Vong Hai Dai on Bach Ma peak. Photo: Bao Phuoc

According to historical records preserved by Bach Ma National Park (BMNP), in 1932, Bach Ma was discovered and proposed to build a resort by Mr. M. Girard, chief engineer of the road and bridge industry, French colonial government. In 1942, the resort from the 1,200m high belt to the top of Bach Ma was completely built with a complex of nearly 139 villas, markets, post offices , grocery stores and a 19km small car route connecting from the national highway to Morin Hotel. In addition, the resort also has a system of trails leading to villas, pristine natural landscapes such as Vong Hai Dai, Rung Park, Da Hat Park, Indochina Scout Camp, beautiful streams and waterfalls such as Hoang Yen Stream, Bac Waterfall, Ngu Ho Waterfall, Do Quyen Waterfall... Today, we can still see fragments of ruined walls built of Granite along the trails, vestiges of a golden age and famous as Sapa, Tam Dao, Da Lat of the Central region.

Time and war have made Bach Ma resort fall into oblivion and desertion. It was not until a long time after the country's reunification, especially since the 1990s, when the BM National Park was approved by the Government, that the name Bach Ma began to be mentioned and explored by many people. Around 1995, I first set foot on this sacred mountain peak. At that time, there was no accommodation facility, the road leading from the foot of the mountain was not really complete, we had to walk for an hour to find a suitable place by a stream to camp. The once-famous villas were now just ruins. But the scenery of the mountains and forests combined with the fresh, cool climate, just that, Bach Ma immediately made us fall in love, and then every time the cicadas chirped in the summer, the image of Bach Ma lingered as if calling, as if inviting...

Later, when we heard that some villas were being restored to serve tourists, we were extremely excited. My agency once brought a group of Swedish experts and journalists to Morin Villa at kilometer 0. Needless to say, their excitement and satisfaction were unimaginable. Experts from the Fojo Institute of Journalism said they had traveled to many places, but had never seen such a prime location as Morin Bach Ma. At the twinning event of the three newspapers Hanoi Moi - Thua Thien Hue - Saigon Giai Phong, we also designed a 1-day-night tour to Bach Ma. Nearly 30 newspapers nationwide with the participation of more than 100 guests, including leaders, reporters, editors of the newspapers, people who had traveled a lot and experienced a lot, but no one was not excited and passionate about Bach Ma. We thought that with that trend, the service in Bach Ma would progress more and more. Unexpectedly, everything is progressing... backwards. At the level just now, there are only a few customers whose needs Bach Ma cannot meet.

Because I go to Bach Ma almost every year, I have the opportunity to observe. Morin Villa was abandoned after a few years of operation, gradually falling into disrepair. Other accommodations are getting worse and worse, feeling like a business of taking advantage of the situation, not reinvesting. The sheets are old and dirty, the faucets are broken and not replaced, the toilets smell bad... Last year, we wrote a report and sent it to BM National Park hoping that the park leaders would get the information to take corrective actions. This year, we were hopeful, but when we arrived, our dreams were shattered. In addition to Morin, Do Quyen I, Do Quyen II, Phong Lan, and Con Ga Restaurant villas are now closed and desolate. Only Bao An & Kim Giao areas are still operating. We were lucky because we booked more than 2 months in advance to get a place to stay, otherwise we would have been devastated.

Talking to the park staff, we learned that the business assigned to it went bankrupt (?), so it has now stopped operating. The villas were returned to the National Park for the park to decide.

The day we arrived, the kilometer zero area was packed with cars; and on the day we returned, even though it was Monday, we still saw many cars carrying tourists to visit Bach Ma. However, there was no accommodation; the electricity was broken and could not be repaired; the phone signal was only Viettel network, which was quite unstable in the Kim Giao villa area. What a pity! At night in Kim Giao, talking to the park staff, they said they were also impatient, but this is a national park, if you want to build, you have to ask for permission from outside the Ministry, which is very complicated. That is true, but according to our observations, it is not necessary to build more, on the basis of the existing works: Morin, Phong Lan, Do Quyen I-II, Bao An, Kim Giao, and a vast villa area of ​​about 200m2 near Kim Giao, just need to invest and furnish the interior properly to be enough to serve the accommodation of hundreds of guests in need. Items that require large investments such as roads, clean water, electricity grid... are all available. A place like Bach Ma actually has no shortage of investors, it’s just that the province and management agencies are considering and choosing who and what method is suitable to both serve development and have the least impact on the environment. But while waiting for an answer, it cannot and should not continue to be “frozen” like that. Because it affects and “cheapens” the image not only of Bach Ma but also of Hue.

A minimal investment to serve the real needs of tourists, to promote the sacred image of a heritage land, is perhaps more important than calculating the profits of a simple business calculation. The long-term profits of such promotion will certainly not be small, more than enough to compensate for the “minimum investment” in the present, we believe so!

Hien An