Thac Ba Lake

A river runs on. Then one day a dam is built straight across it, and the water begins to climb. Low ground goes under. Hilltops turn into islands. When the water has risen high enough and spread wide enough, a new lake is born, stretching 80 kilometers and holding more than 1,300 islands, large and small.

This is how Thác Bà Lake came to be.

The lake lies on the Chảy River. The Thác Bà hydropower dam blocks the river and holds the water back. On October 5, 1971, the first generator started up and joined the national power grid. It was a milestone for the energy industry of Vietnam, and it was also the moment a new landscape was drawn onto the map.

The lake is recorded as covering 23,400 hectares, with nearly 19,000 hectares of open water. It spreads across two areas, Yên Bình and Lục Yên. Both belonged to the old Yên Bái Province. Since the administrative reorganization, the whole area belongs to the new Lào Cai Province.

In 1996, the Ministry of Culture recognized the lake as a national historic site and scenic landscape. In 2021, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism changed the official name to the Thác Bà Lake Historic Site and Scenic Landscape. The site includes both the lake and Thác Bà Temple.

From the water, the green islands crowd together, limestone cliffs stand sheer, and the surface lies flat and clear. Quite a few people compare the view to Ha Long Bay. But Thác Bà has a story of its own. It is a man-made lake that came out of a hydropower project. It is surrounded by the Dao and Tày peoples. The Cao Lan live here too, and the ways of life and customs of all three are long established. And it lies among a network of limestone caves inside the mountain ranges.

On a boat, the scenery keeps changing. Open water gives way to a thick cluster of green islands, and then to a cave mouth half opening behind a rock face. One of the best-known caves is Thủy Tiên Cave, which reaches about 100 meters into the limestone mountain and glitters with stalactites. People in the area say it belongs to a legend of nine fairies who once came down to bathe in the lake and cool off. It is a folk story that has been passed along in the region for generations.

Thác Bà Temple is part of the national site. People have worshipped there for a long time, between the lake and the mountains.

The scenery of water and mountains is precious, and so is the daily life of the communities along the shore.

Thác Bà Lake is the result of an energy project, yet time has turned it into a region of ecology and culture all its own. It is a story that nature and people wrote together, though at the start nobody meant to write anything of the kind.