Quan Ba Heaven Gate

From the heights, the whole Quản Bạ valley lies below. There are small villages, rice fields and green cornfields, and houses tucked into the mist. In the middle stand two round peaks, each shaped like an upturned bowl. Nothing around them looks like them. They rise from the valley floor with a strange calm, and anyone who sees them remembers them for a long time.

These are Núi Đôi Cô Tiên, also called Núi Đôi Quản Bạ. In the Hmong language, the people of the valley know them as Núm Riến or Pu Già Kéo. The peaks stand in Nà Khoang village, in Quản Bạ commune. That is in Tuyên Quang province. According to the website of Quản Bạ commune, each peak covers nearly 3.6 hectares and measures nearly a kilometer around. Their average height is about 1,000 meters above sea level.

They are made of dolomite rock. The peaks formed in the Quaternary period, about 1.6 to 2 million years ago, through tectonic movement and weathering. The same explanation shows why the peaks have soft, rounded shapes, so different from the sharp limestone seen across the rest of the stone plateau.

Old stories are tied to the two peaks, handed down by the people of the valley. One tells of a fairy who turned herself into mountains in the Tam Sơn valley. Another tells of the fairy Hoa Đào, who left her two breasts behind to feed her child before she was taken back to heaven. These are folk legends, and they are part of the spiritual life of the people here.

The most popular place to see the peaks is the Heaven Gate information station on National Highway 4C. From there the view down the valley is wide. It takes in the peaks, the former town of Tam Sơn and the villages around it. Many visitors take the best-known photograph of Quản Bạ from this spot: two round peaks in a green valley, against gray rock mountains behind. In just the first eight months of 2025, the area received nearly 99,000 visits.

Quản Bạ is the gateway to the Đồng Văn Karst Plateau UNESCO Global Geopark. A UNESCO Global Geopark is an area with landscapes of international geological importance, managed for protection, education and sustainable development. UNESCO describes this geopark as lying in the far northern mountains of Vietnam. Limestone covers about 60 percent of the area, its geological history runs back more than 550 million years, and 17 ethnic groups live there. The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism ranked the Quản Bạ twin peaks a national scenic site under Decision 4196, issued on November 16, 2009.

The road to Quản Bạ has its own story. Hà Giang provincial Party records say that work on the Hạnh Phúc Road, part of National Highway 4C, began on September 10, 1959. The first stretch ran 60 kilometers, from Hà Giang city to Tráng Kìm. It passed through Quản Bạ and crossed the Bắc Sum slope, Heaven Gate and many dangerous cliffs. The road officially opened on March 15, 1965, built with young volunteers and people of the many ethnic groups. Before it, the stone plateau was almost cut off from the plains. So the pass road is more than a way to travel. It carries the story of the people who sweated to open it.

Quản Bạ is beautiful in two ways. On a clear day the valley stands sharp and distinct. When light cloud and mist cover it, the twin peaks rise out of a white veil, as if the legend of the fairy were really there.