A part of the former Muong Lay Town, which will soon be underwater.

Emerging out of the metaphorical ashes of Muong Lay Town as it goes under several metres of water when the Son La hydro power plant begins operations in 2012, a new town prepares to radiate rejuvenating energy.

Lai Chau Town is in a hurry to rendezvous with its future.

Perhaps this is not surprising because it is positioned to become a prominent locality in the nation’s historic and captivating northwestern mountainous region.

The pace at which a high bridge is being built to replace the famous Hang Tom Bridge that stands as the border of Lai Chau and Dien Bien Phu province, not to mention a new stretch of the National Highway No 6, resettlement areas, schools, hospitals and offices, makes one realise that the next visit to this place will present a totally different picture of this place.

Tam Duong Town has already grown remarkably to become a big city. Over 300 ha of land have been set aside to become new administration and residential areas. A huge square, like Ba Dinh in Ha Noi, will be the heart of the new city. Master development plans for the city have been drawn up with help from foreign advisers. Construction is happening everywhere.

Ethnic minorities took part in the festival in new Lai Chau Town.

At a height of 1,000m above sea level, the land is a good place to live. The Pu Xam Cap mountain range embraces the land. To the northeast, mountains in Hoang Lien Son range are sentinels protecting the town.

In the past, the land was called “San Thang” or the third pond. A legend says one giant moved from north to south. Anywhere he arrived, everything grew and developed. But due to the soft texture of the land, the giant could walk only four steps, and each of them became a pond, the third of which was Tam Duong.

The legend explains the existence of a large fertile valley of 45,000 ha that is home to 17 ethnic minorities including the Mong, Dao, Thai, Giay and Lu.

The land is famous for rice from Phong Tho district grown by the local Thai residents, and its tea. Tuyet San, a very famous tea variety grown on the Hoang Lien Son is yet another testament to the area’s fertility.

Fading past

Former Thai King Deo Van Long’s palace is now in ruins.

All of Muong Lay Town looks like a huge construction site with big cranes, fleets of trucks and tonnes of dust everywhere.

We stayed at Lan Anh, the only hotel in the town still operating. At sunset, the devastated scenery of the town was even more mournful. There were a few groups of foreign tourists and local passengers in the hotel. The most popular hotel would no longer hustle and bustle with the comings and goings of guests as it once did.

From the hotel, we drove through the Hoc Village Bridge which links the town with the National Road 4D. From the bed of the Muong Lay stream, land and stone were removed to heighten the Nam Can resettlement area, which will soon be the new home for a part of local residents.

On the left side of road, the former Lai Chau Culture House still stood but it had been left deserted for nearly 20 years after being destroyed by floods in 1990. No one would recognise that this place had seen glorious times, a colourfully lit place that was the favoured meeting spot of many young people who gathered there every night.

For a long time, the desolate building was considered the symbol of Muong Lay’s destiny, which had been “forgotten” when the metropolis of Lai Chau province was moved to Dien Bien Phu city in 1992 and new Lai Chau (formerly Tam Duong) town was set up in 2004.

Muong Lay seems like a ghost town now. There are a few people on the roads but nobody in the street market that once teemed with goods, merchants and buyers. Nguyen Thi Tham, who has lived in the street for almost 40 years, asked us what and who were we looking for.

“There is nothing here and everybody has already moved. My family is one of the last moving at the end of this month,” Tham said, sighing deeply. She is worried about her new home and how to earn a living in the future.

“But it’s better than waiting. We would like to resettle as soon as possible and start a new life,” she added.

Erstwhile residents of Muong Lay will move to some resettlement areas in the town, Dien Bien Phu City or the new Lai Chau Town. Tham’s family will move to Lai Chau.

“There is no place that can compare with the land where we have spent most of our lives,” she said emphatically.

At the Chi Luong village of the White Thai ethnic minority people, only 26 families have moved, the rest are still waiting for land.

Lo Thi Van says she will miss that her family’s old garden, where her neighbours gathered to eat fruit and chat every afternoon. She is afraid that when she moves to the resettlement area, she won’t be living alongside her close neighbours, and that there will be no more warm and joyful afternoons.

Van also wonders whether her three-generation stilt house will withstand the strong winds, standing on bare land without trees. Her family had to dig the house out after it was buried by two terrible storms in 1990 and 1996.

A century in the making

The historic Hang Tom Bridge. In a few years boats will sail 20m above the highest point of the bridge as a mammoth reservoir created by the Son La Dam floods the area.

A long time ago, Thai chieftains who submitted to Vietnamese feudal court governed the land. Lai Chau province was officially set up in 1909 by the Governor General of Indo-China, Klobukowski and Muong Lay was chosen as its metropolis.

In 1971, Muong Lay once again became centre of the province, which was the largest in the north with an area of 16.919 sq.km.

In its heyday, Muong Lay Town was a beehive of activity. Along its streets various commodities were displayed with colourful boards and hoardings. Every afternoon, local white Thai couples drove motorbikes to the banks of the Da river to enjoy the breeze, dressed in their fashionable best. Coffee and karaoke shops were popular haunts.

The town was also known as “Da Lat of the North.” Covered by mountains, with four river running around, Muong Lay enjoyed four seasons every day.

Former Thai king Deo Van Long’s palace was also located here, and it stood witness to the distressing period under French colonialism.

The Hang Tom (Shrimp Cave) bridge, once famous as the biggest rope cement bridge in the northern region, was a popular destination.

Therefore, there was plenty of attractions in one northwestern out-of-the-way town that drew in many local and foreign tourists.

However, lying at the confluence of the Nam Na and Da rivers, Muong Lay faced the threat of flooding during every storm season. The town was virtually run over by the storms that killed over a 100 people in 1990 and nearly 90 in 1996.

In the near future, the reservoir created by damming the Da river will sink everything under thousands of cubic metres of water; and people will row boats at a height of 20m over the Hang Tom bridge.

Bu t the demise of one town is breathing new life into another.

How to get there

Muong Lay town looks like a big construction zone.

The second is to take National Highway No 4D from Dien Bien Phu city and go up for around 100km.

The last is by National Highway No 32 through Than Uyen District in Lao Cai province.

The shortest route from Ha Noi to Muong Lay is over 500km over mountainous roads but thanks to recent investments in highways, the distance can be covered in 10 – 12 hours.

You can reach Muong Lay by car or motorbike. Buses leave My Dinh station every day and the fare is VND280,000.

VNN/VNS