of the wild nature before paying visit to an isolated village of the H’mong, watching everyday life activities before arriving to our camp site which is nearby a river away from the village. You may join your tour guide and porters putting up tents and prepare dinner or fancy a walk around to stretch the legs and discover wild life. Evening comes earlier than usual and everyone sit down near the fire for dinner and revise of what you got today.

• Breakfast and Lunch and Dinner included

• Accommodation: Home stay in local house or in tent

Day 3 : Seo Mi Ty- Den Thang - Ta Trung Ho

The birds singing wakes you up in the morning. Breakfast, packing and then we hit the road again. Following a narrow trail sneaking through thick rainforest for a couple of hours, crossing some old suspension bridges and then suddenly the view opens to a wide valley with beautiful terraced of rice paddies in all shapes as you approach to Den Thang village of Black Hmong by noon. Here you will drop in some local homes and visit a school before sitting down for Lunch.
Afternoon trek becomes tougher on tinny footpath going up and down hills to Ta Trung Ho village. Here you will, with your guide, spend the rest of the day walking around the village, visiting homes, talking to the Red Zao people for your discovery of a unique culture and way of life. The area is not visited by tourists and outsiders till recently, so the people is little bit reserved but hospitable and frank.
Enjoy Dinner and you will find out that trekking makes simple food into delicacy! Home stay overnight a traditional house of a Zao family.

• Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner included

• Accommodation: Home stay in Red Zao house

Day 4 : Ta Trung Ho - Nam Toong - Thanh Phu

Saying good bye to our host, you are now on the path again, from the fringe of the rain forest of the Hoang Lien Son mountain, ascending through forest and terraced rice paddies and corn fields to Nam Toong, another village of Red Dao and here lunch will be prepared in a local school. It is interesting to spend time talking with the teachers and playing with children, teaching them some English. They are very keen to learn new things.
Continue our trek in the afternoon while the descends to the valley and lead to My Son village of Xa Pho ethnic whose population is just about 4000 individuals living in North Vietnam, who basically live on hunting, gathering and slash and burn agriculture till recently. After an hour visiting the Xa Pho dwellings, we walk to Thanh Phu village of Tay minority. The Tay people live a sedentary life in large village and farming rice and other food plants intensively. They built large wooden houses on stilts and well organize their villages. We settle here in this village for home stay overnight.

• • Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner included

• Accommodation: Home stay in a TAY traditional house built on stilts

Day 5 ; Thanh Phu - Ban Ho - Sapa - Overnight train to Hanoi

Today is an easy day starting with a descend down the valley from Thanh Phu to the bank of the river which runs through a large and green valley, enjoy swimming and relax by the river before paying visit to Ban Ho, another large and fantastic Tay village. Enjoy a long break for Lunch in a Tay house and then take a jeep ride back to Sapa.
The rest few hours in the afternoon is for freshen up, packing and rest before leaving Sapa for Lao Cai station to take the overnight train back, which arrive in Hanoi early next morning and ends the trip.

• Breakfast, Lunch included. Dinner on your own

• Overnight on the train in first class 4 bed cabin with air-conditioning

Tour Price per person in US Dollars

Group size	2 pax	3-6 pax	7-10 pax	Single surcharge
Standard hotel	247	215	170	13
Superior hotel	260	229	184	23
Upgrade 2 bed cabin	65	65	65

Tour price includes

• Accommodation: 1 night in hotel, 3 nights home stay
• Return train tickets basing on first class 4 bed cabin with air-conditioning
• Transfer with private car or jeep as indicated in day by day itinerary
• All meals as listed in day by day itinerary
• Visiting fee and English speaking guide

Tour price excludes

• Meals not indicated in day by day itinerary
• Drinks and personal expenses

Things to bring

• Comfortable trekking shoes
• Sun Block and wide brim hat
• Rain gear and warm clothes
• Insect repellent
• Original Passport

Gallery