Bac Ha and Love Market, Sapa.

Bac Ha market and Love market are well recognized in the region of northern Vietnam for their colourful, vivid, hill tribe people. It was in December 2014 that I decided to take this trip to learn more about the diverse tribe cultures and interact with ethnic groups such as Flower Hmong, Phu La, Black Dzao, Black Hmong, Red Dao, Tay, and Nung. They all meet together every week in these markets to trade their homemade goods, with the majority being from the Flower Hmong ethnic group.

You can travel by bus from Hanoi to Bac Ha. Buses run from My Dinh bus station in Hanoi. The best time to arrive in the town is on Saturday,ahead of time to catch the market of Flower Hmong people, which starts early on Sunday morning. However, I travelled by train the night before, from Hanoi to Lao Cai (around 8 hours). I arrived at Lao Cai early in the morning and took a local bus to Bac Ha; the journey takes around 2.5 hours. If you stay in Sapa, use local and tourist buses to Bac Ha. There is no train connection in Bac Ha town. It is also possible to book and buy a 1-day trip to Bac Ha in Sapa; many travel companies provide this option.

Flower Hmong people are the most colourful wearing costumes made of about every single known colour, with flower patterns and geometrical design. They are ethnically diverse and linguistically distinct from the Chinese and all the other ethnic groups in Southeast Asia and China. Even though intermarriage with Chinese is quite popular, they are bit shorter and their eyes and faces look different. The Hmong can be quite distinct from one another. The difference between Hmong groups is often known simply as being Hmongs or non-Hmongs.

The market is held only on Sunday morning,offering local products, as well as daily necessities, for sale or barter and it is always very crowed. Due to the fact that communities in Sapa are sparsely populated, people living in far-away villages have to travel from Saturday to be able to join the market on Sunday. They arrive at the town on Saturday evening, and take a rest.

Make sure to arrive before 9.00am, the market shuts at around 12:30pm. The ethnic minorities Flower Hmong, Phu La, Black Dzao, Tay, Black Hmong and Nung from the villages and hills come by foot, by horse, and by water buffalos as Bac Ha is the biggest ethnic market in Lao Cai province.

I had the chance to meet local sellers who were trading buffaloes and horses, blacksmiths, and also traditional medicine doctors, with their thousands of mountain herbs and plants. They also sell lots of traditional clothes and local artifacts. It was a blur of colourful plaids and stripes! I loved the traditional Hmong-style food including spring rolls, tofu, traditional Hmong pork confit, and smoked meat. If you dare a strong taste, feel free to complete such a delicious experience with some house corn wine!

If your itinerary is different and you cannot be here on Sunday morning, you can alternatively visit Can Cau market on Saturday, this market is 20km away from the town, it is relatively smaller market. Besides, you can go to Tuesday’s market in Coc Ly, about 35 km from the city.

The Love Market is a distinct tradition of the Mong and Dao ethnic minorities. The distance between the two villages does not allow a frequent interaction (and dating moments), so the Love Market is the place for locals from both ethnic groups to connect. Only taking place on Saturday evening, Love Market used to be the place for matchmaking. The young ladies dress up with their colourful clothes and decorative ornaments, whereas young boys wear the traditional costumes.

The Black H’mong people keep living harmoniously with the other hill tribes in Lao Cai province. They immigrated from China about 300 years ago. The spoken language belongs to the H’mong – Dao language family. The Black H’mong women are well known for producing fabric from hemp and diving it in deep indigo blue. The ladies wear long blouses painted with batik flowers over short trousers and wrap long scarves around their legs. They used to wrap their long hair around their head and wear a blue turban. H’mong women are respected in their society as being equal with H’mong men.

Husbands and wives are very affectionate and do several of their every day works together like working on the field and visiting friends and going to the market. For the Black H’mong, it is essential that a woman knows how to embroider and work strongly in the field. These abilities are more valuable than beauty. Both boys and girls are allowed to get to know each other before they get married so they get used to going to the love market where they play activities, sing songs and eat together. After this time, the boy can propose marriage and if the girl agrees, she goes to live in his home.

In case of having a bit of extra time to spend around, you can go for leisurely trekking through a beautiful mountainous landscape around Bac Ha or Sapa town. You will follow the trail from Sa Pa which runs on high mountains around the valley for a real-life discovery. You will see local people working in their terraced fields and traveling back and forth from the market to their homes with the baskets on their backs. Above all, visiting these local markets was absolutely an unforgettable experience for me!