A picturesque thirty minute drive North of Sapa will bring you to the village of Ta Phin. Set within a valley with a touring peaking mountain at one end, this village is alive with the daily life of the Kinh, Red Dao and Black Hmong people.

The valley floor is layered with rice paddies and dotted with 20 small home communes. Above them are some smaller communes and a patchwork of corn and vegetable fields.

When heading off to Ta Phin village from Sapa, hiking up and down the 15 kilometers of hilly terrain is a good choice as travelers will see local people working in terraced paddy fields, or traveling back and forth from the market to their homes. And after a long day of walking on the windy roads and hills around Sapa you can soak your bones and muscles in a traditional Red Dao herbal bath at Ta Phin.

All around Taphin there is an energy generated by the daily life of the locals here. The Red Dao, distinguished by their impressive headdress, and the Black H'mong, in their shiny indigo-dyed clothes have lived here for almost 400 hundred years.