Pac Mo Lake

From the air, the rice fields of Bắc Sơn look like embroidery. Limestone mountains stand straight up around them, and at the start of every year the plum trees turn the valley white with blossom. In all of this, Pác Mỏ Lake is a quiet spot.

The lake lies in the Bắc Sơn area of Lạng Sơn. It is about 2 kilometers from the center of Bắc Sơn town, along a road that links the communes. It is a scenic site officially recognized at the provincial level. The Lạng Sơn provincial government listed it among its ranked sites under Decision 30, issued in December 2008. A research report on the distinctive tourism products of Bắc Sơn, from the provincial Department of Science and Technology, says the lake has held provincial ranking since 2002.

The surface of the water covers 4 hectares, according to the Bắc Sơn land-use planning report. Four hectares is not a huge number. Still, in the Bắc Sơn valley it is a stretch of water wide enough to make a landscape of its own, with clear green water that reflects stilt houses showing between old trees at the foot of the mountain.

Pác Mỏ Lake is more than a place to look at. It is an irrigation lake, and it serves the farming and daily life of the local people. So the lake belongs to real life, and not only to the view. The water in the lake is feeding fields, houses and families around Bắc Sơn. That is worth knowing about the place.

In the Lạng Sơn tourism development plan, the lake is placed among the ecotourism sites. There, people can fish, picnic, rest beside the water and row a boat through the valley.

A folk story is tied to the lake area. It tells of a well called Bó Loóng and a white spirit buffalo that butted a rock wall and made the crack where the well lies. The story appears only on general travel pages, and no official source has confirmed it. It should be taken as a folk legend, one layer of the spiritual life of the local community, and not as a geological or historical explanation.

Pác Mỏ is not a grand attraction. There is no sweeping tourist map and no line of people waiting. But it has what many bigger places lack: real quiet, closeness to country life, and the particular air of Bắc Sơn, which brings visitors back once they have come.

When birdsong carries down from the cliffs, the water of Pác Mỏ Lake holds the whole sky and the mountain together in a single frame, like a giant, still picture set in the valley. It is a view that nobody wants to leave.