The town of Sapa is in the Hoàng Liên Son Mountains of northwest Vietnam. The area is very popular with trekkers, overlooking the terraced rice fields of the Muong Hoa Valley, and is near the 3,143m high Fan Si Pan peak. H’mong, Tay and Dao hill tribes make up much of the local population. The women in the photos below wearing dark blue clothing and combs in their hair are 'Black H'mong' while those with the bright red headwear are 'Red Dao'. We accessed the area by overnight train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, a town just five kilometres from the Chinese border. From Lao Cai it is a one hour drive up into the hills to Sapa.