Sao Ha, an 18-household village with no electricity or running water, and the visitors a film brought

In the mountains of Tuyen Quang province in northern Vietnam,Sao Hathere's a small hamlet called X. As VietnamNet reported on July 27, 2026, it's surrounded by about 500 hectares of old-growth forest, still without electricity or running water for daily life, and even the mobile signal is unstable. With no lodging or eatery, it can only be visited as a day trip. Even so, over the past few years more travelers have come to take photos. The trigger was its becoming a filming location for a 2023 drama. Try to go from Japan and, before the ruggedness of the roads, you hit an entirely different wall.

Surrounded by 500 hectares of forest; the last two kilometers are on foot or by motorbike

The administrative address is Co Cho village, Yen Minh commune, Tuyen Quang province. Before the 2025 provincial reorganization it wasVan Chai commune, Dong Van district, Ha Giang province, and even Vietnamese-language articles often give the old place name alongside it. In the Hmong language, Sao Ha means 'a valley up high,' and the name comes from the settlement's location itself.

Without exception the houses are built in the Hmong rammed-earth style called "trình tường," with yin-yang tile roofs. A stone wall about 1.5 meters high surrounds each. The walls are stacked without any binder yet last for decades, VietnamNet writes. Residents grow hemp (lanh), corn and the highland leafy green cải mèo, raise goats and weave cloth by hand—a life centered on self-sufficiency.

How to get there is written clearly in the original. From the old Ha Giang town, head toward Tham Ma slope on National Route 4C and enter the former Van Chai commune. Coming from the old Yen Minh direction, cross a pass of about 17 kilometers of continuous hairpins and long grades, then drive about another 4 kilometers from the foot of Tham Ma slope into the former Van Chai commune. Because the settlement lies deep in the forest, the last roughly 2 kilometers of mountain path can only be covered on foot or by motorbike. The road is narrow, with continuous steep grades and hairpin curves.

'The village of hell' is a name from the film, not what this settlement is called

Sao Ha's name spread after it became a filming location for the 2023 horror work Tết ở làng địa ngục (Lunar New Year in Hell Village). The local paper Bao Tuyen Quang reports it was subsequently used to shoot Kẻ ăn hồn as well. After broadcast, footage of the mist and stone slopes spread on social media, and people began moving on the urge to touch the scenery they'd seen on screen for themselves.

There's one thing to be careful about in how this is written. 'Hell Village' is the name of a fictional village within the work, not what residents call their own settlement. Using a title as if it were a place name overwrites a place where 18 households actually live with a fictional label. Cases where social-media attention changes even what a village is called are not rare in Vietnam (The summer 100 students turned a fading craft village into ”emo heritage” through social media）。

The provincial reorganization is worth pinning down too. National Assembly Resolution 202/2025/QH15, merging Ha Giang Province and Tuyen Quang Province into a new Tuyen Quang Province, passed on June 12, 2025, and Standing Committee Resolution 1684, setting the commune and ward boundaries, came out on June 16. The new administrative units began operating on July 1 that year. The new province has 7 wards and 117 communes, an area of 13,795.50 square kilometers and a population of 1,865,270. Because the district level was abolished, the unit "Dong Van district" no longer exists. This is why old descriptions on travel sites clash with current address notation.

1,500 meters or 2,000 meters? The figures don't line up

Line up what's been written about this settlement and the numbers don't match. VietnamNet puts the elevation at about 1,500 meters, while Bao Tuyen Quang writes 'nearly 2,000 meters.' Household counts and poverty rates appear only in the latter. If you're treating this as travel information, it's safer to keep track of which figure comes from which outlet.

The elevation varying by 500-meter units is probably because it isn't stated which point in the settlement was measured. Still, if you're planning warm clothing and gear for a day trip, either figure leads to the same conclusion: highland that stays cool even in summer.

Village chief, tourism-association head, visitor—each speaks of the same hamlet with a different warmth

Va Mi Na, the head of Kho Cho village, told Báo Tuyên Quang that'Since the film crew came, more visitors come to the village. Some spend a whole day going to see the caves, taking photos and keeping records.', he says. What stands out is that he states the increase as a fact, calling it neither welcome nor troubling.

In the same article, Lai Quoc Thinh, chairman of the provincial tourism association, said, 'Sao Ha has not just scenery but many elements of experience gathered together. Connected well, it could form an experience route unique to the rocky plateau,' and indicated that the association would carry out a field survey and, to start, support setting up homestays at five households. He also laid out conditions: don't sell the land, protect the water sources, protect the forest.

Vuong Pham Quang Duy (born 2002), a Hanoi resident, told VietnamNet it was "a village completely cut off from the outside world," citing how uniform the houses' construction is. To visitors, he advises always getting residents' permission before photographing. In the same remarks he also compares it with Lao Xa village in the same province. If the deep ochre earthen walls paired with yin-yang tiles are Lao Xa's charm, then Sao Ha differs in having earthen walls, tiles and stone walls all together—so his argument goes.

There's another person who tells the village's memory. Va Dung Cau, born in 1960 and living in Kho Cho village, pointed to the mountainside and told Báo Tuyên Quang, “There's a cave up there. Long ago there were bandits, and no one could go near.” In 1960, Sung Dung Lu, a Hmong militia leader in the former Van Chai commune, entered that cave, faced the bandit chief Vàng Vạn Ly directly, and 12 men laid down their guns and joined the revolutionary side, the paper writes. The place tourists come to as a “film village” is, for residents, land layered with a different story.

You can't ride on a Japanese license — this is where the itinerary first gets stuck

The final stretch to the settlement is, as the article says, limited to motorbike or on foot. Visitor Duy's advice is specific too: avoid scooters and cars, and choose a geared bike (xe số) or a clutch bike (xe côn tay) with the brakes and tires checked. It's tempting to think "I'll just rent a bike," but that's exactly where the real barrier lies for Japanese travelers.

As the Embassy of Japan in Vietnam advises,An international driving permit issued in Japan is not valid in VietnamThat's because the Geneva Convention that Japan has joined and the Vienna Convention that Vietnam has joined are separate systems. To drive in Vietnam, you either switch your Japanese license for a Vietnamese one or take the test locally. What's more, if you switch from a car-only license, you can't ride a two-wheeler. To ride one, you need to switch from a Japanese motorcycle license or take the practical test.

That means the moment a short-term tourist rides a motorbike themselves, they're driving without a license. There are two realistic options. Arrange a motorbike with a driver (a so-called Easy Rider) in the old Ha Giang town center or toward old Yen Minh and ride along, or, if your stay qualifies for 90 days or more, put yourself through the license-conversion process (Drive on a 90-day visa—Vietnam's license conversion opens its doors to business travelers too). The more you plan to tour the stone plateau on the side of a business trip, the more the switch is worth. On top of that, read the exclusion clauses of your overseas travel insurance before you leave.

A word on entry permits for foreigners. In Vietnam, when foreigners enter areas designated as border zones, they need a permit issued by the provincial police; the fee is $10 per person (about 1,630 yen at 163 yen to the dollar), and processing is said to take within five business days of the paperwork being accepted. The former Dong Van district area has several communes bordering the frontier, and the provincial reorganization changed the commune boundaries themselves. Whether Sao Ha falls under this can't be pinned down from published materials, so the quickest route is to check with a receiving travel agency or the provincial police when planning your trip.

Five homestays and the caveat that "we don't sell our land"

A settlement of 18 households with a 50% poverty rate, where only day-trippers increase. If numbers keep rising with this structure intact, what stays in the village is trash and noise, while almost no income lands. The homestay development the tourism association has proposed is one move to break that asymmetry. And it comes with a condition: “in keeping with Hmong architecture and ways of living.” It's the opposite design philosophy from building rebar lodges from outside to rack up numbers, and it connects with the settlement-level hospitality-building seen deep in the Mekong (Staying in a toddy-palm forest: village tourism in Bay Nui, deep in the Mekong）。

Timing matters too. The Dong Van Karst Plateau where Sao Ha sits is in the middle of a reassessment by the UNESCO Global Geoparks Network. According to Bao Van Hoa, an evaluation team led by experts Sanja Marija Peris and Yuenyuen Cheng carried out a field survey on July 25–26, 2026, the fourth reassessment. The evaluation looks at how locals have pursued sustainable tourism tied to heritage protection. On July 25, the 'Van Chai stone books' heritage site, in the same Yen Minh commune as Sao Ha, was also on the team's inspection list. A settlement where hemp weaving remains part of daily life makes an easy subject to explain in this context.

For Japanese makers of food and goods, the point worth noting is that the region's hemp weaving is treated not as "tourist souvenirs" but as a living culture worthy of appraisal. Even to source it, pulling volume from a settlement of just 18 producer households isn't realistic. The sensible move is to start talks at the level of the commune or a cooperative.

Check these before you go

The cautions visitor Duy raised on VietnamNet are practical as is: always check the weather forecast, carry food and basic medicine, fully charge your devices, get permission before shooting, keep your voice down and don't play music inside the village, and don't litter. In a place with no electricity or water, a traveler's single day of consumption falls directly on the residents.

In short: before deciding whether to go, there's an order in which to check

Sao Ha is a destination where moving on looks alone easily leads to accidents. In order: first, settle your transport. If you plan to drive yourself, clear the license issue first; if that's not possible, ask a travel agency to arrange a driver. Next, check with your host whether the commune on your route is designated as a border zone. Only after all that, build the day's timetable.

One more thing: keep not going a realistic option too. If people gather at an 18-household settlement faster than five homestays can be built, only the burden arrives first. The former Ha Giang area has many other sights on the stone plateau, and the route the geopark assessors toured makes a ready alternative. If you must go, hire a local guide, pay for it, and come down by evening. That, I think, is the most practical courtesy you can show this settlement right now.

Sources:VietnamNet／Báo Tuyên Quang／Tuyen Quang Province electronic information portal／Báo Văn hóa／Báo Văn hóa (visit to Yen Minh commune)／Embassy of Japan in Vietnam