DRAGON JAW MOUNTAIN I SAPA

The graceful Sapa town curls around the peak of a rocky mountain range covered with forest trees. The range is large enough to form a thick and green screen and small enough not to blind the eye that looks skyward. This mountain range is named Ham Rong because in the centre of its summit is a row of rising rocks that resemble a huge dragon head with horns, nose, whiskers and forehead. The mouth of the animal opens wide, as if it were gushing out clouds into sky.

 The range is only 200m higher than the town and is 3km wide. It is composed of three waves of mountains, 10km long in its totality, running from Sapa to the juncture of Ta Phin Sapa and down to the Trung Chai mountainside. From the mountain top, We can have an overview of Sapa with Muong Hoa valley to the south, Trung Chai valley to the north, Ta Phin valley to the northwest and O Quy Ho valley to the west as well as an overview of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range running southward with its peak being the Fansipan.

On clear days, white silver streams can be seen cascading from the mountain peak and curling around terrace fields and red earth roads that look likes strokes on a painting of sinuous mountains and hills. Sapa spreads out like sand, which We feel we can touch on each house roof, each pine tree, along the town roads, and we imagine that it is at our feet

The Vietnamese people look to famous places nationwide with great admiration and embroider legends around them which given them an air of sacredness and myth. Legends about the dragon are numerous. The Vietnamese people see themselves as descendants of the dragon and the fairy. Among such legends, mention should be made first of Thang Long capital – the land where the dragon ascends – Ha Long bay – where the dragon descends and the Mekong River Delta where there are nine sacred dragons.

Ham Rong Mountain was once covered with thick forests and there were few H’mong wooden houses. To date, vestiges of these hamlets remain: terrace field, track and hundreds of century – old peach trees, the trunks of which larger than an adult’s armlet, twisting to support huge branches loaded with red flowers in spring and with fruit in summer.

The forest was once plundered to such an extent that Ham Rong faced the threat of becoming a bare mountain. But in the early 1990 a new page was turned, following the decision to turn it into an important tourist attraction.

The Sapa people restored their town with determination and patience. Although human resources and capital were scarce, they managed to create rocky paths, develop orchids, construct stilt house, grow hundreds of plants, make a way through mountain rocks into the heaven’s gate and did untold jobs. They had to think of a way to open Sapa to tourism without spoiling the natural landscape. So far , tourism on Ham Rong is thriving and most tourists agree that this is the ideal place to see the best of Sapa in the shortest time possible.