Snowing in Sa Pa.
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An art performance featured songs welcoming the New Year, while booths introducing traditional products of the locality were arranged along streets in the town.
Especially, an artificial snow space covering nearly 10,000 square metres opened with a slew of impressive check-in points. Sa Pa is one of few places in Vietnam where snow sometimes falls.
Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee of Sa Pa district Le Manh Hao said the town is expected to welcome 40,000 - 50,000 tourists during the festival which will last until December 31.
The festival is one of the most famous cultural-tourism events in winter in Vietnam. This is the second year the event has been held. Last year, the festival drew the participation of over 20,000 visitors.
Located 350km northwest of Hanoi capital city, Sa Pa is 1,600m high above sea level, with the average temperature of 15-18 Celsius degrees. 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. Sa Pa has been recognized as a national tourism site.
On December 7, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said tourism development must not harm Sa Pa’s ‘green jungle or ethnic culture”. He said that Sa Pa has all it takes to become an international tourism destination, as long as the town preserves its “green jungle and ethnic culture”. “Local ethnic culture is very important. It can be a long-term attraction for Sa Pa,” he said.
The PM made the statement as Lao Cai officials revealed plans for construction projects in the next three years, including a new administrative center, a high-end service complex, a park and an urban center as it prepares to welcome 4 million visitors to Sa Pa in 2020, compared to an expected 2.5 million this year. Phuc agreed with the plans, although he said that their execution must not harm anything ancient or original about the town, tangible or intangible.
Sa Pa, a cool town perched at 1,600 meters, or nearly one mile above sea level, is one of the most popular destinations in Vietnam. Late last year, it was named among the best destinations for 2017 by TripAdvisor travelers, who described it as a perfect oasis for travelers looking for a strenuous mountain trek or a rice paddy tour.
Popular tourist destinations include the Saturday night “love market”, which is a colorful exhibition of the local ethnic culture, the Gothic stone church at the town center built by French missionaries, Indochina’s peak Mount Fansipan, and endless terraced rice fields, which have been named one of the most magnificent scenes on Earth.
Sa Pa is already under threat from commercial tourism development. Large portions of the town look like a construction site, and a cable car system now runs to the peak of Fansipan. The curse of commercialization is creeping into Sa Pa as it has done in Ha Long, Da Lat and many other popular places in Vietnam, where shining beauty can easily be undermined by trash, crowds and construction. U.S. travel site Thriller in July listed all these places as it urged people to visit Vietnam “before it’s too popular”.
