Halong and Sapa are considered first-ranking landscape in Northern Vietnam. One is referred to as golden forest and the other silver ocean. Both sites possess its own enchanting beauty that visitors cannot miss to discover when travelling to the North of this Asian country.
Ha Long Bay is located 170 km from the city of Hanoi. It is a famous site with interesting karst structure, which is part of the UNESCO Heritage List and is also included in the List of the World Natural Wonders. Ha Long Bay is translated in English as the Descending Dragons Bay and it consists of as many as 1969 islands. Some of them are inhabited by people and some are not, they differ in shape and in size and they can be accessed by boat from many ports. The largest of the Ha Long Bay islands are four and these are Ban Sen, Cat Ba, Van Don and QuanLan. The attractions in the area of Ha Long Bay are numerous, thus travelers from Paris apartments or central London apartments should plan at least several days.
Sapa - a mountainous district of Lao Cai province, is a modest and tranquil land having wonderful landscapes. Scenery in Sapa is the harmonious combination between people’s creativity and mountain terrain, green forest which make an attractive tourist site. On a visit to Sapa, visitors will have chance to conquer the roof of Indochina: Phan Xi Phang or have a backpacking tour to discover the life of ethnic people. Magnificent mountain landscape with lots of beautiful flowers blooming and clouds on top of mountain will give delight to the people landing on this area.
Sapa has old church right away the town. On the way to Ta Phin cave up to the southeast of the town, there a monastery which is mostly built with stone in spacious area. Passing the monastery about 3 km to the north, you will reach Ta Phin cave which is big enough for number of people of an army regiment. In the cave, lots of stalactites forming such amazing shapes as fairy dancing, fairy sitting, far fields and twinkling tree forest. Especially, in Muong Hoa valley, 196 stones were carved with many unusual illustrations that have not been decoded by archaeologists thousands of thousands of years ago. The carved area is recognized as national relic.
About 20km to the west, on the way from Sapa town to Lai Chau, you will see Bac waterfall with flow of water falling from altitude of 200m creating impressive sound of mountain area. Besides, Sapa is considered as the “kingdom” of flowers and fruits such as peaches, big yellow peach, small yellow peach, plum, purple plum, gladiolus, plum flower, peach flower, daisy, rose and immortal flower. You will have chance to see and take some photos in your tour to this north west mountain.
Every 6 groups of ethnic people in Sapa has their own culture with such festivals as “Roong Poc” festival (praying for bumper crop, prosperity) of Giay Ta Van ethnic group, “Sai San”(praying for good weather, prosperity in new year) of Mong people, “Tet Nhay” (showing gratitude to their ancestors in New Year) of Dao Do people which are held every year. Visitors can walk through hills or ride motorbike, bike to discover and visit villages of ethnic people.