Published:  22:54 Wednesday - February 29, 2012

Boat cruise on the immense lake surface reflected by mountains and clouds shadow makes the tourists want to stay here more and more. <br><br>

Ba Be Lake lies in Nam Mau, Ba Be district, Bac Kan province, 220km far from Ha Noi. The local people call Ba Be as Slam Pé (means three lakes). This name comes from the fact that the lake is where the three tributaries flow into, which are: Pé Lầm, Pé Lù and Pé Lèng. The Ba Be lake is 8km long, 3km wide and 145m high above the sea level. It is surrounded by ancient limestone mountains aged more than 450 million years. Nearby the Lake is Ao Tien (Fairy Pool), Po Gia Mai (Ba Gua Island), Puong Cavern, Dau Dang tower…

Cruises on Ba Be Lake

Situated among a vast limestone mountains area, Ba Be Lake possesses wide and poetic beauty with cool and pleasant air. The weather in Ba Be lake devides into two seasons: rainy season and dry season, average temperature is about 25 degree C. In the early morning, when the dew has not melt, the Lake looks mysteriously beautiful. To be strange, this same scenery looks like a charming water picture when the sun shines brightly into the immense lake surface. In this picture, clouds and sky are reflected clearly into the water, making the most fastidious tourists go into ecstasy. More romantic landscape is Tày girls in indigo color suits hidden on their small dug-out boats among the immense airspace.

If the tourists visiting the Lake in majority can rent power canoes, if less or they like adventurous feeling, they can rent dug-out boats, leisurely contemplate the scenery and listen to the tales of the Lake through the boating guides.

The tale may start by the story of the lake with a pretty legendary name: Ao Tien (Fairy Pond) protruding on the limestone mountain, 100m far from Ba Be lake and full-water all year round in the Pé Lam tributary. Another tale may be about the formation of Ba Be which was carved on stone stele dating to the 9^th Khai Dinh (1925) on Po Gia Mai island (Ba Goa mound at Pé Lèng lake).

In addition to the spacious feeling among an immense airspace, the tourists may experience the twilight feeling in Puong Cave, which is 300m long and more than 30m high. Water erosion over the millions of years created the numerous shapes of natural stones possessing the shimmering, mysterious and poetic beauty.

Leaving Puong Cavern for Hua Tang mountain village, where there is Nang River blocked by hundreds of large stones, splitting into many small branches, fast flowing into majestic Dau Dang tower. This tower is more than 1000m long with three stone steps, each of which is 3 or 4m apart from the others, creating wild and romantic character for Ba Be Lake.

Ba Be Lake attracts the tourists not only by its halfway mountain location with a complex system of ponds, caves and towers but also by 417 species of plants and 299 those of vertebrates inside it. The Lake bottom has more than 49 species of freshwater fish, including some rare species.

Beside contemplating the natural landscape at Ba Be Lake, the tourists also study the daily life of ethnic Tay, Mong, Dao living in 15 villages in the National Garden. In particular, Tay ethnic people live here for the longest time (more than 2000 years) and as the largest ethnic group (58%).

The people at this place are very hospitable. With your few words, you will be invited to their houses to drink spicy corn wine and eat pork at every kitchen smoking shelf. Or you will enjoy yourselves to the folk songs and traditional festivals like Long Tong festival, Spring festival, dug-out boat racing, ethnic martial art, archery, crossbow…