The Towering Terraces of Mu Cang Chai

(What would you do for a view?) You’ve seen photos of Mu Cang Chai before, because lazy tour companies use photos of Mu Cang Chai’s towering rice terraces to advertise treks in Sapa. Mu Cang Chai is many miles from anywhere you will find yourself in Vietnam, and no matter how you get there it’s going to be a miserable journey that takes all day. In my case I took a local bus because I didn’t want to spend 2.5 million VND on a private car and I also didn’t want to drive endless hours on a bike. I got food poisoning the night before the bus but recovered after 10 hours of sleep under a mosquito net. In the morning I found a little semi-auto that I took up to the Bamboo Forest. It’s a really, really steep road and it’s easy to crash. You can walk wherever you want in the forest, but eventually it gets thick enough that you can’t go any further. It’s like you’re trapped by those magic moving trees in The Odyssey. Then I drove up Raspberry Hill. When I was here two years ago it was me, and the dogs, cows, and chickens looking at the view. This time I found some farmers carrying 50kg loads of corn. I also, sadly, found that the top of the most beautiful terrace has been transformed into an influencer base camp. Entrepreneurial guys with drones will take sweeping video shots of you in a rented H’mong outfit while you ignore the real H’mong villagers offering you bottles of water or bracelets for sale. That kind of thing makes me angry and I let it ruin my day. I found a lost puppy who seemed to like me, but he ran away before I could figure out what to do with him. For extra credit, I went to find the waterfall in the village at the top of the hill. No photo shoots happening there. I'm in Vietnam researching for Lonely Planet. My Substack: https://substack.com/@longcaptions/posts #vietnam #mucangchai #lonelyplanet