Ngo Dong River in May is bright pink

Wutong is a literary conventional name in Asian culture, considered a noble tree with special power. In the Chinese work "Kinh Thi", part Dai Nha, volume A, the poem is recorded:

Phoenix singing

Sound on the high mountain

Molasses grows

In the early sunshine

Fresh green

Harmonious and happy...

Or in the book "Trang Tu, Thien Thu Thuy", it is recorded: "Phoenix flies from South to North, not corn without beans, not hardened seeds without eating, not spring sources without drinking". Or the pair of best anonymous poems about corn plants: "One corn leaf falls/ The earth and sky know when autumn comes".

Therefore, Ngo Dong naturally is associated with the most noble and romantic beauty. The Ngo Dong River is no exception, as soft as a pink strip, winding between overlapping mountains, creating a beauty that stirs people's hearts throughout its about 40km sea route.

A careless stream just drifting like that suddenly becomes unique. Because this is a rare river in Vietnam without banks on both sides, without both eroded and silted sides, and also without waves or "smoke and waves on the river that make us sad". If there were no whistling rows, the Ngo Dong River would also be silent.

The reason is that this is a small calm river originating from a low-lying lagoon area in the heart of a limestone mountain system surrounded by primeval tropical forests, weaving through steep cliffs, caves and fields. Looking at the waterway, Ngo Dong is a tributary of the Sao Khe River, starting from the Suoi Tien temple area, then entering water in the Vac River.

Without embankments, the Ngo Dong River has fields as its boundaries. In the receding season, two streaks of fertile alluvium appear next to the flow. That is when local people take advantage of harvesting rice to plant rice without having to grow seedlings according to traditional farming methods.

Just sowing rice grains, rice plants grow up, reaching out in the Ngo Dong water, wherever the water is high, the rice is high, and by May, it begins to dye the entire Ngo Dong river yellow, the rice stalks heavy with golden rice, silently bowing their heads to reflect themselves in the water.

Therefore, the Ngo Dong River is most beautiful in the ripe rice season of May, with the dominant golden ripe rice color standing out under the deep blue sky, leisurely white clouds and overlapping a valley of limestone mountains with the white color of the rainforest.

People like to sit on small boats of women who work as boat rowers, using paddles to gently stir the boat to glide in a fairytale space. This place only uses hand-rowing boats, or foot-rowing boats according to the impromptu variation of boat houses, absolutely no motorboats.

This regulation has many purposes: Not polluting water space and rice growing areas; not creating waves, causing other boats to be in danger; and not causing noise pollution, destroying the poetic scenery of this place. There are also functional motorboats, but they must operate at low capacity.

Each rowing boat stirred, slowly turning the water. At a slow speed, people had enough leisure and tranquility to admire the birds flying across their faces, looking for the shadows of wild mountain goats climbing miraculous mountain slopes. The yellow color of rice across their faces quietly emitted the fragrance of ripe rice, making the water of the Ngo Dong River seem fragrant.

Rice fields - rivers are a strange and wonderful ecological relationship. They share the same shape created by the water; flow together in a valley surrounded by forests and limestone mountains; coexist in a space not separated by banks, field banks.

Therefore, boats glide on the quiet Ngo Dong River as well as glide in the golden sea, next to boats full of ripe rice and the joyful excitement of farmers who have a bumper crop. Rice not only brings joy on a harvest day but also becomes a unique tourism product, with hundreds of boat trips to Ngo Dong to see rice on the way to Tam Coc.

Not only admiring the Ngo Dong River on a harvest day on the river, many people choose to climb mountains to admire from above. At any tower-shaped mountain peak, the romantic river scene can be captured to the bottom of the retina. The shape of the river winding between two ripe rice areas with hundreds of boats going back and forth on rows is the creative purpose of photographers.

Therefore, every May, photographers, regardless of bulky machinery and luggage, take boats back to Ngo Dong to climb a mountain to find the new beauty of Ngo Dong in the ripe rice season. Then in November, Ngo Dong invites again with the beauty of the water lily season, floating in a captivating purple color.

Therefore, those who love Ngo Dong scenery have proudly said: "If Indonesia has Bali, then Vietnam has Tam Coc".