Bustling Bac Ha market in spring

Located more than 60 km northeast of Lao Cai city, Bac Ha market is held every Sunday in the town center. For local people, the market is a place to buy and sell goods, meet friends. For tourists , this weekend market is a unique and attractive cultural feature that should be experienced when coming to the white plateau of Bac Ha...

Colorful weekend market

Knowing that the market is held on Sunday, on the Saturday afternoon before the full moon of January, we traveled from Lao Cai city to Bac Ha town to take the initiative in time and accommodation. Indeed, those worries were not unnecessary. Right from Saturday afternoon, the roads leading to the center of Bac Ha market were crowded with people and vehicles from everywhere. The scene was really lively.

Finding a place to stay here is very difficult at the moment. The rows of boarding houses on Bac Ha walking street such as Nam Sat, Na Co… all have “no rooms” signs. It took us a long time to find a cheap room near the side gate of the market.

From early morning, when the sky was still foggy and people’s faces were not yet visible, people were pouring into the market center on the streets. Looking down from above, Bac Ha cultural market looked like a mobile flower garden with the colorful dresses of ethnic minority women going to the market, blending with the fresh colors of the goods.

Previously, the market was held on a gentle hill, later the market was rebuilt on a concrete foundation and divided into many sales areas. An area selling livestock and poultry, an area selling groceries and production tools, an area selling brocade and jewelry, an area selling local vegetables, fruits, and agricultural products... Most of them are still local agricultural products.

Visitors to Bac Ha market are mainly from the lowlands, there are also many foreign tourists who come here to explore and experience the unique and attractive features of life and customs of the people. In the drizzling spring rain, there was a stream of visitors, we encountered many tourists from Europe who were excited to visit the market, freely taking photos and filming the hustle and bustle, the colorful life of Bac Ha market.

Michel, a tourist from southern France, said: "When I came to Bac Ha, what attracted me most were the traditional ethnic costumes of the people. I was overwhelmed by the vibrant colors of the stalls here. I chose some stuffed animals with brocade patterns as souvenirs for my family."

Coming to Bac Ha market, people can also enjoy a special dish, which is the famous thang co. Right in the center of the market, in the food court filled with smoke and fragrant food, people and tourists enjoy checking in with the largest specialized thang co cooking pan in the country, once ranked in the Guinness Vietnam record, weighing up to 1.6 tons, 3m in diameter, 1m deep, and holding 2m3 of water.

What is very interesting is that although this is a market for ethnic minorities in the highlands, the H'Mong boys and girls quickly grasped digital technology, participating in online sales to support their fellow countrymen right at the market. They introduced and promoted the products of their ethnic minorities brought to the market to online customers, if there is a need, they can trade, order and have them delivered to their doorstep.

Along with that are local youtubers - digital content creators who put on the digital platform the subscription channels of many youtubers attracting tens, hundreds of thousands of followers, creating channels to promote the unique indigenous culture of the Bac Ha highlands.

Ly Seo Sung, a famous cameraman and youtuber in Bac Ha, from Si Ma Cai district, said: "Bac Ha market has a strong cultural identity of the highlands, creating an impression on visitors when they visit. Therefore, I try to promote the image of Bac Ha market through films so that more people will know about it."

According to this famous photographer, the local people in Bac Ha need to produce local specialties such as clean vegetables, fruits, chickens, and pigs, because most tourists who come here want to enjoy local products.

According to Vice Chairman of Bac Ha District People's Committee Tran Xuan Thao: In previous years, due to the impact of the Covid-19 epidemic, as well as tourist destinations across the country, Bac Ha tourism was severely affected.

However, immediately after the epidemic ended, the District Party Committee focused on directing agencies to focus on propaganda and promotion work, thanks to which in the past two years, especially during the Lunar New Year, the first days of the new year, tourism at Bac Ha cultural market has flourished, bustling and crowded again.

According to statistics from authorities, in the week before Tet, Bac Ha district welcomed nearly 32 thousand tourists, and in the first week after Tet, the district welcomed more than 55 thousand visitors.

Bac Ha market preserves many traditional cultural features of the Northwest people. (Photo by SON TUNG)

Unique cultural features need to be preserved

As one of the 62 poor districts in the country, with great efforts and determination, over the years, Bac Ha district has continuously promoted the movement of hunger eradication and poverty reduction; eliminating temporary and dilapidated houses and developing the economy. One of the breakthrough orientations of the district is to develop tourism and services, gradually turning Bac Ha into an attractive and unique tourist destination of Lao Cai province.

To develop tourism, the district has developed Project 05, a project to develop cultural tourism for the period 2021-2025, which identifies "gradually improving the quality of tourism products and services", "Bac Ha tourism associated with preserving and promoting traditional cultural values of ethnic groups", "developing tourism to truly become a spearhead economic sector and a breakthrough of the district".

Bac Ha market has long been known to domestic and foreign tourists as one of the unique traditional cultural features of the Northwest highlands. In recent years, with the attention of local authorities and Lao Cai tourism industry with many policies, resources, and investment policies, it has become a famous tourist destination of Lao Cai province in general and Bac Ha district in particular.

Mr. Van Chinh, a teacher from the lowlands who has been working in the Bac Ha highlands for more than 20 years, has a side job as a stone and wooden handicraft trader. With a deep understanding of the Bac Ha market, he shared: Visitors to the Bac Ha market in the first days of the new year can not only immerse themselves in the atmosphere and colors of spring in the highlands, but also immerse themselves in the festival atmosphere, admire and enjoy the rustic and simple local products of the ethnic minorities here.

In order to make tourism a spearhead economy and a breakthrough, in addition to preserving ethnic cultures, the district government has focused on investing, orienting the maintenance and development of the brand "Bac Ha Cultural Market" through specific actions such as planning, investing in infrastructure construction, promoting and building the brand of Sunday markets and night markets with unique cultural and artistic performances.

In order for the brand "Bac Ha Cultural Market" to be maintained and increasingly developed, one of the issues that the locality needs to pay attention to is the planning issue to preserve the traditional cultural features of Bac Ha market, expand traffic and parking lots to meet the needs of tourists, build trust, improve service quality to retain tourists, promote other unique local tourism brands to create a tourism chain, a value chain in the work of hunger eradication, poverty reduction, and economic development for ethnic minorities in the white plateau of Bac Ha...

Source: https://nhandan.vn/ron-rang-cho-bac-ha-ngay-xuan-post860184.html