Like many others, I don’t understand why the forest area of Phja Oac – Phja Den has such a strange attraction for me! These days, when the whole country joyfully enters 2020 – a year of struggling to overcome the Covid-19 pandemic and set up shining miracles in terms of economy, politics, diplomacy… it makes your heart flutter. rafting five continents and four seas to jubilantly enter 2021, my heart urges me to go back to Highway 34 to Phja Oac – Phja Den, a wild, magnificent forest, surrounded by clouds and sky.
Clouds spread over the top of Phja Oac, Nguyen Binh district, Cao Bang province.
After more than 40 minutes of winding and rolling, the car crossed the pass to take us over Ky Canh, then the top of Phja Oac pass appeared in the fog, floating clouds. Mountains, clouds, clouds, and layers of passion are intertwined like the eternal love of heaven and earth.
The higher you go, the more beautiful the mountains, the more fanciful the clouds, you seem to be playing in the fairyland! For many years of blending with the love of the land and people of Phja Den, breathing with the breath of thousands of Phja Oacs with the dream of turning this potential land into a rich area with Oolong tea as the mainstay, from It developed into an eco-tourism area, attracting visitors from all over the world, so the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Kolia Co., Ltd. Hoang Manh Ngoc knows each forest, ravine here.
At a small junction, there is a turn on the right, he said that from here, it takes about 5 km to bend to the top of Phja Oac. And the high pointy mountain in front of us is Den Mountain, which we are used to calling Phja Den. Just follow the foot of this mountain and go to Ban Chang, Ban Dong, Thanh Cong commune. Turn right down the pine forest to the ancient temple “Vong Tien Cung”, then from there to Binh Duong, Tai Soong, and then to Cao Lu, Tinh Tuc… Director Ngoc’s introduction, the two young journalists sitting next to him suddenly shouted:
– Oh, how beautiful is the new pine forest, uncle!
It is truly enchanting, when three sides and four sides are an ancient pine forest of nearly 100 hectares, every tree is straight and straight. Walking on the carpet of soft, thick leaves, clean to pure, our hearts suddenly light up, relaxed as if forgetting all daily worries. When looking up, how ecstatic, under the canopy of green, endless pine leaves, there are many yellow flowers, thinking that they are stars in the galaxy on beautiful summer nights.
And even more wonderful, when climbing up a high hill, looking at a distant valley, piece by piece, each patch of pink mist keeps rolling up, rolling up and spreading on the immense green leaf carpet, then from From flying to the top of Phja Oac, the mist is like fairy clothes flying with the clouds, following the wind to the blue sky! When I asked, I found out that it was the pollen of pine flowers, when the sun came up, the wind came back, it just fluttered like that! For the first time in my life, seeing such a magical “pine cloud”, I was really drawn to this wild and magnificent forest.
When those “pine clouds” burst into the sky, it was also the time when we boarded the car back to the top of Phja Oac. Because it has been a few weeks, the sky has always been murky and numb, many nights the snow has covered the branches and leaves of this forest, so when the sun warms up, it feels like trees and people’s hearts are intertwined. came back and suddenly saw that the car was faster, cornering softer, so soon we were standing at the foot of the TV tower on the top of Phja Oac, nearly 2,000 meters high above sea level.
From here, let your eyes drop to Pac Man fields with sugar cane waves; The fields of Ban Chang and Ban Dong are bright yellow after the harvest and watch the Quang Thanh river meander as if holding hands to heaven and earth, enjoying a colorful and multi-colored countryside. Looming in the mist are the clusters of neighbors of the Dao, Nung, and Tay people lying on the side of the mountain, giving the feeling of entering a vast, deep sense of love in the mountainous region.
According to the legend of “Luong Slao Cai newspaper”, when heaven and earth were still close together, people lived in harmony with nature, but then a great flood suddenly occurred, both humans, animals and trees were buried deep under the water. seven layers of soil, only one species of yellow tree survives. But later on, this plant also died down, and was buried deep in the earth from generation to generation. One day the “giant” went to the forest to see a strange tree sprouting from a deep hole, emitting a special fragrance.
Feeling strange, he “giant” dug a piece to boil water for a bath, and suddenly found that the person was refreshing and unusually healthy. And since throwing that log in the corner of the house, all of the flies and other mosquitoes have disappeared. It is a rare type of Ngoc Am wood that is listed in the Red Book of the world that the people here are still used to call “may wac”. Because this special plant is only found in this mountainous area, the mountain was named Phja Wác from there. Then day after month, generation after generation, especially since the French colonialists came here to mine for tin ore, coolies in the lowlands pronounced the word Wac into Oac, and then for a long time the name of Mount Phja Oac ca That’s how it goes into history.
I don’t know if it’s due to fate or fate, nearly 40 years ago, at the invitation of a stranger and acquaintance, I accidentally went to the village of Tong Slinh of the Nung people in Phan Thanh commune. Here I was “cricket Khoay” (Uncle Khoay) boasting about the richness and diversity of the resources of Phja Oac region. “Cricket” said:
– I don’t know! Phja Oac is a treasure of Nguyen Binh. For thousands of generations, in March and eight seasons, the people of Dao, Nung, and Tay people of the hamlets and villages in the communes: Quang Thanh, Thanh Cong, Hung Dao, and Phan Thanh are close to rice and corn. When the land is dry, every family sharpens a very sharp knife, a very sharp spade to go to the forest to pick bamboo shoots, dig up roots, earn more shiitake mushrooms, wood ear, dong leaves, rattan ropes, and rattan ropes for sale. Some people even trap pheasants, wild chickens…
Because this is an old forest, many places have not been set by humans, so there were many wild birds and animals at that time. Many people also encountered tigers, bears, boars… But since the border war in February 1979 broke out, gunfire and explosions caused chaos in an entire border area, gradually thinning out beautiful birds and animals. precious. Then, many streams and rivers also originate from the Phja Oac mountain, the most typical ones are Nguyen Binh and Quang Thanh rivers, which carry water from generation to generation to the Hien and Bang rivers.
Immediately after that, alluvium was deposited for the fields: Pac Man, Lung Muoi, Na Ma, Ban Um… more and more fertile, and the houses were full. On the western side is the Nang River, which flows towards Pac Nam and then flows into Ba Be Lake. Wherever there are rivers and streams passing through, nature gives people privileges, it is a flat field for bountiful golden seasons. It is a source of shrimp, fish, snails and frogs to make life more fresh and full.
The most significant is the abundant source of hydroelectricity, but for a long time there have been Ta Sa Hydropower Plants, Tai Ho Sin Hydropower Plants, and Song Hien Hydropower Plants under construction, which will increase the power source for the province. Then tin, tungsten, titanium, and gold ores also poured from the bed of Phja Oac mountain into rivers and streams so that in the 90s of the last century many people changed their lives from digging for gold. Isn’t all that a privilege of the Phja Oac mountain region bestowed on that person!
Seeing the great potential of the Phja Oac forest region, in October 2016, the Northeast Forest Investigation and Planning Sub-Institute conducted a survey and investigation to preserve and protect the Phja Oac – Phja nature reserve. In the best way. The survey results show that the total forest area of Phja Oac – Phja Den National Park is 10,593.5 ha, of which 768.3 ha is mainly pine plantation.
It can be said that the forest area of Phja Oac – Phja Den is the “green lung” of Cao Bang, regulating the climate, absorbing carbon and regulating water sources, cool in summer, pleasant in winter. Sometimes in extreme cold years, the top of Phja Oac is covered with a layer of snow, increasing the attraction for adventurous and adventurous tourists.
However, from the late 19th century and early 20th century, the French mine owners built many resorts here, most notably the Ky Canh house and the Red house. These two buildings and a number of other facilities still have vestiges of walls and mossy brick floors, reminiscent of a wild and magnificent ancient land that is worth preserving and promoting in the future. In the not too distant future, this place will become an eco-tourism area.
According to the survey team’s data, the whole region now has 58 species of rare animals, 302 species of birds, 1,287 species of plants, becoming national treasures that need to be prioritized for protection. From provincial road 121 up to the TV tower about 2 km, you will encounter a vast forest with only a tree 3 – 4 m high on the cliffs, cliffs, the whole body, the whole branch is surrounded by a layer. The moss is green, rough, adding to the wild and attractive features of the forest that people here are used to calling dwarf forest or moss forest.
As a person who was born crying at the door of the forest, grew up with forest trees and rocks, until I followed the army “cutting along Truong Son to save the country”, I also attached myself to the Truong Son forests, to the great thousands of the West. Originally, but never met a strange and endemic forest like this moss forest. Is it because of the four seasons of dew and howling wind, so the tree trunk is rugged, the leaves are both thick and small.
When we reached the TV tower, we were informed by the young workers that there were mists so thick that the water and the sky became one, if we didn’t hear the call of our loved ones, we would have thought we were floating. lost in the clouds. Occasionally a gentle breeze blows, the afternoon dew hovers on the top of the mountain like a loose shawl on the shoulders of a beautiful young woman of the mountains. It is those moments of love that erased the cold, empty wilderness here and thought that my life was still sublimated, romantic with forest trees, rocks, but standing on this top of the sky for radio and television waves to come. with every street and alley.
Is it the great beauty of the clouds and the sky along with the favor of nature for the climate and wonderful soil in this mountainous region that captivated the director Hoang Manh Ngoc and received technical support and assistance? by engineer Hoang Thai, so he decided to put tea plants into mass planting in the Phja Den area. After nearly 10 years of persistently mobilizing and supporting seeds, capital and guiding people around the area on tea planting and care, now the company’s tea area has reached nearly 50 hectares.
Because it is grown at an altitude of 1,500 meters, the tea buds are both eye-catching and have a special delicious taste, which is considered by customers in the province as well as many other provinces to be fragrant, more fragrant than tea in many other places, and then brought to offer. In the market, Taiwanese customers are especially satisfied and expressed their determination to support more techniques in planting, care, processing and take care of all products at a price many times higher than the market price in the market. water.
Along with that, a tea processing factory with an advanced line of Taiwanese tea technology since it was put into operation, Hoang Manh Ngoc’s tea farm has become a bright spot in tea production and processing in Vietnam. Cao Bang and the whole Northeast region, creating a major turning point in crop restructuring for Nguyen Binh district. Thanks to that, the number of rich households in Phja Den area is increasing day by day, the new rural face of Nguyen Binh is increasingly prosperous.
Along with the development of Phja Den tea farm, in recent years, due to compassion for the desolation of the ancient temple “Vong Tien Cung” worshiping the goddess who has had many merits in taking care of and protecting the people in the region from In the past, director Ngoc asked permission from the competent authorities to restore the temple. Thanks to that, for nearly a decade now, every month on the first and fifteenth day of every month, tourists from near and far come here to burn incense and offer flowers to thank the goddess, really opening a new page on spiritual tourism.
Thanks to that, Phja Den market day is more bustling with colorful lines of people drifting in the mist, in the sun, it seems that all the quintessence of the mountains and forests have flocked here to buy and sell, to pay attention. The love exchange and when the market ended, everyone walked out to the tune of the Hmong Khen with the melodious Pao Dung song and the earnest harp.
All of these things make Phja Oac – Phja wonderful to the sky, to the heart, so that anyone who comes here once will stir nostalgia!
The column follows the Project of supporting information and propaganda on ethnicity – religion in 2021