Ham Rong Mountain not only does the most attractive place to have a panorama of Sapa but also is widely renowned as the royal garden with wide range of flowers blooming all year round.
Ham Rong Mountain is currently the most well-known tourist destination in Sapa due to the favorable center situation. Situated right adjacent to Sa Pa stone church, those who have ever reached here spend at least a half of day to fully discover the beautiful place. As a part of Hoang Lien Son Range, Ham Rong is one of a few mountains in Vietnam possessing obvious figurative factor on account of looking like a flying dragon among white clouds.
Many kinds of flowers are imported from Japan or France.
It is not a proud boast if comparing Ham Rong as “a small Sa Pa” because visitors can totally feel the top-drawer beauty of nature, culture, and people in this high land even in each step of local residents from Ham Rong gate up to the mountain. Both first-time visitors to set foot on this land and ex-visitors will be specially astonished by the abundant of blooming flowers here.
Along roadsides you can directly enjoy uncountable flower species of temperate region with variety of colors such as: azaleas, “trang phao”, roses…etc. Particularly, azaleas flowers take account for a large quantity looked upon as the colorful picture consisting of red, purple, pink, yellow, then white. Going ahead, travelers will be quickly drawn in orchid gardens located halfway up the mountain.
There are 6,000 baskets with hundreds kinds of orchids having different names as follow: slipper orchids, sword orchids, royal orchids, including rarest orchids. Therefore, visiting Ham Rong in any period in year you are surely entertained the “party” colors of blooming orchids.
Europe flower garden situates in the main area of Ham Rong Mountain possessing plenty of beautiful and unique flowers of cold countries such as amethyst, Japanese cherry … Perhaps the predominant flower is hydrangeas growing on interstitial stones or planted in gardens with largest flowers is up to 30 cm of diameter.
Had you ever traveled to Da Lat and felt in love with hydrangeas flowers, you would have clearly seen that flowers in Ham Rong have its own beauty. Not too flashy like these of Da Lat, just gentle pink, blue or white, it does grow in clusters and blooms in many days on rocky grounds. As the result, people hare by and large said that “wherever hydrangeas flowers bloom, there has vitality”.
Dropping by Ham Rong in spring, travelers are given an opportunity to enjoy the fairy beauty of old-aged peach gardens where the blossoming mossed peach trees light up pinkly a vast of pristine mountain. Looming nearby is the pure white of the apricot trees, plum flowers glistening in early morning mist are highlighted on the grey rocks.
Do tourists not only spend time on enjoying the beauty of flowers but also have a panorama of Sapa in such the most suitable view. At Ham Rong Mountain, there are three places to view Sapa, namely Orchid Garden 1, Telecom station of Sapa and Sam May on the peak. From different altitudes, visitors have different angles of “the city upon fog”.
“San May” (literally called Cloud Yard) is the best fit place to see Sapa
Among all, San May is the best one because it is at an altitude of 1,800 meters in which visitors are able to feel the connection between heaven and earth, and conveniently feel the clouds.
by Nguyen Ngoc Luyen