Fansipan

Location
Fansipan is the highest mountain in the Hoang Lien Son range of mountains with the height of 3.143 meters. It is located in the Southwest of Sapa town, Sapa district, Lao Cai province.

Characteristics
280 km in length, 45 – 75 km in width. There are many jackfruit trees at the bottom of the mountains. From the ground to the 700m height is the tropical belt with densely primary forest and interlaced lianas. Above 700m is covered with gymnosperms, such as Fujian cypress tree with 50 – 60m in height and around hundred years old. Throughout the year, Fansipan is covered in numerous garish flowers, some of those are really rare to find in the plains. Above 2.400m, fog becomes less dense, the sky is clearer. The ground is covered with bamboo tree. As you reach to the top of the mountain, what caught your eyes are many enormous stone slabs. This is how the Fansipan peak is formed.

History
It is most likely that Sa Pa was first inhabited by highland minorities of the Hmong and Yao groups, as well as by smaller numbers of Tày and Giay, these being the four main minority groups still present in SaPa district today. The Kinh (lowland Vietnamese) never originally colonised this highest of Vietnam’s valleys, which lies in the shadow of Phan-Xi-Pǎng (Fansipan, 3143 meters), the highest peak in the country.

The first permanent French civilian resident arrived in Sa Pa in 1909. With its attractive continental climate, health authorities believed the site had potential. By 1912 a military sanatorium for ailing officers had been erected along with a fully fledged military garrison. Then, from the 1920s onwards, several wealthy professionals with enough financial capital also had a number of private villas built in the vicinity.At the end of the Second World War a long period of hostilities began in Tonkin that was to last until 1954. In the process, nearly all of the 200 or so colonial buildings in or around Sa Pa were destroyed, either by Việt Minh sympathisers in the late 1940s, or, in the early 1950s by French air raids. The vast majority of the Viet population fled for their lives, and the former town entered a prolonged sleep.

Activities
Hiking, Photography, Camping, Eating

Special event in year
New Year Holiday of H’mong People

Roong Pooc Festival of the Giay Ethnic Group in January.

Plum flowers blossom in Bac Ha during February.

You can visit and enjoy the stages of rice season:
 * Sparkling water season on the slopes (February - March)
 * Rice transplanting season (May)
 * The young rice season (June - July)
 * The most beautiful season - ripening season or gold season (September - October)

Specialties
Sour noodle soup – Upland unique cuisine in Sapa.

Bamboo cooked rice.

Enjoying cider in Sa Pa.

Stream fish- a speciality of Sapa.

Attraction & activities

 * Sapa Town with colorful traditional costumes of H’mong, Dzao, Tay ethnic People.
 * Cat Cat village which is home of Black H’mong ethnic people.
 * A long trek Y Linh Ho - Lao Chai - Ta Van

How to go
Hiking is the most suitable way to climb up mount Fansipan.

Estimate cost
To prepare for the trip, you need to equip suitable equipment. It will be approximately 400 USD.