Thung Khe Pass and Mai Chau

The car stops near the Mai Châu flagpole on Thung Khe Pass, and the door swings open. All at once the whole valley lies below. There are rice fields, green or gold depending on the season. Stilt houses show here and there, and mountains ring the far edge. From this one spot the valley can be seen entire, before anyone goes down to the community villages below.

The pass that leads to this moment is called Thung Khe. It is also known as the Đá Trắng Pass, which means the White Rock Pass. The second name has a plain cause. When people cut into the mountain to build National Road 6, the limestone inside was laid bare and slid down, covering part of the slope in white. The name was born from that.

Thung Khe Pass runs about 22 kilometers. It has many hairpin bends, and fog in the early morning and at dusk. On one side stands a wall of rock, and on the other a drop.

Once down in the valley, the journey changes pace.

Mai Châu is not a single place to stop at. It is a valley with many villages scattered through it, each with its own character, about 140 kilometers from Hanoi. It is a mountain picture made of the lines of the ridges, the houses and the people, and the colors of the fields.

Bản Lác is the village that matters most. It has a history of more than 700 years, and it has long been home to the White Thái. The Thái are one of Vietnam's ethnic groups, and they mainly live in the northwest. Today the village belongs to Lác hamlet in Mai Hạ commune. Since the administrative reorganization of 2025, that commune is in Phú Thọ province. Many older documents still list it under Hòa Bình, because this is the former Hòa Bình area.

Entering the village, visitors soon see stilt houses lined along the village road and brocade goods laid out on the porches. Life is much slower than in the city. The weaving of brocade by the Thái of Mai Châu is very old. Scarves, cloth, clothing, bags and purses are made by hand from natural cotton thread, by spinning, dyeing and weaving. The Chiềng Châu brocade weaving and service cooperative was founded in 2013. It has added many more products, building on the traditional craft.

Beyond Lác, the valley has more villages. Two are Pom Coọng and Văn. Two more are Bước and Nà Phòn. The last two are Nhót and Hịch. All of them are community tourism villages in the core of Mai Châu.

On Sundays, Mai Châu has one more draw: a highland market, where people from the villages gather, bringing brocade, farm produce and lively laughter.

The Mai Châu valley also has caves hidden deep in the limestone mountains. Among them are Mỏ Luông Cave and Chiều Cave. Another is Piềng Kẻm Cave. There are also the archaeological sites of Láng Cave and Khấu Phục Cave, which still carry traces of people of long ago.

Mai Châu does not keep people with grand things. It keeps them with the slow rhythm of the valley, and with a bowl of cơm lam. Cơm lam is sticky rice cooked in a tube of young bamboo over a fire. It keeps them with the sound of the loom, and with the moment of looking down from Thung Khe Pass when the sky is just bright enough.