Hoa Binh Lake in the North of Vietnam ☀️

4 min readMay 31, 2018

Hoa Binh Lake - a worth visit in the Hoa Binh province.

Hoa Binh Lake is one of the places where you can easily travel from Hanoi (by bus from My Dinh and Yen Nghia bus stations). It is really a good and nice place for example, for a short trip, eco-tourism or to try out a typical village homestay by local ethnic minorities (mainly Thai ethnic residents). This place is mainly visited by Vietnamese and it is only about 70 km from Hanoi. Foreign tourists are also slowly starting to arrive, but we should say, this is not a top visited tourist attraction like Ha Long Bay.

>>> How to get from Hanoi to Mai Chau?

The largest artificial lake in Southeast Asia

Hoa Binh Lake is the largest artificial lake in Southeast Asia. It is 70km long and spreads across 17 communes in five districts and city. There are 47 large and small islands in the reservoir, including 11 limestone islands with an area of 116 hectares and 36 earth islands covering nearly 160 hectares.

Where to stay in the Hoa Binh province?

If you want to visit and explore Hoa Binh Lake, in my opininon, it is good to stay in Hoa Binh town or in Mai Chau. Hoa Binh Lake is right at the town of Hoa Binh and Mai Chau is about 20 km from the western part of Hoa Binh Lake. Mai Chau offers almost all services for tourists - homestays, tours, trips… In these places you can rent a motorbike or bicycle and go explore on your own. Now it is very easy to book your accommodation online also in these places - Accommodation in Hoa Binh or in Mai Chau.

The ethnic villages around the Hoa Binh Lake. Stillt houses and mainly Thai ethnic people.

Villages of the Thai ethnic residents and authentic homestays in stillt houses.

The whole area around the Hoa Binh Lake is surrounded by small ethnic villages of Thai ethnic residents. These people live here for a long time and some of them offer their still houses like an authentic homestays. So you can stay in some villages, some of them are ready for foreign tourists. Please > respect these people, this is their home, not yours, it is very important to keep these cultures and customs, even though the world and especially Vietnam is rapidly changing. If you stay in these villages, it is a good chance for these people to earn some money.

Some roads around the Hoa Binh Lake are not in the good condition.

Boat trips or kayaking - all is possible on the Hoa Binh Lake.

Avoid the winter season and come in spring or summer. It is also possible to take a boat trip on the Hoa Binh Lake. You can take a boat in the Hoa Binh Port (Bến tầu Du lịch Hồ Hòa Bình). These port is about 2 km from the Hoa Binh dam and hydropower plant. Another port is in Thung Nai (Cảng Thung Nai), about 20 km from the Hoa Binh town. According to the reports by some vietnamese media and Ministry of culture, sports and tourism, we can wait, this area will be upgraded in the near future. So the time to visit this nice area is now. Hoa Binh Lake to become national tourism area by 2020 (more information from media).

Interesting places/what to see in Hoa Binh Lake:

• boat trips, kayaking, trekking in the area of the Hoa Binh Lake
• Hoa Binh Dam (buy tickets and visit this dam)
• Thai and Muong ethnic villages (homestay possible)
• Thung Nai village + port, Giang Mo village
• traditional ethnic festivals or rituals (ancestor worship)
• Can Cave, Tien Phi Cave, Ret and Hoa Tien caves
• Thac Bo temple, Thac Bo cave
• Mai Chau (20 km from the western part of lake)