Two ways up from Hanoi, and what each one costs you in daylight

Three scheduled night trains run Hanoi to Lao Cai. SP1 leaves at 21:35 and arrives around 05:25, SP3 leaves at 22:00 and arrives around 05:55, SP7 leaves at 22:30 or 22:40 and arrives between 06:25 and 06:40. Running time is seven hours forty-five to eight hours, and the station asks passengers to be there thirty minutes before departure.

Road transfer is the other route. The Noi Bai - Lao Cai expressway runs 245 kilometres and opened along its full length on 21 September 2014; the Hanoi to Sa Pa drive is about 315 kilometres and takes five to seven hours depending on the vehicle and how many stops the operator makes. More than nineteen companies work the route with over two hundred departures a day, and the heaviest concentration is the overnight window between 20:00 and 02:00.

Private carriages are a real thing on this line, not a marketing label. Operators such as Chapa Express, Victoria Express, King Express and Hara Express attach their own carriages to the state railway's SP services. Chapa Express runs seven cabins with wood panelling, wifi, towels and water, publishes VND 850,000 to 950,000 per berth in a four-berth cabin and VND 1,500,000 to 1,800,000 per berth in a two-berth VIP cabin, and attaches to SP3 out of Hanoi and SP4 on the way back. Holiday and peak-summer dates carry a 10 to 30 percent uplift.

The transfer from Lao Cai station to Sa Pa is 35 kilometres and takes about an hour, sometimes fifty minutes. That single leg is what makes the two options diverge, because it lands you in Sa Pa at different points of the morning with different amounts of sleep behind you.

Our default for a three-day trip is the train out and the train back, in a four-berth cabin. It is not the cheapest combination. It is the one that puts the most usable daylight inside the two days that matter, and it is the only option that reliably gives everyone in the group a flat berth in a door-closed cabin.

The two-day version drops day two and keeps the arrival morning and the valley walk. It works for travellers who have already been up a mountain somewhere else and want the villages rather than the summit. It does not work as a way to save money, because the fixed costs of the trip — two night transfers, a guide, the station legs — barely move when you remove a day.

• Two days means one night in Sa Pa, arrival morning plus one full day, and no Fansipan. Expect about 20 percent off the three-day figure, not half.
• Three days is the version described above: two nights in Sa Pa, Fansipan and the valley walk on separate days.
• Four days adds either the daytime train home, or a second valley day towards Ta Phin, and is the only version that suits travellers who sleep badly in transit.

The Fansipan day can also be bought on its own if you are already in Sa Pa — see the cable car day tour. The valley walk works the same way on the Cat Cat and Ta Van page.

The figures below are an indicative range, built up from published transport fares, entrance tickets and mid-range hotel rates in Sa Pa. They are per person sharing a twin room, and they move with the season, the train class and how full the group is.

The pricing page breaks down where the money goes and which line items move most. Entrance tickets and cable car fares are quoted in Vietnamese dong throughout this site, because that is the currency the operators publish them in.

• Travellers who cannot sleep on a moving train or coach. Two of the three nights are in transit, and a bad night on the way up ruins day one whatever the itinerary says.
• Anyone looking for a graded multi-day trek with a difficulty rating. The walking here is 4 to 12 kilometres a day on village paths and road, with a bed in Sa Pa every night.
• Groups with a fixed, unmovable schedule in June, July or August. That is the wet stretch, trains run late, and the cable car can stop for weather without notice.
• Travellers who need a lift to the door of every sight. Cat Cat and Ta Van are reached on foot, on stone and earth paths that are slippery after rain.
• Anyone who wants a private vehicle for the Hanoi leg at the price shown. The figures above assume scheduled rail or coach; a private car for 315 kilometres is a different budget.