Lung Tam is a H’Mong village in the Quan Ba valley, about 50 km from Ha Giang city, where a women’s cooperative makes cloth from hemp by hand. The fibre is grown, stripped, spliced, spun, boiled, woven, patterned with beeswax and dyed with indigo, and one length of cloth takes around seven months from sowing to finish.
Visitors can watch each stage, try the loom and buy directly from the makers. The craft was listed as national intangible cultural heritage in 2016, and the village sits on a short side road off National Highway 4C beyond Tam Son.
Lung Tam on the way to the plateau
A morning at the cooperative with a licensed local guide to translate, and your own car and driver for the road to Yen Minh.
★Ha Giang Loop by Private Car — 3 DaysThree days around the Ha Giang Loop in your own car, from Ha Giang city — Heaven Gate, Lung Cu, the Sky Path on Ma Pi Leng and a private boat on the Nho Que. · 3 days, 2 nightsSee the tour →Ha Giang Loop from Hanoi — 4 Days by Private CarDoor to door from Hanoi: four days on the Ha Giang Loop with your own car, a licensed local guide and a good hotel every night. · 4 days, 3 nightsSee the tour →Hemp, not flax: what “linen” means here
The cloth is sold as linen, but the plant is hemp, a tall fibre crop the H’Mong have grown on the plateau for generations. The word used in Vietnamese covers both, and the cooperative uses “linen” in English. The result is a stiff, heavy cloth that softens with years of wear.
For the H’Mong it is more than a fabric. Hemp clothes are part of weddings, and a hemp garment goes with the dead at a funeral, to guide them back to their ancestors. That is why families kept weaving even when cheap factory cloth reached every market.
From field to cloth, step by step
Accounts of the process list anything from about twenty to more than forty steps, depending on how finely you divide them. The main stages are these.
| Stage | What happens | When or how long |
|---|---|---|
| Sowing | Hemp seed goes in alongside the maize | Early May |
| Harvest and drying | Stems about 2 m tall are cut, stripped of leaves and dried in the sun | After about two and a half months; 10–14 days drying |
| Stripping | The bark is peeled off in long strips, then pounded to soften it | Late summer |
| Splicing | Strips are joined end to end by splitting one end and twisting the next into it, so the join cannot be seen | Weeks of handwork, the slowest step |
| Spinning | The spliced thread is wound and twisted on a wooden wheel | Ongoing |
| Whitening | The thread is buried in wood ash overnight, boiled several times until pale, then boiled with beeswax | Several days |
| Weaving | On a narrow wooden loom, giving cloth about 30–35 cm wide | Days per length |
| Finishing | The cloth is washed repeatedly for about a month and pressed under a log rolled on a stone | About a month |
Splicing is the part you will see most often. Women do it at home, on the doorstep, at the market, turning a short strip into an endless thread one twist at a time. It is also the step that makes hand-made hemp slow and expensive.
Beeswax and indigo
Plain hemp becomes a H’Mong skirt through batik. The maker heats beeswax and draws the pattern onto the cloth with a small pen on a bamboo handle, in lines, spirals and crosses passed down through families. The cloth then goes into an indigo vat, many times over, until the dye is deep blue. Boiling removes the wax and leaves the pattern pale against the blue.
Indigo plants are grown on the plateau and fermented into dye. Different H’Mong groups decorate differently: some favour batik, others appliqué and embroidery in red and white on dark cloth. At Lung Tam you usually see batik and indigo work alongside embroidery on finished pieces.
Visiting the cooperative
The cooperative grew out of a women’s group in the village around 2000 and now has well over a hundred members, most of them women from Lung Tam and nearby hamlets. It sells skirts, scarves, bags, cushion covers and wall hangings, in the village and to buyers in Europe and elsewhere. Its products hold a three-star rating in OCOP, Vietnam’s national scheme for local products.
What you see
A visit is a walk through the stages in the workshop and yard: stripped hemp drying, women splicing and spinning, looms working, wax pens and indigo vats. You can try the loom or a few strokes with the wax pen. The field and harvest steps only happen in summer; splicing, spinning and weaving go on most of the year.
Buying
There is a shop, with prices from a few hundred thousand dong for a small bag or scarf to a couple of million for a large piece, in 2026. It costs more than market stalls because it is hand-made hemp rather than machine-woven cotton, and the money goes to the women who made it. Nobody has to buy anything.
How long
About an hour. Arrive in the morning, when more of the members are at work.
Where Lung Tam is and how it fits the loop
From Ha Giang city, National Highway 4C climbs to Quan Ba Heaven Gate and down into the Tam Son valley. Past Tam Son, a small road turns off to the right towards Lung Tam, below the hills that include the Twin Mountains. It is about 50 km from Ha Giang city in all, and the detour from the main road is short.
| Tour | Lung Tam? | When |
|---|---|---|
| Ha Giang Loop from Hanoi, 4 days | Yes | Day 2 at 08:30, after the night in Quan Ba, before Yen Minh |
| Ha Giang Loop by private car, 3 days | On request | Day 1, adding about an hour before lunch |
There are no shop stops on our trips; Lung Tam is a craft visit, and buying is up to you. For wider context on the people and on visiting homes and markets, see our page on the H’Mong, Lo Lo and Tay of Ha Giang, and for the route as a whole, the Ha Giang Loop guide.
A morning with the weavers, then the road north
Four days door to door from Hanoi with Lung Tam included, or three days from Ha Giang city with it added on request.
Ha Giang Loop by Private Car — 3 Days3 days, 2 nightsSee the tour →Ha Giang Loop from Hanoi — 4 Days by Private Car4 days, 3 nightsSee the tour →Questions about Lung Tam linen village
Where is Lung Tam linen village?
In the Quan Ba valley, about 50 km from Ha Giang city. From National Highway 4C, a small road turns off past the town of Tam Son, below the Twin Mountains.
Is Lung Tam cloth linen or hemp?
Hemp. It is sold as linen in English, but the plant is hemp, grown by H’Mong families on the plateau. The cloth is stiff at first and softens with wear.
How long does it take to make H’Mong hemp cloth?
About seven months from sowing in May to finished cloth. Splicing the fibres into thread by hand is the slowest step.
Can you try weaving at Lung Tam?
Yes. Visitors can usually try the loom or draw a line with the beeswax pen, and watch splicing, spinning and indigo dyeing.
Is Lung Tam included on a Ha Giang Loop tour?
On our four-day trip from Hanoi it is, on the morning of day two. On the three-day loop from Ha Giang city it can be added on request, for about an hour on day one. Buying is always optional.
Lung Tam and the loop by private car
Car, mountain driver, licensed local guide, rooms, meals, the boat and the permit in one price for your group, free to cancel until 5 days before.
★Ha Giang Loop by Private Car — 3 DaysThree days around the Ha Giang Loop in your own car, from Ha Giang city — Heaven Gate, Lung Cu, the Sky Path on Ma Pi Leng and a private boat on the Nho Que. · 3 days, 2 nightsfrom$354/ person›
Choose your group size · price is the group totalSolo traveller$975BOOK →2 guests$1,075BOOK →3 guests$1,315BOOK →4 guests$1,415BOOK →See the full tour page →Ha Giang Loop from Hanoi — 4 Days by Private CarDoor to door from Hanoi: four days on the Ha Giang Loop with your own car, a licensed local guide and a good hotel every night. · 4 days, 3 nightsfrom$543/ person›
Choose your group size · price is the group totalSolo traveller$1,515BOOK →2 guests$1,640BOOK →3 guests$2,045BOOK →4 guests$2,170BOOK →See the full tour page →Cooperative details, heritage listing and 2026 shop prices were checked in September 2026 and can change.