Redevelopments in Bac Ha town in Northern Vietnam have currently left the town in an unattractive state.The road to Bac Ha is unrelentingly steep. The precipitous slopes to the side would make plenty of drivers, or rather passengers, nervous. One moment I’m nervously fretting as the driver veers around the winding mountain corners, the next, I’m spellbound by the stunning view of the valleys below and beyond.
This is a realm of total purity and unadulterated beauty – with perhaps the exception of the trucks and buses, the bane of whoever travels on Vietnam’s roads. The road zigzags up to an altitude of 1000 metres where Bac Ha town sits snugly in a valley filled with tall Samu trees, or so I seem to remember. My basic plan is to arrive, dump my bags at the hotel and head straight towards the market.
I have always loved Bac Ha market where a myriad of local communities brushes shoulders. A colourful range of traditional costumes are always on display, though it is always the Flower Mong people who catch my eye. But oddly I notice the closer to the town’s centre I get, the more mud I appear have to deal with – it’s supposed to be the other way round. It seems that the whole area is being rebuilt and most of the roads are filled with mud and building materials, which have been left in complete disarray.
Panic starts to set in as I realise I’ve left the dust and din of Hanoi for a ‘getaway weekend’ in a construction site. On the ground of the old market, several houses are being built while the ground is being paved. Meanwhile a new market is under construction. I head past this work-in-progress in search of a spot, rather desperately, where I remember charming Mong girls used to gather. But sadly they’ve moved on. Where they once stood I find a new cement bridge.
Despite the mud and dust, Mong people are still selling their embroideries and vegetables along the road. However I cannot find the corner selling horse meat, beef and pork as usual. Nor can I find the normally ubiquitous gathering of Mong men, laughing, drinking and enjoying a bowl of Thang Co, a local broth with horse meat. A horse-cart trundles past without a client. After all, who would want to travel around this dust bowl? The sight of Bac Ha market is so dull that I don’t even think to pull out my camera.
Rather crestfallen I head off to find a quiet restaurant and order some lunch. Though I haven’t eaten all morning, I don’t feel so hungry. Spotting my glum expression Lan, the owner of Ngan Nga Hotel and restaurant, offers me tea and sympathy. “I don’t know why the authorities did these stupid things,” she says. “They cut down the trees in the small park in the centre, razed it all to the ground to make a car park.
Then they filled the springs running through the town, replaced the chain-bridge with a cement one, and cut down some pine-trees on the hills. We are heart-broken to witness these changes.” The houses of the Mong King Hoang A Tuong, built with French assistance in 1920, has also been refurbished, but not for the better in Lan’s opinion. “Now it just looks like a recently built house,” adds Lan. A mystifying decision when it is supposed to be a heritage site. Lan says tourists don’t bother going inside anymore.
“If you love markets and want to see a typical market with ethnic minorities like Bac Ha was in the past, go to Can Cau market, just 15km from here,” advises Hung, Lan’s husband. “That’s where you will really see the way Mong, Dao and Tay ethnic people live.” It’s a sad day when hoteliers advise tourists to visit other towns. But as tourism is directed elsewhere, let’s hope that these other traditional markets will not suffer a similar fate to Bac Ha.
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