Paradise on earth between the mountains and forests of the Northwest - Dinosaur Back Spine, Ta Xua

Hello, my friends!!
How are today? Is everything okay at work?
Hope all the best and smoothest things will come to all of you this new week.
Today, I will introduce to you a very attractive place in the Northwest mountains of Vietnam that every backpacker like us wants to come here, conquer once in a lifetime because this place is called paradise. Cloud road of the Northwest region, that is Ta Xua.

Ta Xua is a highland commune of Bac Yen district, Son La province. This place is known as the cloud paradise because if you want to see the most beautiful clouds in Vietnam, you must come to this place. If you are lucky, you will catch the sea of clouds right in front of your eyes when standing on the top of the mountain, everything is as beautiful as the paradise that we often call it. The mountain that we set foot on is called Dinosaur Back Spine, because along the mountainside, there is a small dirt road, looking down from above is like walking on the back of a dinosaur. Therefore, the mountain is nicknamed “Dinosaur Back Spine".

Ta Xua is an area bordering Tram Tau district, Yen Bai province, and Bac Yen district, Son La province, located at an altitude of nearly 2,000m from sea level, cool year-round climate, along with fresh air. Small mountains are surrounded by layers of majestic hills, covered by clouds all year round. I had the opportunity to conquer this place on my first trip to the Northwest of Vietnam in 2018, along with 3 other companions during this trip. We started from Hanoi city and chose the route along Highway CT08 to Hoa Binh city, then to Moc Chau town, in Moc Chau district, Son La province. And the last distance is from Moc Chau to Ta Xua commune, Bac Yen district, with a distance of more than 320km.

We visited the famous Moc Chau town with many beautiful scenes, along the way we encountered fruitless peach trees. This is a specialty fruit of the Northwest region, grown a lot in Son La province, and especially in its flowering season, you will be amazed by the beauty of thousands of white peach flowers blooming all the way that you pass by. Peach blossoms bloom around the beginning of January, so if you have the opportunity, come here on this occasion to admire the wonderful beauty of this tree in Son La. Since we arrived here at the end of April, the peaches are starting to ripen. This fruit when ripe is orange to red, its taste is very sweet and fragrant. We visited people's houses to ask to buy these peaches, but because of the small number of ripe fruits, we were given these delicious ripe fruits by the kind host.

Coming to Moc Chau, we passed the S-shaped road, which is a famous road in Moc Chau. This road is so named because it curves exactly like the letter S, creating a unique highlight for this town. Next to it, there is a flower garden of white cabbage grown by people with a heart shape in the middle of the flower garden which looks extremely beautiful and attracts the eyes, you can stop here to take pictures. On the first road, we stopped to rest in Moc Chau town. Because we started in Hanoi quite late in the morning, we only had time to get to Moc Chau to this route. Moc Chau town is located on the main road, so this is a bustling and quite developed town. This place is also a place where young people who love to explore often come here. Moc Chau is famous for its specialties of plum blossoms, peach blossoms every early spring, and crispy persimmon orchards. If you come here in the right flower blooming season, or ripe fruit season, you will enjoy the best of this land. Young people often experience going deep into the village. Moc Chau has up to 12 ethnic groups living here, but mainly here are Thai, H'Mong, and Kinh. Besides, there are other ethnic groups such as Dao, Kho Mu, Tay, Lao... living but accounting for a small percentage. Because of the diversity of ethnic groups living here, the villages and cultures are also different for each ethnic group, creating diversity and uniqueness in the identity of the ethnic brothers of this land of Moc Chau.

We rested in Moc Chau town, and the next morning prepared to continue this journey. From Moc Chau town, you go about 72km, there will be a big fork, called Coi Noi Fork. The place names here are named after the language of the people, so it has a very unique and special characteristic. From the Coi Noi fork, we have to go a distance of about 70km to reach Ta Xua with the Dinosaur Back Spine. This part of the road is difficult and takes a lot of time because from the junction, we start going up the long and zigzag slopes. Because below is the foot of the mountain, and Ta Xua is the top of that mountain.

Before coming to Ta Xua commune, we stopped to rest in the center of the Bac Yen district. After that, proceed to this highland commune. Previously, this mountain was called Chong Tra associated with the name Chong Tra village, but with this extremely special terrain, the name Dinosaur Back Spine is given to this mountain by tourists and it has become a "one-of-a-kind" place, whenever we mention the Dinosaur Back Spine, backpackers like us will know that it is the mountain range of this Ta Xua. Because the road is difficult and zigzag, we are not familiar with the mountain pass terrain of this place, so it took us more than 4 PM to get here.

Here if you want to hunt clouds, you have to be very lucky, and come here early in the morning, or in the afternoon, when the clouds start to swoop down, you will feel like you are lost in a fairyland when surrounded by white clouds floating around. But we weren't very lucky, and by the time we got there it was already getting dark, so we didn't get to see the sea of clouds with our own eyes like everyone else, but just mist or small clouds covering the mountainside. That's what we try to capture with pictures.
Although we weren't lucky enough to catch the shimmering sea of clouds, for us these were the best moments of this trip.

Dinosaur Back Spine is a small dirt road along the top of this mountain range, looking down from afar is like you are walking on the spine of a real Dinosaur. The two sides are cliffs, covered with green primeval forest. The two drivers rode motorbikes on this small dirt road, and I… walked because I was afraid of the feeling of sitting on the bike and looking down two cliffs. We have come to the end of this path of the spine. In front of our eyes are the mountains with the same message, the green color of the mountains and forests, far on the opposite side of the mountain range are terraced fields. Going all the way on the top of this mountain is the slope that descends to the village of this place, which is Hang Dong commune. And people move in and out of the commune by this dangerous dirt road. You must be a very steady rider to be able to control your motorbike in the safest way. On the way down to this village, there is a homestay built in the style of the ethnic stilt house, it is very unique and beautiful, if you have a lot of time, please stay in this village and explore it, I'm sure it is a in nature exploration, the best experience you can get while staying here. Nature is always a mystery worth exploring.

We were able to take a photo of all 4 people with the tripod that we brought, in order to save all the wonderful things of the conquest of the Dinosaur Back Spine and the Northwest of Vietnam this time. Although we did not meet the sea of clouds, we hope that the next time, when we have more time, everything will be luckier than this time, and I also want to explore the villages of my compatriots with more ethnic minorities live here.

Thank you for following my post today.
Wishing you all a very productive week! 💜