Hanoi to Yen Bai

By train the journey from Hanoi to Yen Bai is scheduled to take from 3 hours 55 minutes to 4 hours 07 minutes depending upon which train you take.

Train Times from Hanoi to Yen Bai

There are currently 2 trains a day from Hanoi to Yen Bai.

• Yen Bai is the connection point for travel to Mu Cang Chai and Thac Ba Lake.

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Location of Hanoi Train Station

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Location of Yen Bai Train Station

About Travel to Yen Bai

Yen Bai City is the administrative capital of Yen Bai Province and its largest settlement with over 100,000 permanent residents. Yen Bai City is not a tourist destination in its own right but it is a transport hub for travel from Hanoi to visit the province’s two main visitor attractions, Mu Cang Cai and Thac Ba Lake.

Accommodation in Yen Bai City

There is relatively little tourist accommodation in Yen Bai City. Most of the province’s hotels and guesthouses are located in scenic areas. Overnight leisure visitors to Yen Bai City have around 6 options to choose from. The cheapest places to stay in the city are hostels such as Zoni House-Yen Bai and Fish Farm Homestay which charge the equivalent of $3 to $5 USD per night for a bed in a dormitory. For more privacy private rooms at hotels such as Khách sạn Hoàng Hà River Town and Khách sạn Vạn Phúc – Yên Bái charge around $10 USD a night.

Food in Yen Bai City

It’s difficult to find ‘international cuisine’ in Yen Bai City because not so many foreign visitors travel there. Visitors will find sandwiches and french fries but pretty much every other dish on offer is standard Vietnamese cuisine, with the addition of some more unusual dishes traditionally cooked by members of local ethnic minority communities, such as ant egg cakes.

In terms of sit down restaurants, there are quite a few to choose from in Yen Bai City. Two establishments which leisure visitors often recommend are:

• Nha Hang Thuy Linh: Good standard basic Vietnamese cooking with a small number of more European style dishes.
• Sanh BBQ Restaurant: Korean style barbecue restaurant with grills on each table for customers to cook their own meat, fish and vegetables.

Mu Cang Chai

Mu Cang Chai is an area famous for its scenic terraced rice fields, located 170 km by road to the north east of Yen Bai City.

By bus the journey from Yen Bai City to Mu Cang Chai Town takes around 4 hours. We recommend visiting Yen Bai Bus Station the day before you plan to travel to check on bus times as services to Mu Cang Chai Town tend to leave very early in the morning, around 05:30.

The rice terraces in Mu Cang Chai cover an area of approximately 7 square kilometres. They have been cut into steep sided hills over the course of several centuries by ethnic minority groups who live in the area. There are two ways to enjoy this stunning scenery. One way is to take a car or motorbike along the challenging roads which wind through the hilly landscape. The other option is to go on an organised trek. There are established trekking routes which take 2 to 3 days to complete and require a reasonable level of fitness as the hillsides are very steep.

Thac Ba Lake

Thac Ba Lake is an enormous man-made lake, the nearest part of which is around 17 km by road from Yen Bai City. The actual size of the lake is difficult to measure partly because of its irregular shape and partly because of the roughly 1,300 small islands inside the lake. Estimates of the surface area vary, as a consequence, from around 140 square kilometres to over 230 square kilometres. Either way, it’s a very large lake.

Thac Ba Lake is a scenic area with lots of points of interest, particularly the many small islands in the lake. Popular activities include going on boat tours around the lake, or kayaking between the islands. There are also some caves to visit, lots of small villages with wooden houses, and a mountain by the lake which you can trek up, Cao Bien Mountain. This is a pleasant area with a cooler climate and lots of lakeside accommodation where visitors can base themselves.