These wood-frame houses have become very rare. The roof tiles are made of clay, baked at high temperature in wood kilns buried in the ground.
After 5 days of baking, the still hot tiles are sprinkled with water.
Those that do not break will protect the houses for a century at least.
This technique, known as « rakou » tends to disappear because
the hundreds of kilos of wood necessary to bake the tiles are hard to
find. King Hoang A Tuong’s palace in Bac Hà is covered in traditional
clay tiles.
Some can still be seen in the north of the Muong Khuong, Si Ma Cai and Bac Ha districts.
