‘Stairways to the sky’ want UNESCO recognition

Sapa, the former summer retreat of the French Colonialists and home to the H’Mong, Dao and Giay ethnic minorities wants it award winning rice terraces to be considered as an UNESCO World Heritage site.
The terraces won international recognition two months ago when they were voted as one of the seven most beautiful rice terraces in the world by readers of U.S.-based Travel and Leisure magazine, Vietnam News Agency reported.
The Sapa valley, high in the mountains of northwestern Vietnam and just south of China’s Yunan province, has its terraces cut into mountainsides which cascade down to the valley floor.
Rice terraces are common in the mountainous topographies of many countries such as Peru, China and the Philippines.
Carpeting a vast mountainous area from the resort town of Sapa to the commune of Ta Van, Thanh Kim and Nam Sai, the rice steps were called “the stairways to the sky” by Travel and Leisure.
The rice here has been cultivated by generations of the H’Mong, Dao and Giay people, who add even more color to the patchwork greens and yellows of the paddy fields with their colorful traditional attire.
The landscape, which also plays host to the Indochina Peninsula’s tallest peak, Mount Faspian, has helped Sapa enjoy a steady growth in tourist arrivals.
Sapa welcomed nearly 40,000 visitors from the beginning of this year until mid-September, up 30 percent year-on-year, despite the current tourism slump in the country.
Lao Cai provincial authorities have asked the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism to ask for UNESCO’s recognition of Sapa’s rice terraces as a world heritage.