SOME OF The best markets I’ve ever been to, plus some decidedly village horse-racing.
Bac Ha and the areas around it might well have been my favourite part of the 2025 trip.
Located 300km north-west of Hanoi, near the Chinese border, Bac Ha is in the heart of Vietnam's ethnic hill tribe area.
100km away, Sa Pa has been on the tourist radar for maybe 30 years, and is now a well touristed town.
The hiking industry in Sa Pa has been well established for a long time. We didn't go there, and we didn't look into hiking in Bac Ha either, although it is possible.
We were here to get a taste of the markets. Generally, they are weekly, so knowing your locations and dates matters.
Bac Ha itself comes alive on the weekends. The big show is the Sunday market, in the middle of town.
Double up the fun by catching the weekly Saturday buffalo market, too.
Bac Ha recently restarted Saturday afternnon horse racing. It's pretty rural! We walked in from the main road, across the track to the stands. No fences, let alone wardens.
Crowd or worker safety isn't a thing. We saw a few horses miss the corner and end up in the crowds. One horse even hit a tree, but got up and managed a second place!
But it was usually just the four horses per race, with heats and finals. Meetings start late afternoon, and snack sellers line the track.
As you'd expect, the town had some very good food, with some unusual items on a few of the menus. Buffalo, of course, horse, snake and a few other eye-brow raising items. Google lens translation gets interesting, too.
The town itself is quite pleasant, although I wouldn't say I fell in love with it.
Besides the horse and markets, the only real sight I remember was Hoang A Tuong Palace. Are they locals dressed up for photo-money, or cosplayers from Saigon?
It's hardly Versailles, but it's worth a look through, and the cafe there has some good views, too.
If you can extend your stay by another day, Friday is market day in nearby Lung Phinh.
There's at least a few minibus head there in the morning, and back later on. Our guesthouse had one pick us up.
I would assume it's a morning market- as they usually are in these hill tribe areas. The bus took maybe 30 minutes.
I really liked Lung Phinh. Almost all over the market was open air, so lighting for photos is no issue.
I was expecting something much smaller, maybe 1/4 the size, so to see the streets and aisles packed with characters was a bonus.
The "restaurant" section served up all manner of food- anything you want, as long as it's noodle soup.
There was a bit more choice than that, actually. And outside, snack vendors fried healthy stuff like donuts.
Medicines and snake oils, shoes and clothes, new and old, kitchen stuff.
Local hill tribe people buying local hill tribe clothing, some less enthused than others.
Traditional clothing was one of the biggest sections, and probably more than half of the people there wore it.
Probably not getting the RSPCA seal of approval, but the livestock section is always fun. Not much besides pigs, but just wait for Saturday!
Tough negotiators, these pig merchants. Buyers pull and poke and open mouths and haggle, before Porky finally gets dumped in a sack.
I'd say we spend 3 hours there all up. Getting back to town was easy. Walked towards Bac Ha until a bus came. That was probably 150 metres.
Saturday mornings in Bac Ha is buffalo day. Hundreds of the beasts take over roads and fields a couple of 100m from the main market. There's also plenty of cows, horses and chickens on display.
It's a very serious business, with serious negotiations taking a long time, over beasts which command north of $1000. Try not to get in the way, or get bowled over, or step in buffalo shit. But enjoy the spectacle.
And after all that, we finally get to the main event, the star of the show, Bac Ha's Sunday market.
It's big, much, much bigger than Lung Phinh, spanning several blocks, with several covered and open sections.
We did see a good numbers of tourists there, both independent and group, but it didn't feel touristed, as it's size meant there was so much room.....
I had assumed that this was beef, but now I am wondering if there might some buffalo there.
The butchers' section was vast, with grand carcasses sliced open, hacked apart, and deposited into buyers' baskets.
Drums of soups bubbled away, tables nearby almost always full. Coffee vendors, sweet sellers, all there.
Roots and fruits, and herbs and spices and vegetables and stuff I know not what it is for.
I'm pretty sure these youn pups are bound for a life of loving, not the pot. The buyers seemed to be largely younger, often kids with parents. Jeez, I hope so, anyway.
The market is certainly worth arranging your dates around, especially if you can add Friday and Saturday. It's one of the best I have been to outside Central Asia.
My internet sleuthing did turn up many more markets in the area, some a bit further than Pung Phinh. Probably every day of the week there is a mrket somewhere up this way.
If markets are your thing, put Bac Ha in your to-do basket.