This place is blessed with charming landscape of green trees, blue water, and the bending lozenge shape around the valley. Water level in the lake changes every day, rise or drop.

“Thang Hen” in the local language means “lake retention”. Its stream is from Thang Hen cave above. Water from the mouth of cave flows into the lake, so in the rainy season, while the other lakes’ water become red in color, Thang Hen lake is still blue.

According to the legend, there was a smart guy in Tra Linh. He was so handsome that made many girls sobbing. He passed the examination and became mandarin. He was rewarded 7 days to come back hometown. Being so happy with the new marriage, he failed to depart for the capital city on time. Only in the seventh night did he remember to come back. Saying goodbye to the young wife and her parents, he hurriedly ran back to the imperial city. Passing 36 valleys, through rocky mountains in the midnight, he was so tired that he dropped down and unexpectedly smashed into the mountain and died.

The 36 lakes of different sizes that we see today are all beautiful. It is believed that the place where the young men died is now the location of Thang Hen Lake. The place is attracting lots of travelers since provincial authorities have focused much on development of this site.

Visitors to Thang Hen lake can float on the lake by boat so that you can explore great beauty of nature.

Nowadays, Thang Hen lake has motels and are concerned by province. They invest and build Thang Hen to become eco-tourism area for domestic and foreign tourists. In 2002, Thang Hen lake was recognized as eco-tourism zone in Cao Bang province by the Ministry of Culture and Information.

Nguyen Hao