Khau Vai love market

Khau Vai love market (also called the Phong Luu market) meets only once a year, around the 27th day of the third lunar month, which usually falls in late April or May. The rest of the year the site is an empty clearing on a hillside between Meo Vac and the Chinese border. If you turn up on any other day, there is nothing to see.

The legend behind the market is a story most people in Ha Giang know. A Hmong boy and a Giay girl fell in love, but their clans would not allow it. They agreed to meet once a year at this spot. After they died, others who had lost someone — a first love married off to another family, a partner taken by illness or war — began coming to the same place on the same day, to sit together, drink corn wine and remember. Over time it became a festival.

What happens now is less romantic and more festive. By dawn the hillside is crowded with Hmong, Giay, Tay and Dao families from both sides of the border. There are livestock stalls, food vendors selling thang co and corn wine, ring-tossing games, spinning-top contests, and stages for traditional singing. Young people dress up and walk in groups. Older couples sit on the grass and talk. The atmosphere is somewhere between a village wedding and a county fair.

The market was recognised as national intangible cultural heritage in 2017. That, and social media, have brought many more visitors, and the site now gets genuinely packed. The access road is narrow and parking is limited, so most people ride from Meo Vac (about 25 km) early in the morning. If you plan to go, book a room in Meo Vac well in advance — the town fills up the night before.

A few things to keep in mind. This is a cultural event for the communities here, not a show put on for tourists. People come to meet relatives, catch up with old friends, and yes, sometimes to see someone they once loved. Photography is sensitive: ask before you point a camera at anyone, especially older visitors and couples. Don't follow people or push into private conversations. If you treat it as a spectacle, you will miss the point of it.

The exact date moves with the lunar calendar, so check before you plan your trip. Outside the festival, if you want a highland market day, the weekly markets at Meo Vac (Sunday) and Dong Van (Sunday) run every week and are easier to reach.