Now when wild peach trees are becoming scarce and their prices are escalating, hunting for ornamental peach has become a hard work. A VietNamNet’s reporter followed an ethnic minority man Mua A Sin in Son La province to investigate how wild peach trees are looked for.

From Moc Chau Town in Son La province, it takes a group of five “peach hunters” nearly one day to reach Pha Luong Mount, including five hours of mountaineering. Pha Luong is the highest mountain in northwestern region.

Wild peach trees became a special element of the lunar New Year holiday several years ago. Since then, the end of year is the opportunity of many H’mong people in Moc Chau to earn money. At the beginning, they cut down wild peach trees near their houses to sell along national highways. When this source of trees was exhausted, they bought trees from neighboring areas and after that they had to go to the jungle to look for wild peach trees.

“ Finding apeach tree may take me several days but the profit from a branch of wild peach is as much as what I earn from an entire field of maize in a year,” saysa peach hunter Mua A Si.

VietNamNet’s reporter had to drink with peach hunters until he got drunk so as to be allowed to join them.

Though this time is the lunar New Year holiday of H’mong people, peach hunters already celebrated Year a week ago to now have time for hunting wild peach.

The destination of this trip is a garden of wild peach trees of a H’mong family in Pha Luong. Three years ago, Mua A Si discovered this secret garden when he worked as a vendor. Si failed twice to convincee the owner to sell the trees.

on Pha Luong mount There are only canvas tentsof H’mong people, who tend goats there. Entering a tent, the group of peach hunters is welcomed by the its owner, Vang A Nui. They talk for a while in H’mong language. Vang A Nui shakes his head several times. The negotiation has failed.

Mua A Sin asked Vang A Nui’s permission to stay in the tent for a night. Though the group carries food with them, Sin tells two men in the group to purchase a pig at the mountain foot.

“If we can’t buy peach trees, we can drink and admire peach flowers,” Si says.

The two men return after several hours, with a pig and a big decanter of maize alcohol. The pig is slaughtered at 9 pm. Half an hour after that, the smell of roast pork spreads everywhere. The canvas owner and peach hunters finish the feast at 5 am.

After the feast, Nui chops down several wild peach trees to present to peach hunters as Tet gifts. Peach hunters immediately sober up. They pack up peach branches for transportation.

The return trip takes two hours longer than the outward journey because the group had to carry peach branches. When they arrive at the national highway, Si sells his branch for VND11 million ($550). Two days later, Si calls the reporter to boast that he had purchased a new motorbike for the money. In Moc Chau, many families became rich thanks to wild peach, just like Si.

This year wild peach is very scarce. A H’mong man named Mua A Dinh says he hired a truck to travel through Moc Chau province but he couldn’t buy any good peach branches.

Last year, Trang A Lu earned VND100 million ($55,000) in a week after purchasing a truck of wild peach branches from China but this year he couldn’t find any.

“If everyone trades wild peach like this, I think that in the next few years, you will be unable to purchase wild peach even with gold,” Lu says

Selling wild peach branches in Sapa town, Lao Cai province:

Le Anh Dung