Flower Blooming Season in Moc Chau

On a late Friday afternoon, Le Hong Quang, a communication officer working for television channel VTV9 completed his work in Hanoi and prepared for a “back-packing” trip to Moc Chau Plateau with his friends.

Leaving Hanoi and riding on their motorbikes for about four hours, they felt the cool night air on the plateau. Staying overnight there, they made plans for the following morning, to take photographs of the white mustard flowers in Muong Sang and Ba Phach hamlets.

Quang said that thanks to the development and convenience of social networks, he and his friends could find the most beautiful spots for sight-seeing and photographing the flower fields. They also found other useful information about accommodations and places to eat, as well as the traditional customs of the local people they would meet on the way.

Normally, in winter, the sun rises over Moc Chau plateau a bit later than in other seasons of the year. From 9am to 10am, tourists can catch the view of the vast valleys full of flowers shining in the morning sunshine. Yellow wild sunflowers, deep red Trang nguyen (poinsettia) flowers, white plum flowers – all are seen together with the romantic and magnificent view of the mountains and forests that will fascinate tourists, making them feel as if they were lost in some fairyland.

Mong girls pose for photos on the white colza field in Moc Chau Farm Town. Photo: Dang Tien/VNP

Mong ethnic people in Pa Khen Hamlet, Moc Chau Farm Town grow white colza under the canopy of plum trees, forming a white carpet of flowers.

Wild sunflowers in blossom in a small hamlet along the National Highway 6 in Van Ho district.

Yellow wild sunflowers near a garden of plum trees in blossom in Moc Chau Plateau.

Wild flowers attract bees to come to sip nectar.

A large number of tourists flock to Moc Chau Plateau to look at the flower blossoms at weekends. Photo: Trong Chinh/VNP

Along National Highway 6 from Loong Luong Commune in Van Ho District to Moc Chau Farm Town in Moc Chau District, visitors will see carpets of daisies and white colza flowers blooming by the road sides. Walking on small lanes, they will see rows of white mustard flowers stretching up to the hill tops. Such a wonderful landscape in the northwestern region will urge visitors to take lots of photos.

Rows of colza plants are grown by the local residents from October to December for their food, while other wild flowers such as daisies, Trang nguyen and wild sunflowers, are blooming at year’s end, hence the plateau of Moc Chau is overwhelmed by blooming colourful flowers mostly in the second half of the year.

Along the roads leading to Tan Lap and Ba Phach tea-growing hills, to Van Ho and Loong Luong communes, or paths winding around Moc Chau Farm Town, there are several beautiful sight-seeing spots to enjoy the blooming, yellow, wild sunflowers, which signals the coming winter over the plateau. The best time to take pictures of those flowers is in the morning when the sun begins to dissipate the fog and the flowers are still fresh with dew.

Besides wild sunflowers, Trang nguyen flowers help highlight the beauty of Moc Chau Plateau with their red color. They run down the hill sides, through the green tea fields to the hamlets’ lanes that all make up incredibly romantic flower walls.

Trang nguyen flowers grow wild on the hills and around the houses in the communes. The local people can only trim their branches to make up red flowery roads that mesmerise all the viewers. The beautiful flowers attract many visitors to come and take pictures of them, and the highlight of colors on the green plateau.

Trang nguyen (poinsettia) flowers on the two sides of Highway No.6 in Loong Luong Commune, Van Ho District. Photo: Trong Chinh/VNP The flower season in Moc Chau is also the breeding season of wild butterflies.

Trang nguyen flowers are often grown around the houses of Thai ethnic families in Phieng Luong, Moc Chau.

The bright colours of Trang nguyen flowers and wild sunflowers light up the plateau.

White plum flowers on the hills in Chieng Ly hamlet (Van Ho Commune, Van Ho District).

A plum tree in blossom near the house of a Mong ethnic family in Pa Khen Hamlet, Moc Chau Farm Town. Photo: Thong Thien/VNP

Valleys of white plum flowers in Moc Chau Farm Town. Photo: Nguyen Thang/VNP

Pollen is one of the products that bee raisers collect in Moc Chau during the flower blossoming season.

Bee raisers take their beehives to Moc Chau Farm Town during the flower blooming season. Photo: Cong Dat/VNP

However, Moc Chau Plateau is most beautiful in the spring when white plum flowers are blooming, especially from early December to February. Amid the vast blue sky over the cool, windy plateau, gardens of plum trees show their pure white flowers that cover the small hamlets, on the mountain sides and in the valleys. Such wonderful images are inviting for any visitor.

During this time, Moc Chau Plateau is an ideal place for bee raisers from the Central Highlands to bring their beehives to the northwest for the bees to suck the flowers’ nectar. Bee raisers are said to be nomadic people, as during the year they have to travel to different localities to find plants and flowers, of which Moc Chau Plateau is a perfect destination. Tourists, like Quang and his friends, said they would buy some local special gifts, including honey and pollen, from the plateau for their relatives in Hanoi./.

By Vietnam Pictorial’s Golden Moment Photography Club

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