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.
