Visitors to the northern provinces of Ha Giang and Tuyen Quang will enjoy the colourful costumes of women from the Pa Then ethnic minoirity.

The Ha Nhi ethnic people in Bat Xat District in northern mountainous Lao Cai province live close to nature. That may be the reason why their costume is mainly green, in keeping with the colour of the mountains and forests of the northwest.

A revived interest in the national Vietnamese dress for men was demonstrated at an Lions International Club meeting held in Tokyo in 1969. The assembled Lions, along with thousands of Japanese observers on the streets and perhaps millions more at their television sets, were treated to a look at the Vietnamese national dress worn by the Vietnamese Lion delegates.

Along with the “ao tu than”, traditional girls and women in Northern Vietnam are often charming with a “khan dong” and a “khan mo qua”.

The above riddle refers to a pair of clogs, footwear imbued with symbolic meaning in Vietnam. One popular legend tells of a pair of stone clogs passed down for generations by a family in Cao Bang, high in Vietnam's northern mountains.