Yen Bai province's Nghia Lo town is a destination for those who wantto see the culture and daily life in Vietnam's mountainous butspectacular northwestern region.

Nghia Lo, with a population of30,000, is tucked away in a big, flat valley called Muong Lo and offers alot of experiences to tourists. It is second only to the Muong Thanhvalley of Dien Bien province in terms of size and is surrounded byunlimited chains of mountains.

Let’s make a journey to the townby coach to have the best opportunity to see the spectacular views ofthe region. Nghia Lo is just about 200km from Hanoi but after half-way,the coach winds through passes which zigzag through endless ranges ofmountains.

After passing through populous and urbanised towns inthe lowland areas, the coach goes through the mountain passes that areup to 1,000m above the sea level. Breathtaking views can be seen here,with mountain slopes and valleys far below, plus scatteredhouses-on-stilts of ethnic minorities. At another section, tea gardensand small streams come into view, an infinite green of trees, bushes andfresh air.

After nearly three hours of experiencing gorgeous views of a spellbinding nature, Nghia Lo is here in a huge valley.

Beingthe second largest town in Yen Bai, Nghia Lo sees its centre asbustling and vibrant as any other town in the Red River Delta in thenorth, if not to say more colourful. It is home to various ethnicminorities and was once the biggest trading centre of the northwesternregion.

The first place to visit is the Muong Lo Market in thecentre of the town. It was once the biggest market in the whole regionand is now the commercial hub of Yen Bai's western region.

Almosteverything is on sale, such as household goods, ready-made clothes andluxury kitchenware. The most interesting item of the market, whicheither does not exist or is rarely seen in markets in the lowlandregion, are booths where husbandry tools are piled up.

Strollingalong the paths that cross each other like on a chessboard, and muchlike a miniature version of the famous Dong Xuan Market in Hanoi, thereare hoes, hatchets and machetes, different kinds of baskets and barbedwires for making fences.

"Most of the tools and equipment usedfor farming that can be found in the local market are produced byresidents from around the region," said a booth’s owner.

"There are decent numbers of foreign tourists visiting the market, most of them Germans and French," she said.

"Themarket becomes even more colourful and vivid in the days approachingTet when people from all the ethnic groups flock to the town to exchangeand trade goods for the year's most important festival," said NguyenVan Luyen, a local resident.

While the Muong Lo Market sellsgoods for households and farming, a few hundred metres away down thestreet is another vibrant market of the same size, selling food,specialties and flowers, such as tho cam, a kind of brocade cloth, comlam which is rice cooked in tubes of bamboo or five-colour sticky rice.

Situateda few kilometres from the centre of the town is a hot spring, the waterof which is believed to cure arthritis. The spring's warm water allowspeople to apply it directly. However, the water is still being used bythe local people only and has not been tapped for its health benefitsyet.

"Many old people in the valley come here to bathe every fewdays. The water is very good for the health and skin,” a local residentsaid, adding that bathing regularly in the stream for a period of timecan cure arthritis for the whole year.

From Nghia Lo, there arenumerous interesting destinations for visitors, including Suoi Giang,about 12km away, with old tea trees which are hundreds of years old, MuCang Chai, 100km away, nationally-recognised as a vast area of terracedpaddy fields, and famous tourist site Sa Pa, which is around 200kmfurther north.-VNA