Trek Sapa day hike: Trekking Tram Ton Heavens Gate to Sin Chai village

The one-day hiking tour starts with a car transfer from your hotel to the Tram Ton, Heaven gate where you get off of the car and start your day adventure. You trek along hill side, through bamboo forest of the Hoang Lien national park. The hiking trail offer beautiful sceneray of the wild nature and Sin Chai valley. Meeting up with local Black H’mong people help to understand the local culture, custom and traditions. This day hike is hard at many part along a narrow trail through the forest, especially descending steep mountainside. The day trip is not recommended to elder customers and family travel with children. Contact Lotussia Travel for more details.

Itinerary:

08.00 am: You will be met up with Lotussia Travel team at your hotel in Sapa. Leaving Sapa, we enjoy the stunning view of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range and lush farm land of Sapa’s suburb. Stop at the Silver Waterfall, walk up the step to high elevation for the surrounding scenery.

We continue by road to the Heaven Gate where we will spend half an hour enjoying magnificent scenery around the Tram Ton pass.

We go downhill following a narrow trail sneaking on mountain sides through the thick rain forest of the Hoang Lien Nature Reserve. We walk for nearly 3 hours before reaching the Sin Chai Village of the H’mong. Have some more walk inside the village, stopping by local houses and talking with the hosts.

We will be picked up again by our vehicle and transferred back to Sapa. Arriving in Sapa around late afternoon, you will be dropped off at your hotel in Sapa. End of Lotussia Travel service.

 Sapa is a beautiful, mountainous town in northern Vietnam along the border with China

Located at 1650 m above sea level in Vietnam's remote northwest mountains, Sapa is famous for both its fine, rugged scenery and also its rich cultural diversity. Sapa is an incredibly picturesque town that lies in the Hoang Lien Son mountain range near the Chinese border in northwestern Vietnam, known as "the Tonkinese Alps". Sapa and its surrounding region is host to many hill tribes, as well as rice terraces, lush vegetation, and Fansipan, the highest peak in Vietnam. However, as a result of a recent surge in popularity Sapa has rapidly become a tourist hotspot where money is the new drug of choice. Don't be put off by the rush, your explorations of the surrounding countryside will be worth the trouble.

Ethnic Minorities

Many ethnic minorities live in and around Sapa. Excluding the Kinh people or ethnic Vietnamese, eight different ethnic minority groups are found in Sapa; H'mong (pronounced Mong), Dao (pronounced Yao), Tay, Giay (pronounced Zai), Muong, Thai, Hoa (ethnic Chinese) and Xa Pho (a denomination of the Phu La minority group). However, the last four groups comprise less than 500 people in total. The population of the district is estimated at 31,652 (1993) of which 52% are H'mong, 25% are Dao, 15% are Kinh, 5% are Tay and 2% are Giay. Around 3,300 people live in Sapa town, the remainder are peasant farmers distributed unevenly throughout the district.


Many older women in particular make items such as ethnic-style clothes and blankets, to sell to tourists. Striking up a conversation with them can be very rewarding and their spoken English is impressive. Sadly, however, doing this in Sapa town itself will sometimes lead to a scrum as a multitude of vendors taste a potential sale.

Children from these ethnic minorities often begin to support their families financially through selling trinkets to tourists. Do not encourage this by buying from children - Buy from adults. They peddle small metal or silver trinkets, embroidered pillow cases and friendship bands in the main town, and often walk for several hours from their surrounding villages to reach the town. At the end of the day, some take a motorbike ride back to their village, some walk home and some sleep in the market.

Girls and boys get married young (around 15-18) and often have two children by the time they are 20 years old. Poverty has led to a great number of girls leaving their villages each day to go selling in Sapa town, and depending on their luck, may only have one meal per day.

Weather

In winter (the 4 months November to February), the weather in Sapa is invariably cold, wet and foggy (temperatures can drop to freezing and there was snow in 2011). Travellers have rolled into town on a glorious clear day and proceed to spend a week trapped in impenetrable fog. When it is like this there really isn't very much to do. Also the rice paddys are brown & empty (they are planted in spring), the paths very muddy & slippery & the glorious vistas of summer are completely hidden in the mist. If you chose to visit in winter, bring along warm clothes or prepare to be cold and miserable, as many hotels do not have efficient heating in their rooms. During that time, more upmarket hotels that do have heating fill up quickly, so make advance reservations if you can afford not to freeze. (Or don't go there in winter time). It rains very often during the month of August, especially in the mornings.

Travel Tips

Bear in mind that some of the minorities do not wish to have photos taken of them. Ask permission beforehand.

Bring along a poncho. You can also buy a cheap one in the many shops around.

Rubber boots and trekking shoes can be rented from some shops or perhaps at the hotel you are staying in. However, do bear in mind that they have limited sizes.

Do buy some hand made items direct from the ethnic minorities, especially if you have enjoyed a good conversation or received help from them. Though they do charge slightly more than the shops, bear in mind that the majority of them are very poor and depend on tourist money to survive.

Introducing Sapa

The Queen of the Mountains, Sapa sits regally overlooking a beautiful valley, lofty mountains towering over the town on all sides. Welcome to the destination in northwest Vietnam, gateway to another world of mysterious minority cultures and luscious landscapes. The spectacular scenery that surrounds Sapa includes cascading rice terraces that spill down the mountains like a patchwork quilt. The mountains are often shrouded in mist that rolls back and forth along the peaks, offering tantalising glimpses of what lies in wait on a clear day. The valleys and villages around Sapa are home to a host of hill-tribe people who wander in to town to buy, sell and trade.
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In a beautiful valley close to the Chinese border, Sapa is a former hill station built in 1922. History has not always been kind to Sapa, and the series of conflicts that swept over Vietnam nearly saw it wiped off the map. From WWII, successive wars against the French and the USA, not forgetting the more recent border skirmish with China in 1979, took their toll. The old hotels built by the French were allowed to fall into disrepair and Sapa was forgotten by all but a handful of residents.

With the advent of tourism, Sapa has experienced a renaissance. Bad roads have been upgraded, many streets have been given names, countless new hotels have popped up, the electricity supply is reliable and the food has improved immeasurably. Inherent in all of this prosperity is cultural change for the Montagnards, many of whom are now well versed in the ways of the cash economy and are reaping the financial rewards of the tourism influx. The downside is a building boom that has seen one hotel after another raise the roof in a continual quest for better views. Height restrictions are rarely enforced and the Sapa skyline is changing for the worse.

Another inconvenience that will not change is the weather. If you visit off-season, don’t forget your winter woollies. Not only is it cold (like 0°C), but winter brings fog and drizzle. Quite why the French alighted on this spot is difficult to comprehend: it must have been one of those rare clear days when the views are to die for. The chilly climate does have its advantages, however. The area boasts temperate-zone fruit trees bearing peaches and plums, and gardens for raising medicinal herbs.

The dry season in Sapa lasts from around January to June. January and February are the coldest (and foggiest) months. From March to May the weather is often excellent, and the summer is warm despite the rains between June and August. The window from September to mid-December is a rewarding time to be in Sapa, though there is a bit of lingering rain at the start and the temperature dips by December.

Sapa would be of considerably less interest without the H’mong and Dzao people, the largest ethnic groups in the region. The billowing red headdresses of the Red Dzao are visible all over town, a surreal sight amid the accelerating development. The H’mong are more numerous and canny traders. Their villages may look medieval but most will have a mobile phone and an email address to stay in touch. Traditionally, they were the poorest of the poor, but have rapidly learnt the spirit of free enterprise. Most of the Montagnards have had little formal education and are illiterate, yet all the youngsters have a good command of English, French and a handful of other languages.

If possible, try to visit during the week, when Sapa is less crowded and more intimate. Crowds flock to Sapa for the Saturday market, but a smaller market is held every day. There is plenty to see on weekdays, and there are lots of interesting villages within walking distance of the centre.

Trekking Sapa Vietnam Reviews

Sapa may well be called the #1 trekking place in Vietnam. It’s the place where a large number of tourists goes to from Hanoi for some trekking through the beautiful scenery of North Vietnam’s mountains. While the town itself is not without charm, most people are drawn to the landscape surrounding it – high mountains, numerous rice paddies, bamboo forests, wild rivers and of course the large number of ethnic minority people inhabiting this area. Most of them belong to the Hmong people, but Dzao and other minorities are found as well.

Sapa is quite high in the mountains – thus the climate is much cooler than in the lowlands. In winter, Sapa is one of the only places in Vietnam where it actually snows from time to time. Also, the weather can be quite unpredictable – a clear and warm day may well be followed by a foggy and damp day.