Top Often-Destinations for Vietnam Adventure Tours

With stunning scenery and impressive culture, these famous destinations in Vietnam will offer travelers exciting adventure trips.

1. Sapa

This Vietnam’s destination is too famous such an extent that it is always present in Vietnam tourism brochure. However, if just wandering around Sapa town, travelers will miss a chance to have a memorable trip. Sapa town just likes a miniature Hanoi, accompanying colorful minority groups. Thus, let’s carry a rucksack and to be ready for a trekking expedition to remote villages. Scenery, people, culture and everything will be much more fascinating. Trekking trails will lead through jungles, mountains, fields, streams, hidden soil-trails only used by locals, and rest at ethnic minority villages. Along paths, adventurers will encounter “real” minor people, who are doing life activities, or working to earn their living. Specially, contemplating firsthand Sapa rice terrace (which was estimated as one of the 30 most beautiful places in the world by Mother Nature Network), and other stunning scenes is completely different to seeing from an automobile or a hotel at a far distance. Let’s leave cozy hotel-rooms and stay overnight at a homestay to experience a distinctive life with locals: arduous, but funny and valuable.

Head off a hiking & homestay Sapa to the most marvelous valley – Muong Hoa and other villages. Visit here.

2. Mount Fansipan

With an altitude of 3,143m, Mount Fansipan is the highest in Indochina, and also dubbed as “The Roof of Indochina”. Fansipan conquest is the dream of many young Vietnamese. For ones who indulge in climbing but not too so fantastic to conquer Everest, Fansipan may be an appropriate choice.  This mount is just 9km from Sapa to the southwest. Therefore, as travel to Sapa, travelers can take a hike to this mount on the same occasion.

The journey with a long trail will be greater, more challenging, but also more beautiful views. However, once immersing in natural pureness, and enjoying the victory of setting foot on this peak, hardship seems to have disappeared. The hike will pass jungles and mountains, so travelers can easily learn local knowledge about the Vietnam’s nature and hill-tribe culture. Yes, learning from reality.

Toughness, strong will, and determination, those are the meanings Mount Fansipan conquest.

Consulting at activetravelvietnam.com, Conquer Mount Fansipan - Sinchai Route - A long trail with a lot of fabulous scenes.

3. Mai Chau

Escape from busy cities, let’s experience an extremely peaceful life in Mai Chau. This area is the home of Thai, Muong and H’mong people, which are Vietnamese ethnic minorities. Just only 135 km from Hanoi, it is so easy to reach here. Naturally, it has spectacular scenes and also the original cultural identity like descriptions on websites. But peace is the most impressive. Peace in just landscape: rice terraces, tea plantations, streams. Peace in just the life of locals. Residents here work hard on fields, on forests, on weaving looms…

Mai Chau’s culture is gentle and lyrical. The rhythm of life is also slow and tranquil. By trek or bike around villages, travelers will feel these. Choosing less touristy roads and villages for the itinerary, it will be much more interesting.

If opt homestay, travelers will stay at traditional stilt houses and do housework with locals. Yummy cuisines are always ready for guests. At night, the space becomes throbbing by blithe melodies and rhythmical dances. The trip ends with a good sleep in this peaceful heaven.

Get away to peaceful Mai Chau, travelers can take a trekking or biking tour through exotic villages. 

4. Mekong delta

Vietnamese people usually say “thang canh co bay”, meaning that land is too large that stocks can fly straightly to endless. This is just one of images of Mekong delta. Located in northwestern Vietnam, this land is the country’s greatest rice basket. The region is covered by an interlaced canal system. So the residents were familiar with waterway-life long ago.
Locals are gentle and rustic. Scenery is tranquil. Travel to Mekong, travelers will refresh your mind.

The richness and vastness make this plain region have an abundant culture. Taking part in various activities, travelers will understand relatively about this culture.
Cycling around fields and villages is a nice way to see the everyday life of locals. On the roads, travelers can talk to them and try experiencing some of their jobs. Many other places can be visited along biking trail, namely temples, orchards, local primary schools, or local households. Particularly, travelers can visit and discover traditional trade-villages of coconut-candy, rice-paper, rice-wine, snake-wine, pop-rice, pop-corn, etc.

Adventurers also should not skip a boat trip to floating markets, the special places with a boom of colors, sounds and scents. These market have a lot of beautiful agricultural products, especially fruits. Let’s come and observe how they trade, how they communicate, and how they speak for sale.

Mekong delta tours may please someone who are curious. Travelers can learn a plenty of local things, such as how to buy fruits and food, how to cook local cuisines, or how to make traditional conical hats. If love nature, let’s visit mangrove forests as Tra Su, where travelers can observe colonies of water-birds, bats and other rare spices.

Explore Mekong delta with many memorable activities. View here.

The Untouched Gems of Northwest Vietnam

By Shivya
For many travelers, Vietnam is the cities of Ho Chi Minh & Hanoi, and the tours that take you around the area. While some of these are pretty and tourist-friendly, most of these are fabricated versions of Vietnam’s real beauty and people. We managed to ditch most of these must-tick boxes in our Vietnam itinerary to explore the less-treaded North Western highlands of the country.

Mai Chau

Mist in Mai Chau

No Lonely Planet overview can prepare you for the gorgeous, mist-covered mountains that greet you as you enter the village of Ben Lac, nor for the hospitality of its White Thai folks. There are Mai Chau trekking tours from Hanoi that take you there.

Biking on the hill slopes of Mai Chau

We stayed with a couple in a traditional stilt house, and were flattered by their openness, despite the language barrier, and by the lady’s (vegetarian, as requested by me) cooking. We spent a surreal morning Mai Chau biking on the slopes of the village, passing stilt houses and open rivers & streams, into the heart of the mountains which never for a second failed to enchant us. Time didn’t permit us to explore other surrounding villages or trek up one of the mountains, but it sure gave us a reason to visit again.

A traditional house on stilts in the Ban Lac village of White Thai tribes

From Mai Chau to Dien Bein Phu, via Moc Chau and Son La

If you haven’t been to Vietnam, the names will sound very strange; they might sound strange even if you’ve been to Ho Chi Minh and Hanoi. Let’s say these are some of the most offbeat routes in North West Vietnam, and that is a huge blessing. If Mai Chau was beautiful, I am at a loss of words to describe what we saw next. The journey from Mai Chau to Dien Bien Phu is like entering a post card and never getting out. The Tonkinese Alps (rightfully called) are as stunning as they are imposing, and we traveled for miles without taking our eyes off them. The thrill was heightened by our insistence to travel in local buses with various tribes of people who board and alight at obscure stops, many of them dressed in colorful ethnic costumes and carrying their babies in kangaroo-like sacks.

The sky en route to Dien Bien Phu

The sun decorating the mountain skyline

From Dien Bien Phu to Lai Chau, via Muong Lay

Dien Bien Phu is a sleepy town, significant in French history in relation to the Vietnam war, and made just an overnight stopover for us.

Can you close your eyes and picture the backdrop in Pirates of the Caribbean? In this journey, you can see that backdrop with your eyes wide open, stunned in fact, because it’s hard to imagine that such beauty exists in such a remote part of Vietnam. If you ask me, you haven’t seen Vietnam if you haven’t done this route. Referred to by locals as the “Halong on Land”, the scenery is magical, with slopes of the lush Tonkinese Alps enclosing a river that runs for miles (possibly the Mekong River).

Muong Lay, the old Lai Chau, was a thriving community until the river flooded and submerged the town a few years ago. A new river-side mountain-side township is now under construction and promises to be an unparalleled attraction if discovered by enough travelers. Between Muong Lay and Lai Chau, I saw the most beautiful mountain landscape I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen my fair share of hills and valleys in Asia. Lai Chau is just another sleepy town, just barely alive to break the journey for the night, onward to the touristy valley of Sapa.

The beauty is so virgin that we couldn’t get ourselves to capture it in photographs, for fear of contaminating and misconstruing its purity. Apologies for not sharing pictures on this part; no pictures could do justice.

Travel in Vietnam’s Countryside

Leave Hanoi when you hunger for a countryside dip of the Real Vietnam Countryside! Although Hanoi is a great place to stay, it is still a big city with everything you need. After a while you are just curious what is out there. Because we’ve got loads of time, we’re staying in Hanoi for a while (we will travel through Vietnam in a few weeks together with family who’s coming over) but making short trips to areas not far from here. So, the last few days we’ve stayed in a little village called Mai Chau. Maybe you already read some of my posts about the local market in Mai Chau where we’ve seen a lot of interesting and shocking things as well.

 Vietnam Countryside

This time I want to tell you about what I’ve seen on the way to Mai Chau and about the people there. Starting at the beginning of our stay, the drive up to Mai Chau. Picked up by a big van in Hanoi, we left the busy city for a bit less chaotic atmosphere. After 2,5 hours, the driver stopped at a local plant/animals/food market on top of a mountain along the road. Have a look…

 Vietnam Countryside

The village is not that special. A lot of concrete buildings, shops and big trucks on the main road. Behind these concrete building are hundreds of rice fields and locals working on the field. Did you know that the women maintain the fields? This is from a long long time ago when the women worked on the fields and the men did nothing. Nowadays the men have some business to attend but the women still work on the field. This is a pretty hard job, working in the sun all day, bent over or squat. That’s why they wear these typical Vietnamese hats, to protect them from the sun.

Vietnam Countryside

In these rice fields you can find rice plants and lots of water of course, but did you know that there are also snails, snakes, crabs, frogs and eels living in these waters? Some men go frog or fish hunting during the night as these animals are a good income and apparently delicious.. Oh by the way the frogs make a awful loud sound during the night.

While we were there, we stayed at Mai Chau Nature Place which has bungalows and a homestay in the village. I would recommend the bungalows or a dorm, as these are situated a bit more out of the village and more in the rice fields. They serve you breakfast, lunch and dinner if you want to. All vietnamese food! You can rent bikes here and they have a dance show with traditional Thai dance almost every night.

Vietnam Countryside

Are you interested in the crafts they do in Mai Chau? The women make their own bags, cloths, bracelets and much more by sewing, embroidery and weaving every day. I’ve written a post on the Dutch DIY Blog de TweakFabriek in Dutch, but the pictures will explain the whole story. Have a look for my posts on this amazing blog where you can find really great DIY and inspiration posts.

In area around Mai Chau they build their houses a bit different than the ones in Hanoi nowadays. In former times the people who lived there, had a lot of trouble with the rain fall and floods. That’s one of the reasons why they build their houses on stilts. The other reason is because at that time there was still a wild tiger living in this area. The schema of the houses is very simple. There is only one big room on one side of the house and a kitchen on the other side. That’s why they builded two stairs to enter the house. One staircase was for the men, to receive guests and the other staircase was for the women to go to the kitchen.

Vietnam Countryside

The main big room was usually used as a living room and bedroom. The Thai people slept on the floor with a blanket. The whole family lives together and eventually the children have to take care of their parents. When one of the kids get married, the last one that does, has to take care of their parents. They will live together in one house and if they want “a few nights of privacy” as our tour guide explained, they have to sleep in the kitchen.

These houses are build from wooden stilts, beams and bamboo flooring. I’ve to admit, it felt pretty stable

and safe but you have to be comfortable with vermin. Insects and other little animals are every where. By the way, do you see the concrete on the right side of the rice field? That’s how they regulated the water for the fields. It’s amazing to see their irrigation.

It’s also a lot of work to maintain the rice fields. As you can see there is a lot of weed growing on the sides and also between the rice plants. They have to remove this every day as otherwise the weed will use the water instead of the rice plants.

This is the kitchen floor of a typical Mai Chau house. Bamboo flooring, which is very strong but maybe not so hygienic. As I told you, there is a lot of vermin walking around the house. This is a good example of the methods they use to keep these little animals away from food. This bowl with water keeps ants from climbing up the pantry for food.

Source:designclaud

ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA would like to recommend Trekking Mai Chau tour.Mai Chau is a mountainous area of outstanding natural beauty, inhabited by a Thai and H’mong ethnic minority groups. This trip offers a great combination of cultural expedition and trekking. We trek for three days through the spectacular scenery, visit remote and stay overnight in local homes where we have the chance to get to know these hospitable villages. From the mountainous region of Mai Chau, we travel back to the nation's capital, Hanoi.

Highlights: 

• Awesome scenery
• Homestays in villages of ethnic minorities
• Beautiful trails
• All meals included
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
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Mai Chau among top ten fresh destinations

Mai Chau, a small town in the northern mountainous province of Hoa Binh, Vietnam was named one of the top ten "fresh" Asian destinations.

Mai Chau Valley, Hoa Binh, Vietnam

Mai Chau was described as "a semi-isolated village in Vietnam...surrounded by limestone cliffs and green rice paddies, populated largely by members of the ethnic White Thai tribe..."

These destinations all had high growth rates and attracted many foreign travellers as well as increasing amounts of vacationing locals.

Ethnic people in Mai Chau, Hoa Binh, Vietnam

Mai Chau was described as "a semi-isolated village in Vietnam...surrounded by limestone cliffs and green rice paddies, populated largely by members of the ethnic White Thai tribe...Vibrant, verdant green rice paddies surround the town on all sides, and dramatic hills rise up on either side of the valley. The town itself isn't particularly stunning, but it's when one gets out into the countryside or head up into the hills that the breathtaking views get better around every corner. There are also several interesting markets to check out, as well as some nearby caves."

With many foreign tourists, Mai Chau is the interesting ideal for trekking trips or cycling options to discover the natural beauty of the region and exotic culture of minority groups.

Recommend Biking tour or Trekking tour in Mai Chau  by ACTIVETRAVEL ASIA

Trekking Mai Chau 

Trekking in Mai Chau

This trip offers a great combination of cultural expedition and trekking. We trek for three days through the spectacular scenery, visit remote and stay overnight in local homes where we have the chance to get to know these hospitable villages. From the mountainous region of Mai Chau, we travel back to the nation's capital, Hanoi.

Highlights 

• Awesome scenery
• Homestays in villages of ethnic minorities
• Beautiful trails

Biking Hidden Paths of Mai Chau & Ninh Binh

Biking in Mai Chau

This trip offers a great opportunity to see the two area of outstanding nature beauty; the North West highlands of Mai Chau and the limestone mountains of Ninh Binh. Biking is a great way to see this fascinating and visually stunning part of Vietnam, offering both physical activity and the unique opportunity to observe a way of life that has changed little over the centuries. As we ride in Mai Chau we encounter Muong and White Thai minorities and are guests in their traditional stilt houses allowing us to see firsthand how these minority peoples live. In Ninh Binh we explore the beauty of “Halong Bay on the rice fields” on bikes.

Highlights

• Awesome scenery
• Tam Coc - the "Halong Bay on the rice fields"
• Homestay in Thai village
• Traditional foot massage