Ba Be Lake

Ba Bể Lake lies among steep limestone mountains in Thái Nguyên province, inside Ba Bể National Park.

The park's tourism page describes the lake as about 650 hectares, more than 8 kilometers long, and 20 to 25 meters deep on average. It has three connected arms. In the Tày language the first two are called Pé Lầm and Pé Lù. The third is Pé Lèng. The Tày are one of the peoples of northern Vietnam. In Vietnamese, ba means three. That is the meaning of the name Ba Bể: three lakes, three arms joined in one space.

Yet the size is not what sets the lake apart. What sets it apart is the way it exists at all.

The Bắc Kạn province web portal reports geologists' view that the limestone around the lake is about 450 million years old. Beneath the lake lies a layer of clay about 200 meters thick. It holds the water in and keeps it from draining into the karst caves below. This is why a lake can exist among limestone mountains that would normally let all the water seep away. A clay floor, laid down over millions of years, made the water you see on the surface today.

Ba Bể is also listed among the wetlands of the world. It is Ramsar site number 1,938, designated on February 2, 2011. The name Ramsar sounds unfamiliar, but the idea is clear. Ramsar is the international convention for protecting the world's important wetlands. Ramsar recognized Ba Bể as a natural lake in a mountain karst ecosystem, and as an important part of the protected wetland system. Vietnam's Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Agency records more than 200 species of birds and 106 species of fish here.

In 2004, Ba Bể National Park became an ASEAN Heritage Park. On September 27, 2012, a decision of the Prime Minister ranked the lake a Special National Monument. The lake also stands on the tentative list for UNESCO World Heritage, which means a nomination is still being pursued.

From a boat, the view on both sides is of sheer limestone cliffs, forest that covers the shore in green, and now and then the roofs of stilt houses in the villages around the lake. The village of Pác Ngòi is the most striking. It is a Tày village that keeps its traditional stilt houses and local cooking. It also keeps Then singing, a ritual practice in the spiritual life of the Tày. The đàn Tính, a stringed instrument, is played there as well. At Pác Ngòi, the landscape turns into daily life, and the two live side by side along the shore without crowding each other out.

On the water, a boat can stop at Ao Tiên and Puông Cave. It can also stop at Đầu Đẳng Waterfall and An Mạ Temple. Ao Tiên is a still pool in dense forest, which the people of the area regard as sacred.

Puông Cave lies in the Lũng Nham range on the northern side of the park. The Năng River runs through it for almost 300 meters, under a ceiling more than 20 meters high. It is a through cave, so boats enter it by following the river. Inside there are stalactites and stone columns. The cave is also home to 23 species of bats, tens of thousands of animals in all.

Đầu Đẳng Waterfall drops on the Năng River, about 3 kilometers west of the lake. Its height is about 53 meters, in three steps.

People leave Ba Bể remembering more than a pretty surface: the hush of the lake among limestone mountains, a Tày village in the early morning, the boat sliding into a cave, and the sound of bats beneath the stone vault.