Saigonese Trekking House — Hotel in Phan Si Pang Ward

Note: did not stay here so cannot comment on rooms, hostel service.

TREK 1: We booked our Fansipan trek through this hostel: when we went to enquire, they offered a better price than a lot of the agencies we’d found in town (we paid 1.500.000 VND each for the trek, just two of us, however we did meet people on the mountain who had paid 1.000.000 per person for a two person trek, so can still find cheaper maybe). They gave us tea and biscuits while booking and was really nice. Our guide, Binh, was great - really friendly, informative, easy to talk to and very supportive, always ensuring we were okay and placing no pressure on us during the trek, making it a really enjoyable experience! We are both vegetarian, and lunch was very basic - was bread, jam and a boiled egg, an orange and coffee. But there was plenty of bread so we weren’t hungry. A Fanta near the end of the trek was a nice surprise :) After the trek the hostel provided us with pancakes and tea and a foot bath (ginger tea bag in water, however this was still nice ). Overall very good experience with the Fansipan trek through this hostel. (We walked up and reached the top after lunch about 1pm, spent an hour at the top, and got back to the scooters at about 6pm).

TREK 2: We booked a one day trek through villages to Ta Van village for the next day - this trek however was very overpriced - we paid $29 each for this, which was probably a silly decision from us. There were just two other people in our group, and they had paid less than $18 dollars each for it! The trek was about 10km, and was beautiful, but there wasn’t much learning about the ethnic minority villages - I think because the whole of this area has become very touristy, so the villages themselves are simply tourist shops and homestays (basically hostels), so not really an authentic or unique experience. Some woman followed us from the start of the trek all the way to nearly the end, asking us questions and ‘buttering us up’ along the way, then near the end of the trek insisting that we buy some souvenir from them. They were very persistent, however this didn’t bother us too much, as we’d read about it before hand so were very aware what they were doing as soon as they started following us. Our organiser for this trek also apologised for this afterwards, letting us know that it is a problem at the moment that is trying to be resolved. Lunch was small and very basic too, could have bought for 30k VND and no drink included. Though the hostel did give us pancakes and tea again after the trek :) However overall, came back annoyed at the money we’d spent on...

Note: I did not stay here, I only booked two tours with them.

Fansipan 1 day walking tour: 1,500k VND per person (group of 2 people) Free pickup from hostel Free breakfast with very small coffee Free lunch (which consisted of bread with jam, an orange, a boiled egg each, and some sachet coffee) Free crepe/pancake & small coffee when you return from the trek Free herbal foot bath when you return from the trek (ginger tea in some warm water)

Overall, host was very friendly when organising the tour. The trek is very difficult, 17km in total with a total elevation gain of 1,400m if you walk up AND down the mountain. Our guide was called Binh and he was great. We felt very looked after and I would recommend booking this tour from here :) ——————————————————— 1 day trek to Ta Van: 750k VND per person Free crepe/pancake when you return from the trek

I would not recommend booking this tour, it is over priced, I believe you can book similar tours elsewhere for 450k VND. Furthermore, we had several locals following us on the tour who were only there to try and sell us things which ruined the experience. The host was once again super friendly and understanding and he even apologised for the locals following us once he found out, so maybe we just got unlucky. It’s a 10km walk through the villages, you see nice views but it is very touristy, lunch was very small and there are not many options.

All in all, this tour is overpriced for what you get and I would book elsewhere. If you can book the tour for around 300k to 400k, then this tour would...

Our stay in sapa was amazing! Big part of the pleasant encounter was the saigonese homestay hostel. The owner of the place is a very very cool guy who makes his own wine, has a great knowledge of planting and paints all the beautiful paintings that you can see around the hostel himself! We also want to thank the 3 ladiess who are volunteers at the hostel. They were so sweet, they took great care of us, made some tea when we were not feeling our best, gave us cookies,coffee and many advices for our trips . The best part were our conversations and little chats that we had with them. They teached us some basics in Vietnamese and showed also interest in our culture , so that we never ran out of topics to talk about ! If you want you can organize cool trekking trips with a local minority guide from the beautiful rice villages around sapa over the hostel. After the very cool trekking trip we had, they even surprised us with a food bath and some typical Vietnamese coffee. So all in all, the only recommendation that we have is : Don’t miss out on the beautiful decorated, charming saigonese homestay hostel, with the amazing staff!!! Love Laura, Luise...