Tam Dao

Tam Dao is a hill station 80 km from Hanoi, laid out by the French from 1904 at 900 m for the temperature. Vietnam rebuilt it as a weekend town. It spends most of the year inside a cloud.

Is Tam Dao worth the trip from Hanoi?

Tam Dao is worth going to for the air rather than for anything you will photograph. Two hours from the capital it delivers a drop of ten degrees or more. There is forest on every side, and a town small enough to see the whole of in a morning.

Tam Dao is not a substitute for the real north. Sapa, Mai Chau and Ba Be are all further and all better. Tam Dao's case is entirely that it is close: it works as one night out of Hanoi when a week in the north does not fit.

Why is the town almost always in cloud?

The cloud is the local weather system, not bad luck. The three peaks that give Tam Dao its name stand in the path of moist air off the delta, and it condenses as it rises against them. The phrase means three islands, which is what they look like above the haze. The highest of the three reaches about 1,590 m, roughly 700 m above the town.

The practical result is that the town is in fog for a large part of the year, often clearing for an hour in the morning and closing in again by mid-afternoon. Views come and go on a scale of minutes. Bring something waterproof in any month.

What is there to do in Tam Dao town?

The town gives you three short walks and a lot of sitting down. The Silver Waterfall, Thac Bac, is a set of steps down a ravine to a thin fall that runs hard after rain and to a trickle in the dry months.

The television tower on Thien Nhi peak is reached by a long stone staircase — about 1,400 steps, and the count is the point of the exercise. The stone church from the 1930s survives in the middle of town, and the French villas that once stood around it mostly do not. Everything else is food, coffee and the walk between them.

What is on the far side at Tay Thien?

Tay Thien is a pilgrimage complex on the western flank of the same massif, and it is a separate outing rather than a walk from town. Pagodas and shrines climb a wooded valley, with a cable car for anyone who does not want the stairs.

Tay Thien is busiest in the first lunar months, when the northern festival calendar fills every site like it — the pattern is covered in the festivals guide. Reaching it from Tam Dao town means going back down the mountain and around, which is an hour either way, so treat it as its own day.

When does the fog lift?

September and October are the clearest weeks of the Tam Dao year, with the rains finished and the winter damp not yet arrived. Mornings in those two months will usually give you an hour of view.

April to August is the season the town exists for, because that is when Hanoi is unbearable and this is not, and it is also when the afternoon storms arrive. November to March is cold and wet, and January can sit below ten degrees with the cloud never lifting at all. The regional picture is in the month-by-month guide.

Weekday or weekend, and does it matter?

The day of the week matters more in Tam Dao than almost anywhere else in the north. Tam Dao is Hanoi's weekend resort, so Friday and Saturday bring full hotels, queues at the waterfall steps and karaoke running late into the night.

Come on a Tuesday and the same town is quiet enough to hear the forest. If your dates are flexible at all, this is the single decision that changes the trip most.

What does a night up the hill cost?

A night in Tam Dao costs more than a provincial town and less than a beach resort, and it doubles at weekends. Midweek rooms sit in the lower bands of the accommodation guide; Saturday rates in high summer can be twice that for the same room.

Food is the other surprise. Restaurant prices here are set for Hanoi weekenders rather than for locals. Chayote greens, the vegetable the hill grows and sells everywhere, are the cheap and good thing to order. Getting up here is a bus from My Dinh or a car for the day, which is the arithmetic in the getting around guide.