The small village of Taphin is becoming an increasingly popular spot for day trippers. At the entrance to the village there is place where the tourist buses vans park, as the Red Dao who live there sow and wait for a possible sale. All visitors passing through Taphin make the short round-trip through the centre of Taphin to a cave at the other end of town.
The town of Taphin is surrounded by small H’mong and Dao communes. The people who live in these communes are the soul of this little community. They have lived there for four hundred years. They have sculpted the terraced landscape and dug the irrigation routes for the water. They have planted the corn and cut the web of paths that get you to and from their homes and fields. Evidently, the people that live here have given life to this beautiful place.
The PATA Foundation / Capilano University initiatives build from a successful five-year (2002 – 2007) CIDA-funded community tourism training project completed in two villages of the Sapa region by Capilano University and Hanoi Open University. The projects help maintain critical momentum of capacity building in two remarkable communities – Ta Phin and Lao Chai – so that the benefits of increased tourist visitation are distributed widely in the villages and that the tourist experience is made positive for the visitor and host alike.