Ta Van Rattan Bridge

A foot on the first plank, and the bridge cord can be heard trembling softly. Below, the Mường Hoa stream runs over stones with a soft murmur. In the early morning the mist hangs so low it seems close enough to touch, and it spreads right across the planks. This is the first moment at Cầu Mây.

Cầu Mây is a small place with a great deal to look at. It lies on the walking route from Lao Chải to Tả Van. That is the most popular trekking path in the Mường Hoa valley.

The bridge crosses the Mường Hoa stream in Tả Van commune. The commune is part of Sa Pa, in Lào Cai province. This is land of the Giáy people, with stilt houses along the stream bank and rice terraces stacked in tiers up the hillside.

The name Cầu Mây belongs to a craft of its own. In the old days, to cross the stream, the villagers wove a bridge from rattan vines gathered in the forest. The deck was laid with small planks of pơmu wood, set a little apart from one another. The two ends of the load-bearing cords were tied firmly to big trees on either bank. Every household in the village gave cord according to its share of the fields. A household with many fields gave a lot, and one with few gave a little. The bridge belonged to the whole village.

People say the name came from that very weaving, and from the mornings when mist and cloud lay over the planks. That is a popular way of telling it, not an official conclusion of linguists.

One detail carried Cầu Mây far from the valley. In 2006, the American photographer Skip Nall came to Sa Pa and photographed the bridge in the early mist. The Swedish furniture company IKEA then sold that photograph in its stores around the world. A small bridge in a Giáy village became known to many people far away.

But the bridge of today is not the old rattan bridge as it was. Two bridges now stand side by side here. One, of iron and wood, was built sturdy for the people of Tả Van to cross every day, because the old rattan bridge was no longer safe enough for the growing numbers of people and vehicles. Beside it, a rattan-style bridge is kept and maintained every year for visitors.

So the bridge that visitors cross now is an improved one, not the original from many generations ago. The name has stayed, but the bridge itself is much newer.

From the middle of the bridge, the Giáy stilt houses of Tả Van stand on both sides. The terraces climb higher along the mountain slope, and farther off the Hoàng Liên range sits in cloud. Tả Van is a real living place, not a stage set up for visitors. People farm, weave and embroider, welcome homestay guests, and go about their days like any countryside village.

Cầu Mây is small, but its name still keeps the memory of the rattan weaving that once joined a whole community across the stream. Mid-bridge, with the cord trembling softly, the Mường Hoa flowing below and the early mist resting on one's shoulders, a visitor can almost touch the mornings that wove the name.