Bac Ha Sunday Market

Bac Ha runs once a week and it is a working market rather than a display. Families come down from the surrounding valleys, the Flower Hmong women in layered pink and green that is genuinely worn rather than put on for visitors. The site divides into yards: thread and cloth in one, hardware and knives in another, then food, then a separate livestock area up the slope where buffalo and pigs change hands and men stand about for an hour before anything is agreed. In the eating yard, thang co simmers in wide flat pans and corn wine is poured from plastic cans. The whole thing is over by early afternoon.

What you actually see

• The textile yard - thread, hemp cloth and machine-made trim sold side by side.
• The buffalo market - livestock traded on the slope above the main site.
• Thang co - the highland stew simmered in wide pans and eaten with corn wine.
• Flower Hmong dress - layered and embroidered, worn here as ordinary clothing.

When to go

Sundays only, and the market is at its most genuine between seven and nine, before the buses arrive from Sapa around mid-morning. Autumn has the clearest weather and the driest roads. Can Cau market, further north, runs on Saturdays and is smaller and less visited, so the two can be paired across a weekend.

Honest expectations

By ten o'clock the textile section is a scrum of tour groups, and a large part of what is on sale there is imported machine work rather than local weaving. The livestock and butchery areas are not squeamish viewing. The mountain road takes far longer than the distance suggests. Photographing people without asking is not welcome here.

Nearby

Can Cau market on Saturdays and the Hoang A Tuong house in Bac Ha town.