Ta Phin village, Sapa

A picturesque thirty minute drive North of Sapa will bring you to the village of Taphin. Set within a valley with a touring peaking mountain at one end, this village is alive with the daily life of the Kinh, Red Dao and Black Hmong people.The valley floor is layered with rice paddies and dotted with 20 small home communes. Above them are some smaller communes and a patchwork of corn and vegetable fields.All around Taphin there is an energy generated by the daily life of the locals here. The Red Dao, distinguished by their impressive headdress, and the Black H’mong, in their shiny indigo-dyed clothes have lived here for almost 400 hundred years.more information: http://taphin-sapa.info/

Sapa tour: BacHa & Cocly - special markets & boat trip

Night 1 ( Saturday ) : Hanoi -Laocai ( Overnight on the train )8h30pm Sapatours 's taxi take you from your hotel in Hanoi to Hanoi Railway Station for the night train at at 9:30 PM to get to Laocai Station. Sleep on the train.(4 people/cabin or 2 people/cabin on request).Day 2 (Sunday): Sapa - Bacha market -SapaPicked up at Laocai Railway Station by jeep for BacHa market. the beginning of the day on which you visit a big market filled with many different hill-tribe peoples. This is the most colourful market in North Vietnam. At the market, you have chance to enjoy BacHa people's simple but unique kinds of food with special wines made from rice, cassavas, corn and different sorts of fruits such as plumps, apples, peaches... talking to the minorities through the guide's interpretation. Leave the market for the H'mong King's house (King Hoang A Tuong) built by the French colonists and the Chinese in 1920. Return the town for lunch. In the afternoon, spend time visiting another village (BanPho village) Say good bye to BacHa and get back to Sapa. On the way back, drop in to see the Vietnamese and Chinese Harbour Mouth in LaoCai. Reach Sapa late in the afternoon. Check in hotel.Day 3 (Monday) Sapa - Banho village - SapaJeep to Supan village and a short walk to BanHo village to visit the Tay ethnic people who have houses on stilts. Lunch at a local family. Back to SapaDay 4(Tuesday) Sapa - Cocly marketLeave from Sapa early at 7:00 AM for CocLy market, which is situated far from Sapa. Enjoy the peaceful life of 6 different minority peoples (Flower H'mong, Black Dzao, Tay, Dzay, HaNhi and Nung). The market is the chance for the minorities to meet and share joy and sorrows after the crops, to exchange one another's experience. Say goodbye to the market and get down onto a boat along Chay river. You are bound to feel great and find yourselves smaller among high rock mountains and to be surprised at white and breathtakingly waterfalls. The Fairy Cave is located deeply in the rocks. Get off the boat to visit a village of the Tay Minority (TrungDo village) by the river. After the boat trip, visit a small town - BaoNhai and then take jeep back to Laocai Station for the night train to Hanoi. Have dinner before getting on the train.Arrive in Hanoi roughly 5:30 AM. The end of tour.