Mountains and clouds of northern Vietnam

Northern Vietnam is a country of mountains. Beyond the Red River delta, the land rises into limestone ranges and steep valleys that stretch to the Chinese border, and the weather there changes fast: mist in the morning, hard sun at noon, clouds pouring over the ridges by evening.

Bắc Sơn, a valley in Lạng Sơn, is known for exactly that. On cool mornings the valley fills with cloud, and from the hills around it the sunrise lights a white sea with only the peaks showing through.

The terraced fields in the second frame are the other signature of the region. Carved into the slopes over generations, they follow the contour of the hill, and the curves change colour with the season: silver with water after planting, green in summer, gold before the harvest.

Further north, in Hà Giang, rivers have cut deep canyons into the rock. The final frames show the scale of this landscape: a waterfall dropping through a green gorge, and a single person sitting on an overhanging rock, small against the ranges beyond.

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Photos: thachsanh, minh82bn, 9927881, tienco85 on Pixabay, used under the Pixabay Content License. These are not my photographs.