The beauty of Northwest terraced fields in the flooding season

Every summer, right from the beginning of the season, backpackers and professional photographers eagerly plan their trips to the heritage of terraced fields in the water-pouring season. Throughout the northern mountainous provinces, from West to East, the places where rice is cultivated on the mountain slopes and hillsides have a strange beauty: both majestic and rustic with terraced fields shimmering with magical water.

Of course, when mentioning terraced fields, we must mention the provinces of Dien Bien, Lai Chau, Lao Cai, Ha Giang, Son La... and especially Yen Bai, which is famous for its golden rice fields every autumn.

Therefore, the names of districts such as Van Chan and Mu Cang Chai of Yen Bai's rice granary are famous from the ripe rice season to the flooding season. Yen Bai provincial authorities also have a specific schedule with many activities to welcome tourists during these two special seasons in communes and districts with large rice areas and beautiful terraced fields.

There are even events that have become anticipated highlights such as “Flying over the golden season”, “Flying over the pouring water season”. These are occasions when visitors can paraglide to admire the natural scenery blending with works created by human hands, conquering nature over hundreds of years – terraced fields following countless layers.

The road to Mu Cang Chai in late May and early June becomes more bustling, especially on weekends when tourists from all over the country cross passes and mountains to see the spectacular scenery here during the water pouring season. Our car slowly climbed Khau Pha Pass, the car windows were wide open to let in the fresh air from the highlands.

The Thai people call the majestic Khau Pha Pass “the horn of heaven” – the mountain horn jutting up to the blue sky. This 30km long, most dangerous mountain pass in the Northwest region, is a place to test your driving skills but also a place where nature bestows wonderful gifts to those who set foot here. Choosing a safe place to get off the car, we were engrossed in the scenery of hidden mountains and clouds and terraced fields filled with water.

The majestic forest appears solemn through the dominant dark brown color. The picture is created from the soil and water in each field reflecting the sunlight. In a place where agriculture still depends heavily on nature like in this highland, the first rains of summer become precious when bringing water for people to cultivate the new crop.

Water flows from the high mountain stream, is led into each rice field with banks from 1m to 1.5m high. When the water is close to the banks, farmers take advantage of the opportunity to sow rice seedlings. Therefore, the picture has a dark but multi-colored color with many rice fields only having water shimmering on the surface reflecting the sky, next to which are fields with young rice seedlings taking root and growing lushly green...

And the urgent atmosphere of the Thai and H'Mong people plowing the fields made the scene even more vivid. Our group's photographers persevered for hours to get the best frames, using telephoto lenses to capture the scene of farmers leading water, visiting the fields...

Heritage Magazine