Lung Tam Village in Ha Giang | A Deep Dive into the Village’s Traditional Linen Weaving Craft
Lung Tam Village in Ha Giang is a vivid, brilliant gem that has enthralled both local and foreign visitors nestled among beautiful natural surroundings and rugged mountains. Come explore with MOTOGO Tours what makes this place so intriguing!
An Introduction to Lung Tam Village
Lung Tam Village is renowned for its traditional brocade weaving craft. About 50 miles from Ha Giang city center, this town is between calm Mien River and rich woodlands. Nestled among Northeast mountains, this region provides guests with a tranquil and breathtaking haven. Many visitors still find this place somewhat unknown despite its beauty and cultural value.
Established as a cooperative in 2001, the mostly H’Mong ethnic village was first Lung Tam is a perfect mountain hideaway because of its beautiful surroundings and strong ethnic identity of the H’Mong people. While the cultural legacy of weaving still makes the residents proud and energetic, the architecture of the town keeps a traditional design with basic clay flooring and wooden walls.
Lung Tam’s cultural fabric consists in part on weaving in addition to producing rice and other crops. This work protects the special cultural qualities of the H’Mong people, not only provides a living. Apart from designing daily wear, weaving is a great technique to preserve the cultural legacy among the residents. Seeing Lung Tam Village is absolutely essential for a real cultural experience if you are visiting Ha Giang.
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How to Get to Lung Tam Village
Lung Tam Village is reachable from deep in Ha Giang’s rough mountains thanks to lately upgraded roads. Following two main routes from Ha Giang’s city center, visitors can drive personal cars straight to the village:
- Route 1: This 56.3 km route takes about 1 hour and 51 minutes, passing through Ha Giang City Center – Nguyen Trai Street – Highway 4C – Thuan Hoa Bridge – Ma Pi Leng Pass – Thuan Hoa Market – A Boong Waterfall – Road 181 – Lung Tam Village.
- Route 2: The second option spans 73.1 km, with a travel time of about 1 hour and 57 minutes, following Ha Giang City Center – Nguyen Trai Street – Highway 4C – Coc Tieng – Bac Sum Slope – Tam Giac Mach Flower Valley – Quan Ba Heaven Gate – Quan Ba Twin Mountains – Can Ty – Lung Tam Valley – Road 181 – Lung Tam Village.
With little time difference, both paths are rather straightforward to follow; Route 2 provides several well-known check-in stations and coffee shops along the way for rest stops. Regardless of the path taken, visitors can savor a picturesque voyage.
Depending on their requirement and time limits, visitors have choices for travel. Renting a 7-16 seat car could be preferred by families or groups including youngsters. Renting a motorbike in Ha Giang is highly advised, nevertheless, for a flexible timetable and the ability to visit stops along the road.
What Makes Lung Tam Village a Fascinating Destination?
“Only by wearing linen can we find our ancestors,” a local proverb goes, handed down over decades. Made from flax fibers for millennia, traditional brocade fabrics have significant cultural roots and this statement emphasizes that.
Every young woman in H’mong custom receives a plot of land to raise flax upon reaching adulthood. The flax is picked and spun into threads following about two months of meticulous growing. These threads are turned into beautiful objects including clothes, bags, shawls, and more under the talented hands of the highland women.
1. How Are These Intricate Textile Products Created?
Lung Tam is well known for creating the beautiful H’Mong patterned fabrics. Visitors can see here the amazing change from new flax plants to vivid, bright fabrics. Every stage of the procedure is completed utilizing conventional techniques maintained throughout the past century.
Lung Tam weaves mostly from the bark of the flax plant. Usually farmed in level fields at the base of mountains for simple access, the plants lose their leaves during harvest, leaving just the stalks remaining. The stalks are next chopped into smaller strands after soaking in water. Ready for steaming or boiling, the flax fibers are spun onto a frame until they soften. Every weaver follows the customs of the H’Mong.
The next phase is critical and calls for careful attention: weaving the fabric. Designed themselves to help their work, the H’Mong use a backstrap loom. Whereas the strap is worn around the weaver’s waist, the top section of the loom is firmly attached to a wall or pillar in the dwelling. Strong and strikingly beautiful linen fabrics are created by carefully assembling fibers and the weaving technique, therefore enthralling visitors.
The textiles are then cleaned to get perfect white color. To get any last bits of filth, the craftspeople would even scrape fiercely. The Lung Tam people start dying the cloth once they have cleaned it. To get brilliant hues, they select natural sources include indigo leaves, guava leaves, tree bark, or roots from several forest species. The finished goods are smooth, shiny, naturally colored materials.
Rare elsewhere, the Lung Tam artists have a special indigo dying method. Every piece of linen has to soak in the indigo solution for roughly one hour then sun-dried over several days. This technique is performed several times until the fabric turns a vivid, glossy indigo. Usually, dying a fabric to guarantee it keeps a deep, rich color takes two months.
Adding beautiful designs comes last in producing these textiles. Common subjects are squares, circles, triangles, penguins, and complex patterns. Local artists either draw on the immaculate white cotton after washing with beeswalk or embroider these designs straight-forwardly. They have also created a wax painting method to give the cloth more vibrancy and striking appearance.
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2. Products Crafted in Lung Tam Village
Particularly at the Ha Giang weekly market hosted in the area, visitors in Lung Tam can readily locate booths exhibiting exquisite and distinctive textile products. These goods are usually sold for reasonable rates between 20,000 and 100,000 VND apiece.
Travelers can choose from a range of linen goods as thoughtful presents including wallets, scarves, purses, and caps. Every object is handcrafted and features amazing, complex needlework. The main component of these goods is linen, which is quite durable and so ideal for friends and loved ones.
3. Achievements of Lung Tam Village
Lung Tam’s linen textiles show a great range of things including clothes, bags, and wallets; they are more often exported than sold locally. Apart from direct sales in the hamlet, these products find use in hotels, restaurants, and bars. From the earliest phase, the hand-weaving method honors the rich cultural legacy of the ethnic communities inhabiting this rocky upland.
Lung Tam’s textile items are not only well-liked in Vietnam but also exported to more than 20 countries around, including the USA, Japan, and Switzerland. Western viewers have come to respect these goods because of their unusual materials and vivid colors. Linen guarantees consumers’ comfort as well because of its health advantages and ecological nature. This offers Lung Tam’s crafts a great chance to flourish and protect their beauty for next generations.
The linen weaving craft in Lung Tam has provided significant wealth to the community thanks to the growth of cooperatives and other promotional initiatives for goods and tourists. Every resident here has typically earned between 1.2 and 1.8 million VND extra every month. This not only raises the standard of living but also makes the financial situation better for households, therefore enabling many of them to transcend poverty.
4. Festival Celebrating the Unique Linen Weaving Craft
Quan Ba District planned the “First Traditional Linen Weaving Festival” in Lung Tam on November 13–14, 2015 in order to respect the cultural value of weaving. Making a venue for cultural interaction and presenting regional textile items to both home and foreign guests was the main objectives. Part of the Buckwheat Flower Festival run by Quan Ba’s area is the celebration.
Attracting many visitors, the Lung Tam Festival offers a ritual offering to the deity of weaving, a weaving competition among Lung Tam women, and a taste of Ha Giang dishes among other events. Here everyone will also be able to enjoy mouthwatering and appealing Ha Giang cuisine.
The Cultural Significance of Linen Weaving
Apart from a manufactured item from Lung Tam village, linen is very important for the spiritual beliefs of the residents. Considered historically as a link between the worlds of the living and the dead, linen fibers direct the withdrawn souls back to their ancestors and their rebirth into human form. The people think these ghosts will be dressed in customary linen clothing and will see their ancestors in the next world.
Mothers in Lung Tam have long passed down the skill of handcrafted linen to their daughters from early years. For highland females, the linen made here is sometimes a yardstick for morality. They are said to have achieved adulthood only after they have produced whole sets of traditional clothing.
In Lung Tam tradition, linen is also very significant for wedding ceremonies. Considered the most valuable dowry in the gray stone area, females get a set of linen clothes from their moms before marriage. They show respect and authenticity by presenting their mothers-in-law with a handcrafted pair of linen clothes after getting married.
Nearby Tourist Attractions to Lung Tam Village
Ha Giang Loop now often has numerous well-known check-in sites close to Lung Tam village. Most of them are along National Highway 4C, hence you won’t have to travel far.
Heaven’s Gate in Quan Ba
One must-see site near Lung Tam village is Quan Ba Heaven’s Gate. At 1,500 meters above sea level, it is covered in mist all year long and resembles to residents a wonderful junction between heaven and earth. Maybe this explains why the name “Heaven’s Gate” has been chosen and is still used nowadays.
You will have to cross a sequence of stone steps to completely enjoy the amazing natural surroundings of the Quan Ba mountains and forests. From here, guests will find the famous Twin Mountain in the distance and terraced rice fields.
Twin Mountain in Quan Ba
Make sure you visit Quan Ba Twin Mountain on your route to see the textile arts community. It is particularly close to Tam Son town, the southwest entry point to the rocky plateau. Following the first advised path will lead you merely a 200-meter walk past the VNPT Vinaphone transaction station to expose two mountains almost exactly like two conical hats.
Dolomite rock forms this natural creation. The outer structure of the mountain has been changed over time by the weathering process and rock movement down the mountain, hence progressively flattening the top and slope into their unique conical forms.
Thach Son Than
If you visit Ha Giang in late months of the year, you will probably find many fields of early buckwheat blossoms. Usually blooming in October, these blooms have the most amazing capacity to vary in color over time.
Thach Son Than offers an amazing perspective on buckwheat blossoms close to Lung Tam village. From above, buckwheat fields entwine visitors endlessly toward the horizon. On cold days or early in the morning, the mist creates a magical environment that gives one the impression of a “paradise on earth.”
Lung Tam village in Ha Giang is the most well-known village for textile weaving among the Northeast mountains. Though many still find it very unknown, this community has great beauty from its ethnic legacy. Come explore and dig into every element of this hot tourist attraction from A to Z with MOTOGO Tours!
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