Bac Ha....ppy. Party Time Before the Start

Chris/Raid Gauloises / 28.04.2002

It’s not only the Raid Gauloises that’s non-stop this year. From the moment the convoy of teams and organisation arrived in Bac Ha yesterday evening, the party atmosphere, responsible for the largest and most colourful peacetime gathering ever seen in the spectacular mountains of North Vietnam, never looked like coming to a close.

Bac Ha (altitude 930m), 315kms Northwest of Hanoi nestling between the verdant, plum tree covered peaks of the Lao Cai district, resonates to the rhythms of a cultural kaleidoscope as colourful as it is diverse. Every weekend entire families of mountain dwelling ethnic-minorities descend upon this otherwise quiet town and bring with them an orgy of colour and gold spangled smiles. This time though, the technicolour horde has come for more than just provisions and to sell their wares. The Raid Gauloises is in town and the local administration has decided to celebrate the fact with the biggest bash ever seen in the district.

The highlight of the weekend’s festivities was the welcome ceremony, held in the local open-air amphitheatre, attended not only by every member of every team and the organisation heads but also graced by the presence of the Minister of Tourism and the secretary of the local communist party. However, the real stars of the show were the local villagers coming down from the surrounding mountains, the Black and White Thai, the Hmong Dao, all thronging to the celebration in their thousands.

Once the speeches finished and the customary accolades taken, the real celebrations commenced with waves of brightly dressed dancers flooding onto the stage as flowers and good luck charms were distributed to the teams by girls in traditional dress. For a full 30 minutes, all eyes were fixed on the intricate patterns woven by the local dancers, musicians and singers as they recounted the history of their region to the awe struck crowd.

Unable to retain themselves, the hitherto restrained raiders left their seats to join the dancers, linking hands in a series of concentric circles around a ritual drummer. Soon after the crowd began to disperse but not before tasting the local brew, a rice wine for which the region is renowned, specially offered to the ceremony by the local tribes. While the teams return to the camp and prepare for the start, even in their absence this unusual reversal of roles, that has turned “celebrities� into spectators, continues as members of the organisation are solicited, by the locals, to have their pictures taken together.

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