Product Description
Sapa Mountain Hike is one of our soft treks that can fit experienced hikers and family holidays. The trip takes you to several hill tribe villages such as Sin Chai, Y Linh Ho, Ta Van villages. There you will encounter the H’mong and the Giay ethnic groups.
Map of Sapa Mountain Hike
Sapa Mountain Hike Itinerary
Day 1: Sapa – Sin Chai.
Departure from Sapa at 09.00 am. Transfer by road 16 km along national road 4D to Tram Ton Pass with a short top at the Silver Waterfall. Walk around the Heaven Gate for great view of the west side of Hoang Lien Son mountain range. Start trekking from Heaven Gate through the thick rain forest of the Hoang Lien Nature Reserve for about 2 hours. The trail is narrow, tough steep downhill from 1,957m to 1,541m. Lunch break here on the top of a hill named Sour & Acrid. Continue trekking downhill after lunch for nearly an hour to the stream crossing at 1,414m. The trail of this portion gets through corn fields and some terraced paddies including some tough but short descending. Once getting to other bank, the trail becomes wider and less tough along the upstream part of Muong Hoa river for about 2 hours towards Sin Chai village of the Black Hmong. Arriving at home stay at about 5.00 pm, relax and free walk around for stunning scenery of the valley at sunset. Dinner and home stay in this village.
Day 2: Sin Chai – Y Linh Ho.
Breakfast and leave home stay at 08.30 to 09.00 am. Take an easy walk along Muong Hoa river for nearly an hour to Cat Cat waterfall, short break by this wonder of nature. Cross the river by suspension bridge to other sides, follow the steps uphill to the southern edge of Cat Cat village and from here the follow a good path for another hour softly downhill(1,212m to 1,188m). Cross the Vang stream to other bank and then lunch break. After lunch, the trail winds up steep hills to 1,227m for two hours through rice paddies, corn fields and later rain forest before gradually descending for another 2 hours to wards Y Linh Ho village(at 1,018m), another village of the Black Hmong with lot traces of slash and burn agriculture along the way. The rest hour of the afternoon is at leisure or for free walk to explore this charming village.
Day 3: Y Linh Ho – Ta Van.
Breakfast and leave Y Linh Ho at about 08.30 am. Following a large dirt path uphill to Lao Chai San 2 and Lao Chai San 1 villages of the Hmong and then up and down along narrow dirt trail 2 hours to Lao Hang Chai, another Black Hmong village(at 1,146m). Explore this village and then lunch break. Continue after lunch for about 1,5 hour along a dirt trail on high mountain side which offers great panorama of Muong Hoa valley to Giang Ta Van(1,029m), a small village of the Hmong set on the rocky land near a bamboo forest. Walking around this village and then gradually descend to Ta Van village of the Giay which is beautifully sits on the bank of Muong Hoa(989m). Same as the Tay, the Giay peoples live sedentary life basing on wet rice cultivation for long time. Arriving to home stay in mid afternoon, take a short rest before explore the village for the rest hours of the day or just relax by the river till Sunset.
Day 4: Ta Van – Sapa.
Breakfast and start trekking at about 09.00 am. The trail gets uphill for ½ hour from Ta Van and then sneaking its way on the high hill-side amidst terraced rice paddies for 1,5 hour before getting through bamboo forest. Paying visit to Giang Ta Chai – a hamlet of the Hmong isolated itself amidst bamboo. Descending for nearly another hour to the Waterfall. Lunch and short rest. Continue trekking along a large dirt path to Giang Tu Chai Village of the Red Zao. Spending an hour exploring the village, paying visiting to local homes with a lot of chances to contact locals for understanding of their unique way of living. Leaving Giang Tu Chai and follow a narrow trail down and uphill to Hoa Su Pan 1 village. Paying visit to local homes of the Hmong, clients may have chances to see different process of making the fiber from hemp such as spinning, weaving or embroidering…Walk down hill for 20 minutes to the motor way. Picked up and transfer 16 km back to Sapa. Trip end by drop off at hotel.
Sapa private guided tours
Lotussia Travel is a Hanoi tour operator offering a wide selection of multi-activity holidays in Vietnam. Options include countryside cycle, mountain biking, road cycling, jungle trek, trekking homestay, mountain hiking, peaks climbs, motorbike, scouter touring, camping, caving expeditions, kayaking, boat trips, cruise, sightseeing, culture tours. Most of our trips are private customized, and specially designed for small group tours, family vacations. The itinerary above – Sapa Mountain Hike is only a sample that can be further customized to better fit your requirements. Just follow it or contact us for designing your perfect adventure.
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Itinerary disclaimer
Occasionally our tour itineraries are updated during the year to incorporate improvements stemming from past travelers’ comments and our own research. The information given in this itinerary may be slightly different to that in the service proposal. It’s very important that you print and review a final copy of your itinerary a couple of days prior to travel, in case there have been changes that affect your plans. If you have any queries, please contact us. We are here to help you!
Please note that while we operate successful trips in Vietnam throughout the year, some changes may occur in our itineraries due to inclement weather and common seasonal changes to timetables and transport routes. This can happen with little notice so please be prepared for modifications to the route. The order and timing of included activities in each location may also vary from time to time.
Inclusions
Depending on the proposed option (semi-guide tour or all-inclusive package tour), the price may include the following services. Please bear in mind Lotussia Travel is specialized in tailor-made trips. Trip cost vary depending on group size and other details.
- Car transfers.
- Local tour guide. The English-Speaking guide is provided by default. Other language may be available upon request (with extra charge).
- Meals.
- Entrance fees.
Exclusions
Unless required most of the following services are usually not included in our tour price.
- Visa
- Flight/Train tickets.
- Accommodation.
- Tour leader.
- Local porter(s).
- International travel insurance.
- Drinks.
- Tips.
- Personal expenses.
Tour guide
Our tour guides speak English or French. They hold a university degree in tourism and national license as a guide. If you wish to send a tour leader along with any group, he or she can fully rely on the knowledge and experience of our local guides.
Remote treks are always accompanied by a local representative to deal with permits and authorities and manage the porter team. They speak the local dialects, know the cultural traditions and give tips on suggested behavior in fragile ecological areas and tribal communities. For some itineraries, the role of tour leader and representative is combined.
Driver
Our drivers don’t speak English. It’s possible that a few of them might know some basic words, such as telling time, stop, and lunch. If you’re looking for effective communication throughout the journey, we highly recommend booking a tour guide.
Trip routes
Principally, Lotussia Travel requires all the trip associates to know the destinations well by any means of traveling or enquiry to the local suppliers to figure out all the relative details of any trip. For adventure tours such as jungle trekking, mountain hiking, sea kayaking, river rafting or biking, cycling tours, Lotussia Travel will never add any new routes into available schedule until survey or pre-view it.
Accommodation
Lotussia Travel carefully choose all the hotels, guest-houses or home-stays based on service quality, location, and characteristics, doing best to make the accommodations in the remote small places as comfortable as possible. Please bear in mind that hotels in Vietnam might not be in the same standard in other country. Generally hotels in major cities such as Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh city, Hoian, Hue…are much better than hotels and guest-houses in mountainous areas.
Meals
Lotussia Travel take dinning as an indispensable experience to clients since it is an important part in Vietnamese culture. Therefore, Lotussia Travel will not intend take clients to the most expensive restaurants but non-touristy local ones which offer delicious, local food, with nice or interesting atmosphere. The restaurants might be simple in the country but LOTUSSIA Travel guarantee is sanitary and cleanliness. Or even on our trek, we encourage our cook offer client food with new tastes from day to day. During adventure itineraries to mountainous or remote areas, there is sometimes no choice for hotel and restaurants. We will try our best to bring you the best taste of local food.
Drinks
As the tap water in Vietnam is undrinkable, Lotussia Travel recommend clients to drink bottled water throughout your trip, or boiled water on treks. Lotussia Travel offers bottle water all the day, and soft drinks like Cola, Sprite or Vietnamese Tea or if possible juice in restaurants (if mentionned in itinerary). This is not automatically included in the packages. In simple restaurant or on camping, Lotussia Travel offers boiled water, instant coffee or juice, wrapped milk (Details are confirmed in bottom of your itinerary).
Transportation
In most destinations of Vietnam, all the roads are well paved though the traffic is quite messed up like in Hanoi, Hai Phong… We use proper vehicles, car, minibus or coach in good condition based on the size of the groups. We use 4WD only on the rough road where the other vehicles could not pass through or based on clients requirement on overland journeys or treks. For cycling itineraries, we usually use our support minibus or minibus with support truck. For sea kayaking, river rafting trips, diving packages we use standard boat as support. Detailed information is provided on our service proposal.
We use drivers who are native or local of each travel destination and maintain good safety records for all trips. Most of our drivers can speak English but a little bit. This is just enough to understand basic words such as “time of departure”, “stop”, “restaurants”, “hotels”…If you want to learn more about Vietnamese culture and information about sightseeing sites, booking a tour guide is highly recommended.
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