Easy, laid-back town with loads of backpacker places. Nice landscape with lots of rice paddies and small villages.

The area is great for hiking. There are a few gotchas, though:
- "Home stays" are youth hostel-style mass accomodation, not friendly B&B in a local family.
- Don't pay a higher price for individual guided tours - the guides earn exactly the same amount regardless of whether they guide a group or a single individual. All the profit stays with the tour operator.
- Booking a tour in hanoi is *much* more expensive than doing so locally. Also, locally there are many more options available. However, getting soft sleeper tickets can be tricky on your own, as the tour operators seem to buy them all.
- Ironically, the best photo spots are along the road up from Ban Ho / Ta Van to Sa Pa, not along the hiking trail. So if you book a tour (which usually goes downhill and then has a ride back up the road) either insist in walking back up or make sure you can stop along the road to take pictures.