Pa Khen and Na Ka Valley

In May, the old plum trees of the Nà Ka valley hang heavy. Their trunks are rough and their branches stout, and thick clusters of ripe, purple-black mận hậu plums weigh the boughs down. In season, this is one of the loveliest farm landscapes on the Mộc Châu plateau.

The valley lies in the Pa Khen residential area. Today this is the Cờ Đỏ ward of the former Mộc Châu farm town. The plum trees blossom around January and February, when the whole valley turns white under a sky that is still cold. The fruit ripens from late April to June, turning dark purple and sweet.

The mận hậu did not originally grow on the Mộc Châu plateau. It was brought here and planted from the 1980s. After more than 40 years, it has become the main crop and a part of the farming identity of Mộc Châu. In 2019, the plum-picking festival of Mộc Châu was held right here in the Nà Ka valley. It took place in the hamlet of Pa Khen 1.

The local authorities have also approved a plan to mark out, protect and develop 90 hectares of the Nà Ka plum valley. It shows that people here want to keep this landscape, and not let careless building swallow the farmland that gives the place its character.

But Pa Khen is not only plums. A large Hmong community lives in this residential area, more than 70 percent of its people. Some households still keep the traditional incense-making craft of the Hmong. The Sơn La newspaper names the ingredients: powder of nghiến wood, pine and clove. It also names the powdered bark of the nhớt tree and the bark of the dổi tree. It is a craft tied to belief, passed down from one generation to the next.

To watch incense being made here is a rare chance. It is part of living belief, not a show put on for visitors, and that makes it all the more precious.

From late April, at the height of the harvest, the whole area comes alive. VOV once described this bustle in the valleys of Nà Ka and Mu Náu. It described the same scenes in Pa Phách and Pa Khen. Many garden owners open their gates and let visitors walk to the foot of the trees. Visitors pick the dark purple clusters with their own hands and bite into a plum that still has the cool sweetness of the mountains and forest.

Pa Khen is a residential area with farmland, orchards and people who truly live there. Its rhythm follows the rhythm of the village, not that of a staged attraction.

Perhaps that is what makes Pa Khen beautiful in its own way. In spring, plum blossom turns the cold sky white. At the start of summer, the dark fruit hangs heavy on the branches. And on the wind drifts the scent of incense that the Hmong have kept alive for generations.