Fansipan
The roof of Indochina at 3,143 metres, in two days on foot or fifteen minutes by cable car.
Duration
3 hrs – 8 hrs
Difficulty
●●●○○
Best time
Early morning
Open
Every day
Entry price
To confirm
Fansipan rises to 3,143 metres in the Hoang Lien Son range and tops everything between Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia — hence its nickname, the roof of Indochina. The summit was walkers-only until 2016: two days of climbing with a guide, a night under canvas.
A six-kilometre cable car, one of the longest in the world, now goes up in fifteen minutes from the Muong Hoa valley. It stops a hundred and forty metres below the summit, reached by six hundred steps or a funicular. The walk still exists, and it is a different mountain.
Getting there
Cable car station at Sun Plaza, in central Sapa. The walking trails start at Tram Ton, fifteen kilometres away.
What the price covers
paid cable car, rate to be checked; climbing on foot requires a guide and a permit, charged separately
Rules on site
The summit sits in cloud on most days between June and August, and it is around ten degrees colder than the valley, with wind: take a jacket even in bright sun below.
