Safe, colourful Mu Cang Chai

Mu Cang Chai’s paragliding festival has been a key attraction for tourists across the country, Photo: Lu Giang

Visitors to Mu Cang Chai will certainly be surprised by the stunning beauty of the magnificent, terraced fields that are often mentioned in popular tourist rankings.

Before the pandemic caused the tourism industry to temporarily freeze, the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020 were considered the most impressive periods of Mu Cang Chai’s tourism as the number of tourists visiting more than doubled compared to previous years. The name Mu Cang Chai even began to appear on prestigious international travel sites such as Big Seven Travel, CNBC, and CN Traveler.

Nong Viet Yen - Secretary Mu Cang Chai Party Committee Mu Cang Chai is to become a safe and friendly destination. The district is coordinating with the province to adjust the planning of Mu Cang Chai town, creating a foundation to attract investors and develop its tourism, trade, and services. To attract investment, in addition to the province’s policies, the district will facilitate administrative procedures and support investors through all stages of a project. These projects must comply with the planning and must be environmentally friendly, preserve the natural landscape, and local cultural identity. The district has also directed theatre businesses to draw up detailed plans to welcome visitors while ensuring maximum safety. As such, only guests who have been vaccinated, and can show medical reports can attend performances. The district aims to build Mu Cang Chai into an eco-luxury tourist district by 2025.

With its majestic, natural advantages and amazing, terraced hillsides across the mountain ranges, Mu Cang Chai possesses many plus points to develop a year-round tourism sector. The two best times to discover the beauty of this land are spring, when the thick pink flowers cover the hillsides, and autumn, when the terraced fields put on a bright yellow shirt of ripe rice.

Whenonearth, an American travel website, did not exaggerate when giving many compliments to Mu Cang Chai, calling it the “golden heart” of the northwest and an endless source of inspiration for tourists and photographers. The images of golden, terraced fields iridescent in the afternoon, and the colour of water in the rice fields working like a mirror reflecting the sky, have become easily recognisable images of Mu Cang Chai.

In addition to its natural scenery, Mu Cang Chai is also promoting various new tourism products and local specialities to attract tourists. Sightseeing trekking tours and activities with locals such as planting rice, ploughing, cooking, and participating in local cultural festivals were becoming popular and loved by many foreign tourists before the pandemic.

The paragliding festival was first held in 2013 and has since become a high-class, popular adventure tourism product of Mu Cang Chai, attracting many tourists from countries around the world.

This year, hoping to cope with the pandemic as soon as possible, Mu Cang Chai has initiated another high-end service – exploring Mu Cang Chai from a helicopter.

“In the long term, the locality will add more flower species, tree varieties, and tourism models to create more beautiful landscapes all year round to attract tourists. The helicopter can then fly regularly during the year to show tourists the beauty of our land,” said Nong Viet Yen, Secretary of Mu Cang Chai Party Committee.

These efforts show the transformation of Mu Cang Chai’s tourism and have been placing this destination among the most attractive in the country during the past few years.