#Vietnam - Festival to offer paragliders views of northern terrace fields

Mu Cang Chai, a rural district in Yen Bai Province with iconic rice terraces, will host a paragliding festival from September 20-22.

The annual festival, organized by VietWings Hanoi Paragliding Club since 2013, has become the largest such event in the country.

Its timing makes the festival more popular: it coincides with the rice harvest season in Mu Cang Chai, which is said to be at its most beautiful from late September to early October, when the fields are dyed yellow.

This year around 200 local and foreign competitors are expected to take part in the festival, six times the number in its inaugural year.

The paragliders will take off from Khau Pha Mountain, one of the four most dangerous passes in Vietnam due to its foggy winding roads and steep terrain.

Khau Pha rises 1,200 meters, and will provide the contestants with the best views of the golden carpet stretching over 500 hectares in the Mu Cang Chai valley.

Visitors who love adventure can join the paragliders as passengers and ride tandem over the terrace fields, voted as one of "the most colorful places" on the planet by U.S.magazine Condé Nast Traveler.

Mu Cang Chai, around seven hours by road to the northwest of Hanoi, is at the foot of the Hoang Lien Son mountain range.

The H’Mong ethnic group started carving rice terraces into the mountains centuries ago and continue to plant the crop today.

In 2017 the terraced fields were named one of the 19 most picturesque peaks on earth by U.S. travel site Insider.

Source VN Express

Mexico, France, Greece lead destinations to enjoy this fall

For young, commitment-less travelers, childless couples and empty nesters, National Geographic Travel has rounded up a list of the best fall destinations for 2017, when summer cedes to winter in a stunningly dramatic transformation of colors.

While younger families may be tethered to school calendars in the fall, that doesn’t me

an that the travel world stops spinning. Here’s a selection of travel ideas this autumn, whether it be for a weeklong getaway or a weekend escapade for the whole family:

Celebrate the Day of the Dead in Oaxaca, Mexico

Despite its macabre moniker, Day of the Dead is a colorful and festive holiday that honors the memory of fallen friends, family members and ancestors, and sends well wishes to the dead on their spiritual journey.

The tradition is inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. The city of Oaxaca offers one of the biggest and liveliest editions in Mexico, with processions, marching bands, fireworks and lots of Mezcal. The Day of the Dead takes place October 31 to November 2.

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Grape harvest in wine country, France

Wine lovers and Francophiles will want to consider delaying that long overdue holiday to France for mid-September, when the crowds have thinned, the temperatures have cooled slightly, and the grape harvest begins in Burgundy. If you’re more about drinking the grapes and not picking it, Paris throws its annual Fete des Vendanges harvest festival in October, when the Montmartre area transforms into a street festival lined with winemakers from across the country and food stalls that sell everything from fresh oysters to sizzling sausages and homemade nougat.

Olive harvest, Greece

It’s not just wine that can be described as liquid gold or divine nectar. If you’re not afraid to get your hands dirty for the chance to sample freshly pressed olive oil and snack on plump, rich olives, consider an olive harvesting trip in Crete or Kalamata (yes, that Kalamata). Visitors can help out with the harvest for a one-day or one-week part of their Hellenic holiday.

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National parks, United States and Canada

For the best display of nature’s mood-shifting ways, bookmark a weekend away to a local national park, where the trees are singing their last swan song in hues of burnt orange, red and yellow. All national parks in Canada are free until the remainder of the year, to mark the country’s 150th birthday, while the crowds have thinned at major national parks in the U.S. following the summer rush.

Source - TheJakartaPost

CHIANG MAI - Over The Hills And Far Away

Marigolds in full bloom with Saint Joseph Mae Chaem School in the background.

 Lost in time, the isolated northern valley of Mae Chaem is the perfect escape from the stresses of urban life.

The deer and bird dance celebrates the Chula Krathin ceremony in Mae Chaem.

 A long and winding road leads from the eastern side of Inthanon Mountain to the western side and the distance has kept Mae Chaem hidden for centuries. Part of Chiang Mai Province, which welcomes hundreds of thousands of tourists every year, Mae Chaem feels like a lost hinterland tucked deep in a valley beyond the high Thanon Thong Chai range.

Folks in the deep valley have Inthanon Mountain - at 2,565 metres, Thailand's highest - to thank or perhaps blame for the slow evolution of progress.

"Every morning small bands of monks, novices and children walk across the rice paddy fields to collect alms," says Pop, a travel journalist who relocated to Mae Chaem five years ago.

"The temple kids strike the gong to alert the villagers that the monks are heading to their homes, so they had better prepare their alms. You hardly see this outside Mae Chaem."

 

 Mae Chaem during the rice harvest.

It is possible to reach Mae Chaem by following the road from Hot district but this takes a lot longer than the four-hour drive over the hills and isn't nearly as pleasurable.

But whichever way you go, Mae Chaem is an ideal place to escape the city.

"When I opened a bakery here five years back, the locals were very surprised," says the travel writer turned baker.

"There had never been a bakery in the town and residents wanting a sugary treat would have to wait for deliveries, often stale, from Chiang Mai.

"The story of my moist chocolate cake has travelled way beyond my bakery to the district's most remote villages."

 A mural at the temple of Wat Pa Daed portrays the tale of the Lord Buddha and the story of Mae Chaem itself.

 We come to Mae Chaem in mid November, though we have to tell Pop that we are not here for his chocolate cake, yummy though it is.

Winter is approaching and the air is already cold. The hidden valley is taking a short break from rice harvesting to mark Chula Krathin - a ceremony that celebrates the end of the three-month Buddhist retreat. Here in Mae Chaem Buddhists traditionally offer the yellow robes to the monks to complete Vassa.

Residents of all ages gather at Wat Baan Tap on the eve of the ceremony, which is a big social event for this small valley. Earlier in the day, they will have gathered the cotton bolls from the plants and spun these into yarn. Now they are busy weaving and dyeing the yellow robe. Lanna folk singers take it in turns to entertain.

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"Chula Krathin is a small and humble rite that demands big faith in Buddhism," says grandmother Chan, her hands and feet busy behind the spinning wheel. "The yellow robe, from gathering the cotton to the weaving and dyeing - must be completed within one day."

In Mae Chaem, making a yellow robe within a day is not a problem as everyone grows up with loom and spindle. The district is noted for - and has made a fortune from - its cotton sarongs boasting a unique pattern around the hem. The pha sin tin chok of Mae Chaem are the pride of the valley.

"This pha sin is about 50 years old," says Granny Kaew, her lips firmly gripping a home-made pipe, as she shows me her cotton sarong. "It was handed down from my mother, and I will pass it to my grandchild."

Mahatama Gandhi, I conclude, was right: if everyone in the world spun an hour a day there would be no more wars.

The valley is quiet, pristine and peaceful.

Source: The Nation

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