Cloud season in Pu Luong

Heritage•21/12/2024

Every December, trekkers and photographers alike have a field day choosing cloud-hunting routes across the highlands. And I often choose Pu Luong to visit, and I've returned many times.

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Because of my love for Pu Luong, I befriended Hai Anh – a genuine local – to receive "insider information" whenever the weather was good and favorable for cloud hunting. Just one phone call from Hai Anh was enough for me to arrange my work and set off immediately. Located 180km from Hanoi , a 4-hour motorbike ride along the Ho Chi Minh Highway led to Pu Luong. It was quite cold in the early days of winter. The best time for cloud watching was between 6 and 8 a.m., which also coincided with sunrise. From the homestay, Hai Anh and I traveled through the villages that were still sound asleep. We stopped in Don village, which offers panoramic views of the 1,700m-high Pu Luong mountain peak shrouded in clouds, as well as some of the most beautiful terraced rice fields. As we prepared our cameras and drones, the clouds rolled in, enveloping the entire village in the early morning mist. The rice paddies, hidden behind the clouds, resembled graceful, flowing scarves. Photographs of Pu Luong often lack the majestic beauty of the northern mountainous provinces. Instead, they possess a peaceful, gentle quality that soothes the soul. The clouds quickly dissipated in Buon Don. We then moved on to Kho Muong village. Many jokingly say that you haven't truly been to Pu Luong until you've set foot in the Kho Muong valley. Located deep within the core of the Pu Luong Nature Reserve, Kho Muong still retains its pristine, unspoiled beauty. Here, about 60 Thai ethnic households with over 200 people live together amidst rice paddies and corn fields, isolated from other villages in the area. At the end of Kho Muong village is Bat Cave, the most striking feature in the cave complex of the Pu Luong Nature Reserve. Inside Bat Cave, there are stalactites hundreds of millions of years old with strange shapes and many different colors. Therefore, besides cloud hunting in Kho Muong village, if you have time, you should learn about the lives of the local inhabitants and explore Bat Cave.

Leaving Kho Muong, we continued on to Lan village – a place with a traditional Thai handicraft weaving tradition. Thai women diligently spun silk on their looms. They are the guardians and transmitters of their ethnic culture to future generations through the brocade fabrics used to make dresses, blouses, and unique souvenirs.

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