Spring is the beginning of a year with the hope of a good thing and happiness. This is also when many local spring festivals are organized for people to pray for bumper harvests. There is a festival related to a love flower – ban flower that visitors of food walking tour can have many memorable moments there.

The legend of the love flower

Xen Ban – Xen Muong Festival in the season flowers bloom is a meeting for the nice next rice season and the blessing of the Thai. They send great wishes for a peaceful and prosperous life in the Muong village in this festival, as well as create the opportunity to play and entertain, for boys and girls find out each other, expressing their love through singing and dancing.

In addition, for Muong and Thai people here, this festival meaning is also the love festival of boys and girls in the area. The legend of the Thai people said that: The legend of the Thai people said that: there was a boy named Khum who fell in love with a girl named Ban. Khum was good at growing and hunting skills. Ban was good at weaving fabric and had a voice that captivates many boys. However, her father gave her to her son who was a lazy hunchback but rich.

Because Ban would like to deny this wedding, she ran into the village of Khum to ask for help. Unfortunately, when she came to Khum’s house, she was informed that he had followed his father to buy buffalo in the other remote village. She took her wimple, tied to the stairs of the lover’s house, and then went to find him.

She went from the high mountain to another forest, calling his lover’s name so much that her voice became hoarse, but Khum – her lover was too far away to heard. Finally, she became exhausted, she died after crossing a high mountain range.

The places, where she laid down forever, bloomed a flower with white buds like the girl’s hand. Soon, the flowers spread throughout the mountains and forests of the Northwest, and every spring, flowers bloom and white the mountain.

This flower was named as ban flower. Khum, when he came home, saw the wimple of his lover tied on the stairs, knew that bad thing occurred, rushed to find her. He went many villages, in the end, he was exhausted and fell down. After death, he turned into a lonely bird in the forest; and every time the ban flowers blossom, he sings as calling his lover.

Since then, whenever spring comes, the flowers bloom in the forest, Son La girlfriends go to the mountains to play, sing, dance and express their love, would like to have faithful love as Ban – Khum. Son La, in the spring, flowers blossoming on the slopes, the boys and girls in the villages go together to play, pick flowers to celebrate the spring. This is also a chance for young boys and girls to play, sing, play trumpet, dance and express love.

At present, if you search information of food tour in hanoi, you will find that in the community of Tay Bac ethnic groups exist simultaneously more stories about this flower, along with content explaining the origin of flowers. The storyline and character names of the stories are different, but the same is that the flowers used to symbolize the love in love couples.

As loving flowers, boys and girls in the Northwest come to the misty forest to admire the flowers glow like gems, they pick flowers and put it on the hair, they also bring flowers to the best friend to open the party celebrating the flower season.

In the flower season, the women bring flowers not to play but to eat. Hoa ban can be made soup, salad, dotted with chili vinegar, and so on. It is the attribute of these flowers that many other flowers do not have. You will have a chance to learn to make some dish from ban flower when you follow the guidelines of Vietnam cooking class to the local house.

Ban flower can also be considered as a good medicine which cures for a cough or a sore throat very well. There are people using leaves and young buds of ban flower to cure dysentery relatively effectively.

For more information/details: Hanoi traditional food, Vietnam food tours