The Muong Lo Tourism-Culture Week and the Mu Cang Chai Terraced Field Festival will take place on September 20-25 in the northern mountainous province of Yen Bai, featuring a chain of attractive activities.
The event aims to honour traditional culture values of the locality and the country, it will see the participation of 2019 artists, artisans, and locals in a Xoe Thai dance, which is seeking UNESCO’s recognition as intangible heritage of humanity.
As part of the festival, the 6th paragliding festival themed “Flying over yellow fields” will offer visitors an opportunity to get a bird’s-eye view of terraced fields. The event will also include food and tourism exhibitions and a carnival, aiming to promote the locality’s tourism development potential.
Mu Cang Chai district is home to 500 hectares of rice terraces in La Pan Tan, Che Cu Nha and De Xu Phinh communes, cultivated by the H'mong people for centuries. The local terraces are among the 2,500 hectares recognised as national heritage sites in 2007 by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism.
The locality is about 1,000 metres above sea level, making it impossible to cultivate wet rice as in deltas. Local residents grow rice in terraced fields to stop water flowing downhill.
Terraced fields in Mu Cang Chai are beautiful year round. Visitors in March can see glittering ponds before locals transplant rice seedlings in the period from April to May. After May, the hills are covered in green until the fields start to turn yellow with ripe rice in early September.
During the harvest in October, the golden rice fields stand out amidst green forests.