Located in the middle of high mountains and forests, Bac Ha district is famous for the Sunday morning Bac Ha market, one of the biggest and liveliest markets in northern Vietnam.
It is therefore often visited not only by national tourists but also by international tourists.
Bac Ha is home to 14 ethnic minorities such as the Hmong, Dao, Tay, Nung, etc… The Bac Ha market is a place of trade but also a place of meeting and cultural exchange of these ethnic minorities, especially the Hmong flower.
This market is located in the center of Bac Ha, two hours drive from Lao Cai train station. The market takes place on Sunday, so you have to be there on Saturday relatively early in the afternoon or you will have to take the train from Hanoi on Saturday night to be able to reach Lao Cai around 5am. The road to Bac Ha is lined with mountains and rice terraces. In the distance, traditional houses and small villages adorn the mountainside.
In the past, the Bac Ha market was held in the open air on a small hillside. It is now set up in a large square in Bac Ha district covering more than four hectares.
This place has four delimited areas reserved for the sale of domestic animals, household products and agricultural utensils, brocatels and accessories and for catering.
Every week, the local people look forward to the opening of the Sunday market. The mountain people in colorful traditional dresses go to the market on foot, scooter, horse, and buffalo, with the agricultural products and their children. These ethnic minorities coming from far away hamlets sell animals (buffaloes, oxen, pigs, dogs, horses…), fruits, vegetables, forest products, basketry items, clothes…
By visiting the market of Bac Ha, you will have the opportunity to admire the many colors of the traditional clothes of the ethnic groups in a lively and animated atmosphere.
You will find fruit and vegetable stands whose products are of local origin, which means that they are fresh and non-toxic, such as sweet potatoes, cassava, cowpeas, ginseng, etc…
The most visited stands are usually those of jewelry, hand-woven and hand-colored clothing, brocade fabrics, fabric paintings…
Another lively market place, on a high hill separate from the main market, is where domestic animals such as chickens, birds, dogs, pigs, buffaloes, cows and horses are sold.
It is a party for everyone: men drink alcohol with their friends, women eat and buy new clothes, young people in their best clothes meet their friends and the opportunity for the little ones to taste specialties that normally they do not have: ice cream, soup, sugar cane…
After buying everything they need, people linger around pots of Thang Co, a special dish made from horse viscera to share moments of joy and complicity. Other culinary specialties to discover are “pho chua”, sticky rice or seven-colored rice of Nung Din.
The Bac Ha market is a destination not to be missed during your stay in Bac Ha to immerse yourself in the life of the ethnic minorities of the mountains !
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