Winter 17/18 from Đồng Văn to Yên Minh

We had a good nights sleep in the nice beds of the Cao Nguyen Guesthouse in Yen Minh.
We continued the trip after Mitsos had his breakfast. Today we drive to the Northernmost Point of Vietnam: Lung Cu. Or the North Pole as the locals call it. It was quite a warm day so no North Pole feeling on the bike. And even less climbing the up to the tower. But lets get there first.

Vietnamese Mountains — Cool mountains in the morning

Mountains and Rice Fields — With lots of rice fields between them

Rice Fields — Time to prepare the fields

Frontier Area — Along the Chinese Border

Mountain with Farm Houses — Dotted with Farm Houses

Mountain Roads — So many roads to everywhere

Fields in the mountain — Fighting with nature to get a few more square meters of land

Mountain with Village — Some Forrest left – but not that much

Mountain in North Vietnam — The trees do change up here quite a bit compared to the low land

Mountains in North Vietnam — Imagine that hills with blue sky!

Farming in Vietnam — Lots of farming going on all the way up from the valley to the top

Ma Le Anicent Village

River in the valley — A small river makes its way in the valley. Farming took over the forrest.

Ma Le is located in the Dong Van district in the Ha Giang province. It is down there somewhere. 97 households of mainly Giay people. They settled here about 200 years ago. In the good old times, they used to build two-story houses out of wood. But since there is less and less wood left they fell back to build earth houses like the Mong nearby.
If you pass Ma Le you should stop and take a look at what is left. A few of the 200 year old wood houses and a few of the up to 100 year old earth houses!

Forrest on the top of the mountains — Only all the way up you still see some trees

Lung Cu Flagpole — In the Ly Thuong Kiet Dynasty the first tower was errected here. The French rebuild it in 1887. Later the pole was renovated a few times.

Washing Day — Washing day at the village down in the valley

Power station construction site — Great view on the other site. Why do we need a power station right here?

Vietnamese Flag — At last a picture with the flag and blue sky!

Some farm houses — Back towards the West

The Vương Family Castle

The palace is located in a valley that was carefully selected according to feng shui. The terrain here emerged as a turtle shell, which represents long life and wealth.

It was the home of Vuong Chinh Duc and his son Vuong Chi Sinh.

The whole palace is surrounded by a 2 meter high and 80 centimeters thick stone wall. The stone walls inside are between 50 and 60 centimeters thick. The palace is divided into several different areas such as a dining room, bedroom or kitchen. Storerooms for marijuana or food. There are rooms for his wives and room with the prayer altar. There is also an are for the executions of criminals

Vương Family Castle Entrance — Entrance to the compound

You reach the main gate trough a lines of ancient Sa Moc trees. The palace were built with 4 horizontal and 6 vertical rows, 2 stories and 64 rooms.
At the back of the building are two horizontal rows on the two sides, linked together by doors. To protect his mansion, Vuong Chinh Duc also built stone walls with holes and post for his men to guard day and night.

Vương Family Castle Gate — Gate into the inner courtyards

Vuong Chinh Duc became rich from trading different good, especially opium. Sa Phin is the middle of the old Golden Triangle region of Myanmar, Yunnan, and Indochina. Duc also set up his own army unit of loyal Hmong people and equipped them with weapons.

Soon enough the Opium trade made him a very rich man and he could get more man for his army. It took only a few yeaar to control the whole Dong Van area. This made it easy to deal with his “internal rivals” and his “external enemies”; the Qing Dynasty of China, the French, the Japanese.

After the French – Hmong Peace Treaty (1913), the political and financial power of Vuong Family had been culminated. Vuong Chinh Duc started to build the Castle. (1919 -1928)

Vương Family Castle Central Part — Entrance to the middle courtyard

The castle is a combination of traditional Chinese and Hmong architecture. The material is from Yunnan and local Vietnamese.
There are underground rooms to keep opium, weapons, and food. A semicircular swimming bath is chiseled from a giant block of stone. The King usually had his bath with goat milk.

Vương Family Castle Last Courtyard — The center part

The back part of the Vương Family Castle — The back of the compound

Decorative Opium fruit — Guess how they made money?

Most construction workers were skillful Hmong craftsmen from China. The wooden parts were sophisticatedly engraved which represented his wealth and prosperity.

Winding Road — Winding road into the valley

Mountains — Blue Sky – where are you :-(

Valley from above — The road goes further down

Coca Cola Bottle — Quite a different bottle!

Yên Minh

In the evening it started to rain a bit. It was already dark when we arrived at Yên Minh. The city is quite small so it was no problem to find our hotel in Yên Minh. The Cao Nguyen Guesthouse, Yen Minh is in the middle of the city. I recommend this hotel if you want to stay downtown Yên Minh! It was super clean and the staff was friendly.