Pu Luong Nature Reserve

Pu Luong Nature Reserve tickets and tours: which one to book

Pu Luong is the terraced valley reserve in Thanh Hoa province, about four hours south-west of Hanoi and two from Ninh Binh, and it is visited on trekking tours with a night or two in a Thai stilt-house homestay or one of the hillside lodges, since there are no gates, no tickets and no public transport once you leave the main road. Two-day, one-night tours from Hanoi include the transfer, a guide, meals and a homestay, and walk between the villages on the valley sides through the rice terraces;

three-day versions add a longer trek across the ridge to more remote villages or combine Pu Luong with Mai Chau, the better-known valley to the north. Day trips from Ninh Binh with a guided walk and lunch exist but leave little time in the valley after the drive. Guided foraging walks, kayaking on the river and jeep tours along the valley road are booked through the lodges. Cyclists ride in from Mai Chau along the river. If you are travelling independently, a car with driver from Hanoi or Ninh Binh is the practical way in, and the lodges arrange the local guides who know the paths between the terraces.

Visiting Pu Luong Nature Reserve: what you will see

The reserve covers about 175 square kilometres of two parallel limestone ridges with a settled valley between them, on the border of Thanh Hoa and Hoa Binh provinces, and it protects one of the finest surviving stretches of primary forest in northern Vietnam along with the terraced landscape that the Thai and Muong people have farmed for centuries. The valley is the reason to come: rice terraces climb the slopes in ribbons, bright green in the growing season and gold at harvest, with wooden waterwheels turning in the Cham river to lift water to the fields and stilt houses clustered in villages such as Ban Don, Ban Hieu and Kho Muong.

The walks link the villages on farm paths and forest trails, with waterfalls at Ban Hieu and a bat cave at Kho Muong, and the higher routes climb into the forest on the ridge, where the reserve's rare animals, the Delacour's langur, clouded leopard and Owston's civet, live unseen. The Thai villagers still weave, brew rice wine in jars and cook in the open kitchens of the stilt houses, and a homestay night is part of the visit rather than an add-on. The valley is quieter and less developed than Mai Chau or Sapa, with no town at its centre, and the best views are from the lodges and paths on the northern slope looking across the terraces to the ridge.

Pu Luong Nature Reserve: best time to go, seasons and hours

There are no opening hours; the valley can be visited at any time, and the lodges take guests all year. The rice terraces are at their most beautiful in late May and early June, when the paddies are flooded and freshly planted, and in September and October, when they turn gold before the harvest; the winter months from December to February are cool, dry and hazy, and the terraces are bare. Summer brings heat, humidity and afternoon storms. Weekends fill the lodges with Hanoi families in the harvest weeks. Allow two nights to walk the valley properly. Mai Chau is two hours north and can be combined on the way to or from Hanoi, and Ninh Binh's karst boat trips fit on the road south.