Search hotels in Lao Cai, Vietnam

It was a busy little town. With markets and restaurants, a little white culture in the cafe's along the river. It was interesting to see a border town, we like to stay indoors when we get a chance as we camp and bike normally so Lao Cai was great from a hotel window perspective lol.

Apart from the buses to to and from Lao Cai other local bus information is hard to obtain and it is not clear when you get the buses from for each destination. There is a large chunk of time in the middle of the day that the bus does not operate to or from Mt Fansipan.

Great place with beautiful landscapes, and wonderful markets. But be careful: I arrived from lao cai train station, and there a man tried to sell us bus tickets to bac ha saying that a minivan would arrive in minutes. After a while when we started to complain about the waiting, he stopped a public bus heading to bac ha and tried to convince us that it was the minivan we paid for. Obviously it wasn't, so we forced him to give us back the money. A part from that it was a wonderful time.

One beautiful place on planet but dishonesty can be rampant across the province. My friend and I were generous in our tipping but we never knew how to buy a single item over our 6 nights there. Someone attempted to open the door to our VIP cabin onboard the Sapaly Exp overnight train bound for Lao Cai (Sapa's province) from Hano. It was around 2am.

We took a super luxurious bus ride from the Sapa Express Bus company in Hanoi. With the opening of the highway from the Noi Bai International Airport to Lao Cai, the journey was very smooth and only takes 5 hours to Sapa. Our group of 26 stayed at the Sapa Centre Hotel, which is centrally located near the town square and the stone church. There are many nice restaurants within 10 minutes walk from the hotel. On the first night, our group had dinner at the Hill Station Signature Restaurant. The food was delicious but a little pricey. On the 2nd night, we had a seafood and meat hotpot dinner at The Lizard Restaurant, housed within the Sapa Centre Hotel. The food was delicious and price was quite reasonable. We liked it so much that we again had dinner at the same venue. We enjoyed our one day trekking tour of Sapa minority villages. However, the highlight was the cable car ride to Mt Fansipan. On the 4th day, we did a day tour to the Bac Ha Sunday Market. The journey took nearly 3 hours. We felt that this attraction may be slightly overrated.

I have been coming to Sapa now for 5 years - this time (March 2017) I was shocked at how much busier it had become and how much hassle we recieved in Sapa town from the women - we were told "go back to your own country!" in arrival when we looked at two metal bangles and were told to pay 500,000 to which we refused. We also sadly noticed many more child hawkers. Also take the red and yellow bus in Lao Cai up to Sapa town from the train station - do not be deterred by the touts outside and do not give them any money - the driver will collect your fare during the journey - a sad state of affairs that it is now so busy that tourists are being routinely ripped off.

The scenery of cat cat waterfall and love waterfall are amazing! Trekking along lao cai village and ta van village are awesome too. People are very helpful and friendly. Somehow there are lots of construction going on, it is very dusty. Advisable to bring mask along your trip.

We got a motorbike taxi to Lao Chai (not to be confused with Lao Cai where the train station is) and then walked to Tavan and the next little village. Easy walk on the "main" village road, beautiful scenery. We just checked Google maps every so often to check we were right. Maybe a guide would take you further off the road (saw some people covered in mud) but we thought from the track we could still see all of the views we expected.

Sa Pa is a really interesting place - it initially reminded me of a cheesy 80s movie like ‘Better off Dead’, you know the ones where everyone is dressed in garish clothes and you’re just gearing up to the ‘big race’. It really does have the feel of a base camp where all the hardcore are really elsewhere doing their travelling thing and to be just noodling round sipping coffee or buying fake under armour is somehow not the right thing to do. I get the impression the place has changed a lot over the last 5 or so years, in November there were more hotels and bars than there were people (this isn’t too much of an exaggeration) and the mystique of a place so secluded in the mountains that had surrounded Sapa for me was lost. However on closer inspection I realised what this place was. It’s a little town, built in the way it is to help communities. If you dig a little beneath the surface there are some really wonderful things here and in particular when you get out on one of those famous treks. We got a guide through a Sapa Sisters and went on a day long trek to Lao Cai. It rained literally all day and the path was boggy and skippy but it didn’t matter one bit. Our guide took us through some gorgeous places and eventually to get family home where her cousin cooked for us, we met her 2 month old baby girl and sat and listened to them tell us about their humble, happy lives. Sapa itself is a little garish and neon but if used correctly - as a place to lay your head and unwind on an evening - it’s lovely and charming. Get out on treks to the neighbouring villages (use Sapa Sisters or a smililar organisation not your Hotel) and go to the impressive and well run Fansipan cable car and make sure that Sapa is on your list while in Vietnam

We arrived in SaPa by private car transfer from Hanoi which was great - it took 5 hours and costs a lot more ($300 round trip) than the train or bus - we didn’t have to struggle with all our luggage and arrived refreshed and ready to go!! SaPa town is quite small and you can walk round in about half a day. There is a “museum” but its not very good. We went on a walk organised by our hotel. It was guided by a local Hmong woman who spoke great english and had great local knowledge - a fairly easy 12km walk (with some steep parts) through the rice fields into Lao Cai. Lunch was included and also the taxi back to the hotel - all for €16 per person. The restaurants were very good - we liked Red Dao House and you must try the BBQ Market.