Thach Yen is a mountainous commune of Cao Phong district, Hoa Binh province with a total natural area of ​​about 40km2, with over 1,200 households living, of which the Muong ethnic group accounts for over 95% of the population. As a land rich in revolutionary traditions, blessed with many beautiful landscapes, a cool climate all year round, and unique cultural traditions, Thach Yen has many favorable conditions for developing eco-tourism, resorts, historical - spiritual tourism and community tourism.

Clouds in Thach Yen, Cao Phong  (Photo: Collected)

In the past, due to the rugged terrain and difficult traffic, Thach Yen was not known by many people. Up to now, with the investment of the New Development Rural Program, the traffic routes in Thach Yen have been increasingly upgraded, helping tourists easily access this new and attractive tourist destination.

Like its name, Thach Yen possesses a rare peaceful beauty. With 200 hectares of primeval forest, Thach Yen has created an ideal climate with extremely cool temperatures and a fresh, clean atmosphere all year round. No pollution, no dust, no noise are things you can definitely experience when traveling to Thach Yen.

A beautiful check-in corner at a Homestay in Thach Yen (Photo: Collected)

Interspersed among the mountains and forests, Thach Yen also has a hill that is likened to a vast steppe with an area of ​​about 200 hectares located at an altitude of 1,000m above sea level. On top of the hill is a well that the locals call Vo Vua (King's Well) with an extremely cool water source. The flat, velvety grasslands are an ideal place for recreational activities, camping. Enjoying the open space of the steppe in the mountains and forests, sometimes visitors mistakenly think they are lost somewhere in Europe.

Thach Yen is not only cool and peaceful but also adorned with a system of extremely majestic terraced fields. Terraced fields are not only a beautiful scene or a farming method of ethnic minorities in the mountainous region, but also contain a cultural tradition - where people have spent hundreds of years building, expanding, and creating, from choosing land for farming, to building embankments and dams to form foundations and fields, and then maintaining and developing them to this day. Although it is a farming method that requires more effort, from pouring water to sowing rice seedlings, to harvesting, transporting, etc. today, many households in Thach Yen still maintain this farming method because they do not want to lose a "heritage" that their ancestors worked hard to build.

Tourists enjoy taking photos and checking in at the terraced fields in Thach Yen

(Photo: Collected)

Besides, Thach Yen is also a land rich in revolutionary traditions. Cao Phong - Thach Yen is one of the four important revolutionary bases of Hoa Binh province in the pre-uprising period (including: Muong Khoi revolutionary base (Lac Son district), Muong Diem revolutionary base (Da Bac district), Tu Ly - Hien Luong revolutionary base (Da Bac district), Cao Phong - Thach Yen revolutionary base (Cao Phong district). Coming to Thach Yen, visitors can learn about the heroic traditions of the locality, visit the Khanh pagoda relic complex built right at the former training ground of the guerrilla team to commemorate the heroic feats of revolutionary predecessors who sacrificed themselves for the country. 

In recent years, Thach Yen has begun to touch the tourism industry, local homestays have been opened to provide essential services for visitors. However, Thach Yen also wishes to develop tourism in a responsible direction towards nature and the community, developing tourism based on understanding and respect for history, culture, nature, environment and the people here. Hopefully, mutual understanding and respect will lead to interesting encounters between visitors from all over the world and the beloved land and people of Thach Yen.