Cat Cat Village - Indigenous beauty
By Custom Vietnam Travel | Updated 1/5/2019
Located in the North of Vietnam lies Sapa, a hill station that is known for beautiful terraced rice fields, lovely and welcoming ethnic minority tribes, and for housing the tallest peak in Indochina, Mount Fansipan. It’s also the premier trekking base of Vietnam, becoming more and more common each day. Most tourists that visit Sapa are not as interested in the city as they love exploring the small villages scattered around it, to truly understanding the culture of the ethnic minority and the wild nature. One particularly famous village is called Cat Cat.
Beautiful Photos in Cat Cat Village
Nestled in a beautiful valley, just about 2 miles (3 kilometres) from the centre of Sapa. It is very easy walking distance from any hotels in downtown Sapa. This village was organized in the 19th century after various ethnic black H’Mong and Dzao families came together from other mountainous areas in northern Vietnam. They started living next to each other along the mountainside, cultivating rice and corn surrounding their home and developing animal husbandry using the traditional methods. They work and share everything together, as well as weaving fabric and creating traditional handicrafts such as cotton cultivation, woven fabrics which still have been keeping until now as well-know their traditional culture, even day by day, Cat Cat Village has been changed lots of things by the tourist industry. If anyone has the opportunity to visit Sapa, this village is one of the destinations can be unmissable, because when you get there, you will probably be fall in love the rustic simplicity, rustic mix in houses, brocades, and especially the smile of people here. Cat Cat Village promises to be a perfect destination for your unforgettable Sapa trip.
The Entranceway to Experience Cat Cat village
At the first point on the road, you will come across a ticket centre for Cat Cat Village, and this will only cost 25,000 VND (1 USD)/ person. The money goes towards local families who have opened their homes so you can explore and get to know their culture. At the entrance, you will also be handed a map of the trail which will have an overview of the Cat Cat Village, where you will explore firstly and how to go the correct way to explore all of the things here. Furthermore, you can rent the ethnic cloth, just only 50,000 VND (2USD)/ person, dressing up in the ethnic clothes will be a great experience and also bring for you beautiful & interesting pictures.
The handmade craft shops on the way to Cat Cat Village
After passing through the entrance point, tourists will start walking down the road to Cat Cat village that you will be impressed by the peacefully picturesque sceneries, going through the winding curves of the road, and both sides are terraced rice fields along with houses. Which you will be fall in love the ancient architectural beauty of small houses of local residents. These houses are divided into three rooms roofed with wood planks. Walls of these houses are often made from sawn timber. There are three columns standing in round or square stones inside houses. Each house will have three doors including a main door in the middle room and two others in the rest. The main door is always closed and only opened when big events such as weddings, funerals, Tet holidays happened. Besides, in each house, there are indispensable parts like the kitchen, altar, places for keeping and food, etc. Houses in the villages are separated with each other by the terraced fields. The rear of houses is surrounded by green and luxuriant bamboos. Absolutely, you will have to stop here to take lots of pictures, take the whole view of the valley from above.
The friendly smile of local people in village
Furthermore, along the way, tourists also have an opportunity to see the daily life of the ethnic people to better understand the Mong such as weaving, carving, making farm tools and arts and crafts. For example, tourists can easily catch sight of women sitting and weaving in front of a loom with colourful pieces of brocades. Under the skilful hands of these people, colourful and beautiful brocades are created. From plain brocades, these women carefully dye them with a dyestuff made from special leaves and embroider them with beautiful patterns of flowers, leaves, animals ... In addition, H'Mong people are also very good at manipulating sophisticated gold and silver jewellery.
In addition, Cat Cat also has a variety of delicious dishes with unique processing: corn wine, chicken soup, clones of bamboo shoots, corn cakes, beans… while corn wine & rice wine are quite popular, the local people often prefer to call the wine as “Happy Water”
The last but not least, you should check out the big waterfall on the stream after you hike to the bottom of the Muong Hoan Valley, it is completely a wonderful cascading body of water. There is actually an old Hydro Electric Power Station which the French built, that people in Sapa use to generate electricity near the waterfall, you will see this as you walk down to the site.
Cat Cat Waterfall
Finish the trip to Cat Cat village, go along the forest road up to the road, you will admire the extremely cool and green stream. At the end of the mountain road, you will meet the road to Fansipan peak for those who love exploring the mountains, enjoy the experience and conquer the Mount Fans by climbing. Going over the bridge to the big road. If you feel too tired to return, you should call the motorbike or taxi.
