Lao Cai town:
This is the final terminal of the Hanoi-Lao Cai railway. The town is on the Sino Vietnamese border separation from the Chinese soil by a river. Lao Cai is accessible to the Chinese area of Coc Leu through a steel bridge to the right side of the bridge. The bridge serves as a border gate.
Though small, Lao Cai town is considered by many as a beautiful township in term of exotic things. If you are in Lao Cai on time for a regular market time you can enjoy the happy smiling faces of young girls of ethnic minority groups in their traditional colorful costumes. Going to the market is not always for shopping but for showing their happiness and beauty for others, especially for young men to enjoy. 

Sapa:
This is a mountain resort town perches on a steep mountain slope. The resort town, 1,600 meters above sea level, was first built by the French in 1922. Sapa is 38 kilometers from Lao Cai to the northwest. The climate in Sapa is excellently mild with average temperature is from 18 degree Celsius to 23 degree Celsius. Highest rainfall of the year is registered in Sapa between May and August. In winter Sapa is often covered with fog and spells of cold wind. Sometimes temperature drops to 0 degree Celsius and snow flakes appear.

In summer it is the most ideal resort place for city dwellers to escape the customary urban heat and noise to cooler, more isolated places for a few days. The mountain resort town is surrounded with gardens of vegetables usually grown in temperate zones such as cabbage, kohlrabi and chayote. Sapa is home to several kinds of valuable medicinal herbs and fruit trees like pear, plum and peach.

Visitors to Sapa feeling adventurous, can attempt the walk across a suspended bamboo bridge over the Muong Hoa rive, about two kilometers from the resort town. Next to the bamboo bridge is a beautiful water fall known locally as Thac Bac (Silver Fall).

The rooftop of Vietnam is about nine kilometers north of Sapa. It is called Fan Sipan mountain peak which is 3,141 meters above sea level. The highest peak in Vietnam is in the Hoang Lien Son mountain range.