Ha Giang & Sapa, Vietnam

Rice terraces and hill-tribe markets on the Chinese border. The Ha Giang Loop is the great budget road trip of Asia.

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Best time to visit

Month	High	Low	Rain	Season
Jan	14°	7°	91 mm
Feb	16°	9°	81 mm
Mar	20°	12°	120 mm	prime
Apr	22°	15°	178 mm	prime
May	23°	17°	240 mm	prime
Jun	24°	18°	327 mm
Jul	23°	18°	391 mm
Aug	23°	18°	387 mm
Sep	22°	17°	237 mm	prime
Oct	20°	15°	141 mm	prime
Nov	18°	11°	68 mm	prime
Dec	14°	8°	69 mm

30-year averages (1995–2024) from ERA5 reanalysis via Open-Meteo. Rain is the monthly total.

Serves travellers at Backpacker→Mid-range level. Typically around $35 a day on the ground.

Ranges are typical costs, not quotes. Check the real price before you book.

The Ha Giang loop is ridden, either yourself or on the back of somebody else's motorbike. Cars can do the road but miss the point of it. Around Sapa it is minibuses between villages and walking between the terraces.
getting around · editorial
Hanoi is the gateway. Sapa is a night train to Lao Cai or five to six hours on the expressway; Ha Giang is six or seven hours north by bus, with no train and no airport.
getting there · editorial
This is a different climate from Hanoi: it can be cold and soaked in the mountains while the delta bakes, and cloud sits on the passes for days. The terraces are green in summer and gold only for a short spell before harvest.
know before · editorial
Cash dong. Card acceptance stops at the edge of Sapa town, and homestays, fuel stops and roadside food on the loop take nothing else. Machines are in Ha Giang city and Dong Van, not in between.
money · editorial
Winter up here is cold, wet and fogged in, with grey mud where the terraces should be. Heavy summer rain brings landslides onto the loop roads.
when not to go · editorial
Sapa town for hotels and views, Ta Van and Lao Chai down in the valley for homestays among the rice terraces. On the loop, Ha Giang city at each end with Du Gia, Dong Van and Meo Vac as the standard overnight stops.
where to stay · editorial

Mã Pì Lèng Pass
A road carved into the wall above the canyon of the Nho Quế river.
Lũng Cú flag tower
The northernmost point of Vietnam, with China on the other side of the valley.
Đồng Văn
The old stone town in the middle of the karst plateau.
Mường Hoa valley
Rice terraces dropping a thousand metres, all worked by hand.
Cát Cát
An H'Mông village at the bottom of the Sapa valley, an hour on foot from town.
The Nho Quế river by boat
Twenty minutes inside a gorge with eight hundred metres of wall.

Eat thắng cố at a Sunday market, if you have the nerve
Cơm lam
Rice cooked inside a bamboo tube on the fire, and served in the same tube.
Thắng cố
H'Mông stew of horse offal, made on market days. Yes, that one.
Rượu ngô
Corn spirit distilled at home and served in a small bowl.

Wake in a homestay with the whole valley under mist
A Sunday market of the hill peoples
Hand-embroidered clothes, buffalo traded in the street, and none of it staged for you.
The terraces at harvest time
September, when the rice turns gold before it is cut.

Fansipan on foot
3,147 metres, the roof of Indochina. Two days of climbing, in a place that has a cable car.