Pa Khoang Lake

The water spreads over 600 hectares and holds green forest and white cloud on its surface. Standing at the shore, many people think first that this must be something nature made.

In fact, people made it.

Pá Khoang Lake is an artificial lake, formed in 1974. Young volunteers finished the road and the irrigation works that created it in less than 200 days, to mark 20 years since the victory at Điện Biên Phủ. Điện Biên Phủ was the 1954 battle in which Việt Minh forces defeated the French. A work built to remember a victory produced one of the most beautiful sights in the Northwest.

That does not make the lake any less lovely. It adds another kind of depth. This wide water is the legacy of a generation of young people who carried on by building.

In the Thái language, Pá Khoang means "bamboo forest." The name comes from the landscape as it was before the lake. Under the 37.2 million cubic meters of water lay a bamboo forest that once belonged to the local Thái ancestors. The Thái here call the lake by a name that reminds them of the land that gave way to the water.

The lake lies about 900 meters above sea level, and the temperature around it stays pleasantly mild all year. A forest of 1,320 hectares surrounds the water. It is natural forest, still largely intact, and it gives the air its cool freshness. About 50 Thái villages lie along the shore. Each one is its own community, with its own stilt houses and its own tradition of weaving brocade.

People often call this lake "the Ha Long Bay of the Northwest," because the small islands and peninsulas rising from the water look like the landforms of Ha Long. That is a name made for tourism, not a scientific comparison. Even so, the feeling of rowing between small islands is real and not exaggerated. Green forest covers them from root to crown, and cloud drifts over the peaks far away.

There is one big difference from Ha Long. Here it is quiet. There is no loud roar of tour boat engines, and there are not hundreds of boats following one another. Paddling a kayak or a wooden boat on Pá Khoang, you hear the sound of your own oars.

About 8 kilometers from the lake is the campaign headquarters at Mường Phăng. General Võ Nguyên Giáp directed that campaign from there for 56 days and nights, in a hut of 18 square meters built from forest wood. The two places complete each other well. A morning in the forest of history, an afternoon on the quiet shore. History and nature, in one day.

In the Thái villages by the lake, a visitor sees women sitting and weaving brocade, with intricate geometric patterns in bright colors. The technique passes from one generation to the next. No book records it. There are only a grandmother's hands teaching a granddaughter, and a mother teaching her child. Each pattern has its own meaning in Thái culture, but not every meaning is explained to outsiders.

By the lake there is cơm lam. It is sticky rice cooked in a tube of young bamboo over a fire. There is grilled stream fish and smoked meat. There is rượu cần, a drink shared from one common jar through bamboo tubes, which shows the unity of the Thái. A guest who is invited into a village and offered rượu cần receives an honor, not a show.

The Prime Minister approved Pá Khoang Lake as a National Tourist Area in 2015, within a master plan that also covers the historic sites of Điện Biên Phủ.

Early in the morning, when the surface is still and cloud lies low over the water, is the loveliest moment. Standing on the shore at seven o'clock and watching the lake reflect the green forest takes no good camera, only eyes and a few minutes of silence.