Bao Lac Market

Early on market day, people come down from the villages scattered through the valleys around Bảo Lạc. Hmong people wear shirts embroidered with red patterns. Lô Lô women wear colorful embroidered scarves on their heads. Sán Chỉ and Nùng families carry gùi baskets on their shoulders and lead buffalo or small calves by the hand. Tày families do the same. The Tày and the Nùng are two peoples of northern Vietnam with closely related languages and similar cultures. All of them walk in one direction, toward the market.

The market stands in the central market area of the town of Bảo Lạc, in Cao Bằng Province. Bảo Lạc is a border highland in the west of the province, 134 kilometers from the center of Cao Bằng city along National Route 34. The town lies on the left bank of the Gâm River, near where the Neo River flows into it. This position is more than geography. It is also the history of a region where many peoples have met and shared their cultures for a very long time.

The market is held once every five days, on the 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th and 30th of each lunar month. It is the pulse of the whole region. Every five days it flares up, then settles down again.

The Bảo Lạc market is the trading hub of all western Cao Bằng. People from the Bảo Lạc area and the villages nearby come to buy, sell and trade. Some even come from the direction of Hà Giang or Tuyên Quang. The goods are not factory goods. They are things people grew, made or gathered from the mountains: corn, rice, paddy, root vegetables, greens, bamboo shoots, honey, livestock and poultry. There are also linh chi mushrooms, hà thủ ô, sour pork cured in salt, incense and bản paper.

The food stalls are one of the liveliest parts of the market, especially in the morning. On market day there are stalls of phở and bún noodles, simple rice meals and peanut candy. Others sell bánh rán and bánh mì. Shops also sell chè, a Vietnamese sweet soup. Many stalls open only on market day and are usually sold out before noon. Cooking smoke, the smell of hot phở and people calling to one another blend together into the special excitement of a market morning.

What sets the Bảo Lạc market apart from many lowland markets is the color of the clothing. Women from all these groups come in traditional dress. Each people has its own way of embroidering patterns, choosing colors and wearing the headscarf. The whole market glows like a huge piece of brocade in motion.

Not far from the central market are the bridge and the banks of the Gâm River. On market days, people also sell farm produce right beside the railing of the bridge's walkway. So the market is not packed under one roof. It spills onto the sidewalks, the railings and the open spaces near the river.

Twice a year, the market takes on more of a festival air, on the 30th day of the third lunar month and the 15th day of the eighth lunar month. People in the area call these two markets Háng toán or Phong lưu. The gathering of the community on these two days is fuller and livelier, and it brings the music of đàn tính and khèn instruments from the far villages.

Bảo Lạc is still little known compared with the more famous places in Cao Bằng. For that reason, the market here has kept its real rhythm of life. It is not a show put on for onlookers. It is a festival day for a whole mountain region, where people meet, trade, eat a bowl of hot phở, and then walk back to their villages on the hillsides before dark. By then Bảo Lạc slowly empties of people, but the warmth of the market still lingers on the dirt roads leading home.