Festival in honour of VN’s widest waterfall

Wide cascade: The first Ban Gioc Waterfall Tourism Festival will be held this weekend at the Ban Gioc Waterfall Tourism Complex in Dam Thuy Commune, Trung Khanh District in Cao Bang Province. - Photo caobang.gov.vn

The festival, the first of its kind in the region, aims to promote the image of the province and its people to domestic and international tourists.

According to Pham Van Cao, secretary of the Trung Khanh District’s Party Committee, the festival will become a significant event to promote regional tourism. “Here in Trung Khanh we are creating and promoting high quality tourist products to become one of the province’s key economic ventures,” Cao said.

Ban Gioc Waterfall is one of Viet Nam’s most impressive natural sights. Thirty metres high and 300 metres across, it is the widest, but not the highest, in the country. The falls occur on the beautiful jade-blue water of the Quay Son River as it flows through a pastoral landscape of rice fields and bamboo groves, surrounded by limestone mountains.

The festival will begin on Saturday with a Buddhist prayer ritual for peace and prosperity of the nation at the Phat Tich Ban Gioc Truc Lam Pagoda. The ceremony will be conducted by monks of the Buddhist Sangha of Viet Nam.

This will be followed by an agenda full of activities near the falls. This will showcase the rich culture of the region, especially of the prominent Tay ethnic group.

The activities will include traditional art performances, an ethnic costume fashion show, folk games and sports competitions. A cooking contest of local specialties will also be held.

Of note will be a performance of a style of singing known as then, a unique art of the ethnic Tay, Nung, and Thai minorities in Viet Nam’s northwestern region. This has been recognised as national intangible cultural heritage.

The agenda will also include a cultural exchange programme between Trung Khanh Commune and two Chinese border communes. The event aims to strengthen the mutual understanding and friendship between people of the two countries’ border communes.