Khau Vai Love Market

Every year, on the 27th day of the third lunar month, people come to Khâu Vai, a commune on a plateau of stone. People say some come to meet a person they could never stay with. Behind this gathering is a love story, one remembered not for a happy ending but for its faithfulness and its regret. From that story grew a special market, and it has lasted for more than a hundred years.

Khâu Vai belongs to Tuyên Quang province. It has done so since July 1, 2025, under an administrative reorganization. Before that, it was part of Hà Giang province, in the area of Mèo Vạc. Vietnam's national tourism authority calls the market Chợ tình Phong Lưu Khâu Vai, which means the Phong Lưu Khâu Vai Love Market.

According to local newspapers, the legend tells of a man named Ba and a woman named Út. He was Nùng and she was Giáy. They loved each other deeply, but they could not be together, because their two families differed in lineage and in custom. So they parted. Before they did, they made a promise: every year, on the 27th day of the third lunar month, they would meet again at Khâu Vai, even if only once.

People say they kept that promise year after year. Then the meeting spread through the community. It became a place where others with troubled loves came as well. They did not come to break up the lives they now led. They came to talk, to remember, and to see once more the person fate had not let them stay with. This is how the tourism authority explains the market's first meaning. It was not mainly about buying and selling goods. It was a place to meet and confide.

All of this is folk legend, a very beautiful story of community culture, handed down through the generations of the highland peoples.

The most important ritual of the festival is the burning of incense at two shrines, Miếu Ông and Miếu Bà. The Hà Giang newspaper describes it as a yearly custom tied to the legend of Ba and Út. The number 27 carries its own meaning in the ritual, since it is also the day of that long-ago, aching promise. This is a layer of local belief that has lasted through many generations.

The commune holds the festival on the 27th day of the third lunar month every year. Those are the liveliest days in Khâu Vai. Singers trade love songs back and forth, and there is a ceremony to pray for love. People wear the bright costumes of the local peoples. There are folk games and a contest in pounding bánh dày, a sticky rice cake. And there are fragrant dishes made from the corn of the stone plateau.

Near the festival grounds lies the Stone Maze. The Hà Giang newspaper places it on the land of Lũng Pù and Khâu Vai, and notes its value in geology and landforms. Rows of rock and huge boulders, worn down by time over countless generations, form an unusual terrain like a maze. The highland people tie this place to the story of Ba and Út as well, as if the mountain itself were keeping a promise for them.

The Khâu Vai Love Market is not a place that encourages carelessness toward family life. It is a market of tolerance. People come to be remembered, to be forgiven, and to live once more, for a single day, a love that fate took away.

Khâu Vai is a place where feeling has been set into the landscape. The stones are silent. The path winds. A small shrine stands against the mountainside. And each year, on exactly one day, people return here to meet someone they cannot forget. On that misty plateau of stone, a promise a hundred years old has still not gone cold.