Experience the best of Hau Thao

Hau Thao lies on the slopes of the Muong Hoa valley in Lao Cai province, south-east of Sapa, a hill town on the Hoang Lien Son range not far from the Chinese border. The village is home mainly to Black Hmong families, whose houses stand among terraces of rice and maize carved into steep slopes. Fansipan, the highest peak in Indochina at 3,143 metres, rises beyond Sapa.

Paths and village tracks link the settlements across the valley, passing bamboo groves, water buffalo and streams, and weavers dye hemp cloth with indigo. Lao Chai and Ta Van are better-known villages in the same valley, and Sapa itself has its markets and an old stone church in the town centre.

Meals are hill-country food: sticky rice, grilled pork and chicken, bamboo-shoot soups, vegetables from the terraces, and corn spirit or rice wine to wash it down. Rice terraces are green in early summer and gold just before harvest in September, while winter brings mist, cold nights and, occasionally, snow.