Visiting a Plum Valley in Sơn La, Vietnam

When it comes to travel, or perhaps life in general, there are those experiences that involve planning ahead and working out the details and those that sort of just happen.

In the case of my time in Northern Vietnam last month, there was admittedly some planning in terms of how we ended up in the Vân Hồ district of the Sơn La province due to my partner arranging for us to join a local organization on a tree planting trip, but outside of transportation and the place we stayed, the rest of the adventure was mainly figured out in relatively short time.

In regard to visiting Vân Hồ plum valley (Thung lũng mận Vân Hồ), the decision was made about as quickly as it took for my partner to read the sign, and then we were off the main road and headed down another path. With only a scattered sign informing us that we were still headed in the right direction and not much else around to suggest our destination was ahead, she eventually started to debate giving-up and seeking out some other experience.

Image contains a photo of a small road surrounded by lush green fields and hills on both sides. — It could be just around this turn…

Of course, as someone who can’t usually let go of the “what if?” that comes from turning around before you reach a destination, I pushed for us to go just a little bit further after a stop at one plum farm that lacked a resident.

Twenty or so seconds later, we arrived to what looked like a slightly laid-back tourist destination with one exception:

There were no tourists.

Image contains a photo of a lush green valley filled with trees and plants with green hills in the background. Near the middle of the photo, there is a large sign with white letters that says "Thung lũng mận Vân Hồ". — Not a soul to be seen.

In fact, for at least the first while, there wasn’t anybody else to be seen outside of the two of us. After walking among the plum trees for a little bit, we decided to try and find somebody to see if we could pay to pick something or even just walk around.

After confirming that the barking dog we had heard wasn’t going to be a problem, we walked-up to the house on the property and soon got the attention of the woman inside. After a brief conversation with her, my partner informed me that we were a little under a month late for the plum season, and so the woman told us to go ahead and pick whatever we found.

And we did just that.

Image contains a photo of a bearded man wearing sunglasses and a bright green towel on his head. The man is surrounded by green leafy trees and plants. — I wasn’t quite prepared to be walking around in the sun so long.

Granted, I’m sure the valley is beautiful during the plum season, especially if it’s anything like other spots nearby, but I have to admit that I’m okay with going there if no flowers means no tourists. Of course, the fact that the Vietnam border has been closed to tourists for months now thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic probably didn’t help matters either, but I don’t think our little adventure would have been the same if the valley had been filled with amateur photographers and folks running around looking for the perfect shot for their ‘Gram.

Of course, after looking-up different things for info to add to this post, I’ve come to realize that there are plenty of other things to see and do in the region that we didn’t do just yet. So, perhaps next time we head back to the province we’ll find ourselves surrounded by other curious explorers.

For the sake of the locals and the tourism industry, I hope that’s the case, but for now I’m happy that we got to see at least a few things in the region all by ourselves.