Do Quyen Train

The cabin settles into the arrival platform and the door slides open. Mist from the Hoàng Liên Sơn range pours in, colder and thicker than anything felt down in the valley. At an altitude of more than 3,000 meters, the wind blows straight across the mountainside. This is the highest part of the journey up Fansipan, and the journey is not over.

Waiting on the platform is the Đỗ Quyên Train. It is the last short train in the chain of rides at the Sun World Fansipan Legend complex in Sa Pa, in Lào Cai province. The line joins Đỗ Quyên Station to Trúc Mây Station. It runs along the mountainside at the top level and carries visitors to the spiritual complex near the summit of Fansipan.

One distinction matters here. The Đỗ Quyên Train is not the Mường Hoa Mountain Train. The Mường Hoa train runs on the lower part of the Sun World area and links the center of Sa Pa with the cable car station, at an altitude of about 1,600 meters. The Đỗ Quyên Train runs only on the upper part, after the cable car ride ends, at more than 3,000 meters. They are two trains at two heights, serving two stages of the same area.

According to the operator, Sun World, the line passes through a tunnel under the foot of the great statue of Amitabha Buddha. The ride takes about two to three minutes. It is short, but it offers a view of its own: high slopes of rock, stunted forest clinging to the cliffs, and patches of rhododendron growing thick in the plant zone near the summit.

It is the rhododendron that gives the departure station its name. Đỗ quyên is the Vietnamese word for the flower. The Nhân Dân newspaper, citing documents, reports that the Hoàng Liên Sơn range has about 40 species of rhododendron. They bloom from late February to May and spread pinkish red, yellow and purple over the slopes from about 2,000 meters upward.

Trúc Mây, the arrival station, takes its name from the image of clumps of bamboo growing in the mist close to the summit. This plant is typical of the high-mountain ecosystem of Hoàng Liên. Both station names were chosen by Sun World, inspired by the plants of the peak.

From Trúc Mây Station, the summit of Fansipan is about 50 stone steps away. The peak, 3,143 meters high, is the highest point in Hoàng Liên National Park.

The spiritual complex lies at this level, spread through the mist and the cold wind. It is quiet in a way that exists only at such a height.

Two to three minutes is the shortest stretch of the day. But when the doors open at Trúc Mây Station, visitors step into a sky of white cloud above 3,000 meters. That short stretch turns out to be the one they remember longest, with rhododendrons along the path and the summit just ahead.