General discussion

There are a lot of Dao people living in Sapa, Vietnam.Dao people groups have alot of customs which spealize their characteristics.
Eating customs
Dao people have two main meals a day-lunch and dinner. Breakfast is eaten only during the busy harvesting season. The Dao eat mostly rice. However, in some places,people eat corn or soup instead of rice. Popular rice meal is made of wood and bamboo. Mortars are divided into several types, such as pillar-shaped mortars or water sprout mortars, with rice-pounding pestles controlled by hands or feet or by water power. The Dao prefer boiled meat, dried or sour mixed meat and sour bamboo shoot soup. When eating is finished, the Dao have a tradition that they never put down the chopsticks on the bowl because it signifies that there is a death in the family. Dao people usually drink distilled alcohol. In some places, they drink a kind of local wine, having a slightly sour and hot taste. Dao people smoke cigarettes or locally grown tobacco with pipes.

Clothing customs

In the past, men had long hair with chignon or top tuft, with the rest shaved smoothly. Different groups have different types of head-scarves and ways of wearing them. They wear short or long shirts.
Dao women’s clothes are diverse. They usually wear a long blouse with a dress or trousers. Their clothes are colorfully embroidered. When embroidering, they create designs based on their memories. They embroider on one side of the cloth so that the design is seen on the other side. They have several designs such as the letter “van”, the pine tree, animals, birds, humans, and leaves. Their method of creating batik garment is unique. They put the batik stylus or pen into hot bee’s wax and then draw the design onto the cloth. The portion of the cloth receiving the waxed patterns resists the indigo blue dyeing a cloth of beautiful blue and white patterns.

Housingcustoms
Many Dao communities are found about half-way up most of the northern mountainous regions in Vietnam. However, there are several Dao groups that live in valleys, such as the Dao Quan Trang (white trousers), as well as high-mountain dwellers like the Dao Do (Red Dao). Wards and houses are scattered around. There are a variety of architectural styles, as some Dao build their houses directly on the ground while others build them on stilts. Some Dao houses combine both these elements.

Transportation
Dao people in highland areas use black baskets with two straps to transport goods and produce. Those living in the lower elevantor carry goods with a pair of containers suspended on each end of a carrying pole that rests on the shoulders. Cotton bags or net bags or net back-packs are preferred here.

Social organization
Village relationships are essentially regulated by parentage or by being neighbors. The Dao people have many family surnames, the most popular being Ban, Trieu. Each lineage or each branch possesses its own genealogical register and a system of different middle names to distinguishpeople of different generations.

Source : http://sapabeauty.com/2935/dao-people-customs-part-1/

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Tourists can take a bicycle tour with our local guides, or rent a motorbike, or take a bus from Can Tho to Long Xuyen and stop at Bang Lang bridge, then take a motorbike taxi to the Garden.

Bang Lang Stork Garden, a 1.3 hectare stork sanctuary, is a popular stop of international and domestic tourists coming to view thousands of storks. More than ten species of storks are residing here.

Visitors can see these birds returning home in late afternoon after the whole day seeking food from other places. There is a tall wooden viewing platform to view the birds. The scenery of thousands of storks flying around and gathering in the Garden is really exotic to visitors. On the way to the Stork Garden, tourists can visit interesting handicraft villages in Thot Not District. These villages are specific to the countryside with the system of rivers and canals in Mekong Delta. There are villages such as Di Tho lop village (Lop is a tool made of bamboo to catch fishes), Ba Rui cookstove (made of clay) village in Thoi Long commune – O Mon district, and Thom Rom net village in Thom Rom commune – Thot Not district.

Source:http://mekong-tourism.com/254-bang-lang-stork-garden/

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Fansipan is dubbed “the Roof of Indochina”; it is to be approved as one of the very few ecotourist spots of Vietnam, with about 2,024 floral varieties and 327 faunal species.

Geologists say the Hoang Lien Mountain Range, with Fansipan as its highest peak, did not emerge in the mountainous North West of Vietnam until the neozoic period (circ. 100 million years ago). Fansipan, a rough pronunciation of the local name “Hua Xi Pan” means “the tottery giant rock”. The French came to Vietnam and in 1905 planted a landmark telling Fansipan’s height of 3,143m and branded it “the Roof of Indochina”. Very few people climbed to the top of Fansipan at the time. Then came the long years of war and Fansipan was left deserted for hunting and savaging. The trail blazed by the French was quickly overgrown by the underbrush.

It takes six or seven days to reach the 3,143m summit, the highest peak of the Indochina Peninsula. Fansipan a very steep mountain that gets a lot of moisture. Those looking to climb it should be in good shape and prepared to to have muddy wet feet. The scenery is incredible remember to bring a camera. For most of Vietnam having a rain coat is a little excessive because it is so warm. On the mountain having a rain coat is not a bad idea especially at night.

Source : http://sapabeauty.com/3086/fansipan-mountain-the-roof-of-indochina/

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[b]I had heard about Sapa, read about it and seen it on TV and the internet, but none of it compares to actually having seen this famous landscape, Ham Rong Mountain in particular, with my own eyes. Ham Rong, with its own beauty of flowers, of stone, of air, contributes to the seductive appeal of Sapa. Why don’t you come and discover Ham Rong Mountain as well as Sapa for yourself? It’s worth it, I promise!^*

[img]http://sapabeauty.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/Ham-Rong-Mountain-e1322035087842.jpg^*

Ham Rong Mountain, which belongs to the majestic Hoang Lien Son Range in Sapa District, Lao Cai Province and is about 30 kilometers from Lao Cai Town, looks like a jaw of a dragon opening wide to the sky. It is an ideal destination for those who want to conquer a height and contemplate the wild and beautiful nature of a mountainous region with the clouds flowing gently above and the peaches blossoming everywhere. To me, a southerner who made her first trip to this mountain, Ham Rong had a different beauty in my eyes on these sunny April days of summer with warm sunlight and a slightly cool breeze covering me all the way to the mountain despite the absence of clouds, cold air and cherry blossoms.

Legend says that long ago when Sapa was part of the ocean two dragons who were brothers came here to play. When their father called them back home, only the older dragon made it back while the younger lost his way because the gate of heaven was closed. This dragon had to stay forever in the earth and his body turned into the mountain with his head towards the sky where his family was. That’s why the mountain, at a height of over 1,700 meters above sea level, was named Ham Rong.

“Come on, move your feet, there are many interesting things ahead,” my fellow traveler wakes me up by his voice while I am standing for a while breathless from climbing the stone stairs leading to the mountain. He lends me his hands and drags me to catch up with our troupe. We pass many rows of trees when suddenly my eyes are overwhelmed by bright sunlight and a barrage of colors from a flowered plain. All of this space is covered with flowers including orchids, hydrangeas (hoa cam tu cau), daisies, gladioli (hoa lay on) and azaleas (hoa do quyen) among others with bees and butterflies and bugs alighting on them and birds singing melodious in the trees. At that moment, all my tiredness vaporized and I thought myself lost in a fairyland while my hands were busy snapping as many photos as possible as if it would all disappear if I was late capturing the images.

Being so absorbed in the landscape, I was left behind by my troupe. Then, I tried to move fast but was interrupted by the imposing scene of hundreds of stone poles in diversified shapes and heights standing in front of me, a collection called Thach Lam, or Stone Forest. If travelers come to Ham Rong in the spring, they will be treated to Stone Forest covered with beautiful cherry blossoms.

“Here you are! What took you so long?” my friend gives me a radiant smile and we come together with our troupe to get to cong troi, or heaven gate, but the path is now narrower, wide enough for only one person. We wait for each other, and one by one, get through to the gate to contemplate the endless blue sky above.

Once passing there, all 15 of us stand still and admire the panoramic view of Sapa Town below and the impressive mountains far away at the horizon. The place where we stand is called san may, or cloud yard, where there is a small tower for people to see all of Sapa from a height of 1,600 meters, so magical and fanciful.

At that moment my heart was overwhelmed with an indescribable feeling. It could have been my cheerfulness at conquering the mountain as I am not a wealthy girl and this was my first time at Ham Rong, the mountain I have long dreamed of seeing.
I had heard about Sapa, read about it and seen it on TV and the internet, but none of it compares to actually having seen this famous landscape, Ham Rong Mountain in particular, with my own eyes. Ham Rong, with its own beauty of flowers, of stone, of air, contributes to the seductive appeal of Sapa. Why don’t you come and discover Ham Rong Mountain as well as Sapa for yourself? It’s worth it, I promise!

Source : http://sapabeauty.com/3144/ham-rong-mountain-the-beauty-like-the-heaven-meet-the-earth/

[b]Sapa is listed to be one of the world’s most beautiful terraced fields.^*
[img]http://sapavietnam-travel.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/sapa-trekking23.jpg^*

The terraced fields of Sapa Town in the northern province of Lao Cai have been recognized as one of the world’s seven most beautiful and magnificent terraced fields, according to the U.S.-based Travel & Leisure magazine’s readers poll, reports the Vietnam News Agency.
The magazine described the terraced fields of Sapa as “ladders to the sky” and the main tourist attraction of Sapa, which is also famous for its fresh air and ethnic culture.
Other fields on the list include Banaye (the Philippines), Yuangyang (Yunnan, China), Ubud (Bali, Indonesia), Annapurna (Nepal), Mae Rim (Chiang Mai, Thailand), and Longji (Guilin, China)
Source : http://sapavietnam-travel.com/5392-sapa-one-of-the-world%E2%80%99s-most-beautiful-terraced-fields/

Ba ba shirt is one of the traditional dress of Vietnamese women, especially the south Vietnamese women. The ba ba shirt attaches with the pictures of loyal, strong women in the sourthern with two wars. Towels, hats, ba ba shirts is used by the sourthern women in some revolts.

[img]http://vietnamcharm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ao-ba-ba-vietnamese-traditional-dress.jpg*

This shirt does not have a collar. Its collar is round or by heart or square. It belongs to each interest. The behind body of this shirt is saw with an intact cloth. The infront of body of the shirt includes 2 piece cloth. Between there are buttons from up to down. The length of the shirt is over your rump. The shirt is sawned two hips, fit with the body the woman. There are two big or small bag of the shirt, it belongs to eachone. Normally ba ba nam shirt has 2 big bag, and ba ba nu shirt has 2 small bag. It fits with the design of shirt and with the body. You’d swear this shirt with a black trousers, it makes you more beatiful, charming, with a gentle stature. The things makes everyone passionate.

To day, with a noisy life. The ba ba shirt still keep a gentle and charming design for the Vietnamese women.
Source : http://vietnamcharm.com/ba-ba-shirt-vietnamese-traditional-dress-4954
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Most Vietnamese wedding takes place in the autumn and winter, when the weather is cooler and farmers have less fieldwork. Europeans, meanwhile, tend to marry in the summer.

What most Westerners fail to realize is that ancient superstitions influence their wedding dates. According to an old rhyme, couples marrying in June (the most popular month for Western weddings) may look forward to”one long honeymoon”. This belief goes back 2000 years, since the sixth month was named after Juno, the Roman goddess of marriage. May, meanwhile, was deemed disastrous for marriage, as the Romans presented offerings to the dead at this time. Many Vietnamese families turn to astrologers to help determine the bride and groom’s compatibility and to choose an auspicious wedding day. For a Vietnamese woman, getting married at the age of 22, 23, 26, or 28 is considered unlucky.

In both Vietnam and the West, getting married traditionally involved two steps: the engagement and the wedding. According to tradition, a Western groom was required to ask the bride’s father for his daughter’s hand in marriage. An engagement ring was then presented to the girl as a symbol of the groom’s commitment and as a sign to other potential suitors that her affections were “engaged”. While modern romantics might not like the idea, this tradition is rooted in the days when marriages were arranged and a groom’s family paid a dowry or “bride-price” for the girl’s hand.

In Vietnam, the betrothal ceremony, or an hoi, also involves gift-giving. The groom and his family visit the bride’s family bearing round red lacquered boxes full of tea, cakes, fruit, wine and areca leaves and betel nuts. As red is considered a lucky color, the boxes draped in red silk and carried by unmarried girls or boys in red clothes.

While these gifts are symbolic, it was also customary for the boy’s family with valuables like livestock or jewelry. The gifts contained in the lacquered boxes are set on the girl’s family’s ancestral altar, after which the edible gifts are divided into two portions. The smaller portion is returned to the boy’s family to show that they have been too generous and that the bride’s family is not greedy.

In the past, the an hoi could take place as long as two years before the wedding. Today, it is often staged the day before the main event, or le cuoi. On this day, at a bridegroom’s family forms a procession to the bride’s home to collect the bride. They are welcomed by bride’s family members, who are careful not to step beyond their gate so as to not appear overager to marry off their daughter. A banquet typically follows, after which the bride and groom travel to the boy’s family home, where the newlyweds will live.

Todays, both religious and civil marriages in the West are celebrated with a ceremony in which the couple declares their willingness to remain together “for better or for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish; from this day forward until death do us apart”. Long ago, these sentiments were expressed during the traditional betrothal ceremony. It was only in the 12th century that Europeans began to marry in church.

At both Vietnamese and Western weddings, food is imbued with symbolic meaning. In northern Vietnam, weddings often feature phu the or su se cakes, which made of flour with a green bean, sugar and lotus sedd filling.Always sold in pairs, these soft square cakes are wrapped in green dong leaves that represent eternal lve and tied with a red ribbon, a symbol of the destiny that connects a man and a woman. Western brides and grooms typically cut the first slice out of wedding cake together, the feed each other some bites of cake to express their commitment to provide for each other. AN old superstition claims that if an unmarried woman places a piece of wedding cake beneath her pillow she will dream of her future husband.

[img]http://vietnamcharm.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/western-wedding-e1323965113468.jpg^*

Old beliefs also govern wedding clothes. In the West, the bride is advised to wear, “Something old, something new, something borrowed something blue and a silver sixpence in your shoe.” Originating in Victorian England, this rhyme expresses much older beliefs.The old item, typically antique lace or jewelry, symbolizes continuity, while the new item signifies future hopes. The borrowed item should come from a happily married friend. Blue is the color of purity, and the coin represents prosperity.

Western tradition deems it unlucky for the bride to make her own wedding dress, and for the groom to see the bride in her wedding dress before the ceremony. Nor should the bride wear her entire outfit before the wedding day. This is clearly not the case in Vietnam, where couples typically don their wedding finery and pose for photographs long before the big day. While most Western brides and growing numbers in Vietnam wear white gowns, this tradition dates back to just the 16th century. Before that, girls wore colorful frocks, although according to an old rhyme some colors were to be avoided, such as, “married in green, ashemed to be seen,” or, “married in red, you will wish yourself dead”.

In the past, most people in Vietnam could not afford special wedding clothes. Today, puffy Western-style gowns are increasingly popular although these dresses aren’t necessarily white.
In both Vietnam and the West, guests present the newlyweds with gifts to wish them luck. Vietnamese people tend to give cards with cash, while Westerners typically give household goods. Guests perform certain rituals to grant the newlyweds good luck. Westerners throw rice, flower petals or confetti to ensure fertility, and tie tin cans to the couple’s car to scare away evil spirits jealous of their happiness. It is considered lucky for a Western groom to carry his bride over the threshold when they enter their new home. In Vietnam, a healthy baby boy is often placed on the newlywed’s bed to improve their chances of having a son.

While modern couples may scoff at many of these superstitions, others are happy to hedge their bets. After all, as an old saying goes: “Marriages are made in heaven. But again, so are thunder, lightning, tornadoes and hail…”.
Source : http://vietnamcharm.com/comparing-the-customs-of-vietnamese-wedding-and-western-wedding-5103
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Bac Ha market is a trading centre and meeting place for couples, friends, and relatives, and it is a typical weekly activity for the H’Mong and other minority groups living in the locality. Local products for sale or barter are carried on horseback.

Bac Ha is located 70 km, northeast of Lao Cai City and take about 2 hours by road; 105 km from Sapa and takes 3 hours to go by road.
Opened every Sunday at the center of Bac Ha township, this is the biggest ethnic market in Lao Cai Province and probably among some most interesting ones in the northern mountains. Some thousands peoples from ethnic groups including Black Zao, Tay, Phu La and Flower H’mong wearing their best traditional clothes attend the market to turn it into a kind of festival. Commodity sold at the market is varied from embroidered clothes, handicraft, farming produces, food… to poultry and cattle such as vegetable, spices, chili, chicken, cat, piggy, doggy… At the market place, after finishing their shopping, peoples gathered into groups at footstalls or restaurants enjoying “Thang Co” – a kind of H’mong traditional specialty, drinking corn wine and talking cheerfully.

There are many trees around Bac Ha, and in the spring the countryside is white with blossoms.Some hundred meters away from the main market place is the buffaloes and horses market. It is really interesting to see the buyers carefully searching to find out the strengths and weaknesses of the animals before buying because a buffalo or horse is a real important property in their farming work.

The best time to join the market is from 09.00 to 12.00 but it is fascinating to spend few hours earlier to see the people along the trail to the Bac Ha Market.

Source : http://sapabeauty.com/646/bac-ha-market-photos/

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Sapa is famous both for its fine, rugged scenery and for its rich cultural diversity. French used to consider Sapa as Summer Capital of Northern Vietnam in the early decades of the 20th century. Its naturally gifted beauty keeps attracting more and more people to spend their vacation there since then. Particularly, the place is the foremost choice for honeymoon couples.

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 Sa Pa district today. The Kinh (lowland Vietnamese) never originally colonised this highest of Việt Nam’s valleys, which lies in the shadow of Phan-Xi-Pǎng (Fansipan, 3143 meters), the highest peak in the country.

In general, Sa Pa’s climate is quite good around the year. It rains less and the humidity is lower than other Northern Vietnam cites. The best weather extends from September to May with temperatures ranging from 15°C to 30°C.
It can be quite cold during winter from November to the end of February. From June to September, it has the monsoon with stronger breezes and higher humidity. The temperatures are warmer in this time, varying between 25°C and 35°C

Source : http://sapavietnam-travel.com/5409-sapa-the-attractive-destionation-in-vietnam/
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Vietnamese food and cooking is the true ‘light cuisine’ of Asia. The home-style Vietnamese cooking calls for an array of simple dishes that make complementary partners at a family’s communal meal.

Famous for its lively, fresh flavors and artfully composed meals, Vietnamese food and cooking is the true ‘light cuisine’ of Asia. Abundant fresh herbs and greens, delicate soups and stir-fries, and well-seasoned grilled foods served on, or with, rice or noodles are the mainstays of the Vietnamese delicacies. Even the beloved sweets for snacks or desserts are often based on fresh fruits served with sweetened rice or tapioca. Rarely does any dish have added fats.
While the Vietnamese cuisine relies on fresh vegetables, subtle seasonings and rice, Vietnamese cooking also reflects its Chinese and French influences and it has numerous regional difference; in the south, look for plentiful fresh seafood and in the colder north, you’ll find slightly heartier meals with beef. In central Vietnam, around the ancient royal capital Hue, the food may contain influences of the former court cooks.
But regardless of the region, home-style Vietnamese cooking calls for an array of simple dishes that make complementary partners at a family’s communal meal. Dinners customarily call for a soup, probably a platter of leafy greens accompanied by rice papers and a dipping sauce, seafood or grilled meats or poultry, a vegetable stir-fry, and rice or noodles in some form – with hot tea as the preferred beverage. While such meals may look complex to outsiders, most dishes come together easily, and some call for advance preparation to avoid last-minute conflicts. And, as in any type of cooking, planning ahead makes putting together meals much easier.
Modern cooks with well-equipped kitchens and handy appliances will find preparing a Vietnamese meal both rewarding and relatively easy. And with the widespread popularity of Asian recipes and foods, locating ingredients is not a challenge as most supermarkets carry such basics as fresh ginger and spring onions, lemongrass and chilies, even coconut milk and Asian noodles.
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