The first mountain-climbing railway route.
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The 2-km-long route with two tunnels and four viaducts allows trains to run at a maximum speed of 10m/s. It can serve 2,000 passengers per hour. It will help tourists reduce travel time to only 4 minutes instead of 20 minutes by cars on a rugged mountain road. The route contributes to diversifying tourism products in Lao Cai, bringing unique travel experiences to visitors during their trips to Sa Pa.
Located 350km northwest of Hanoi capital city, Sa Pa is 1,600m high above sea level, with the average temperature of 15-18°C. The whole town is dominated by the Hoang Lien Son mountain range which is famous with the Indochina’s highest mountain of Fansipan at a height of 3,142 m above sea level.
Discovered in 1903 by the French, Sa Pa has many natural scenic sites such as Ham Rong Mountain, Thac Bac (Silver Waterfall), Cau May (Rattan Bridge), Bamboo Forest and Ta Phin Cave. The hill town is home to six main ethnic minority groups, including Kinh, Hmong, Dao, Tay, Day and Xa Pho with various traditional festivals and unique cultural practices, especially the Bac Ha market and Sa Pa love market. The resort town of Sa Pa was recognised as a national tourism site in December 2017.
Lao Cai welcomed more than 1.1 million tourists in the first quarter of 2017, including nearly 230,000 foreigners, a year-on-year rise of 56.6%. It is striving to welcome more than 6 million tourists, and become a key tourism centre of the north western region by 2020, according to statistics of the provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
