Try this hill trip in Vietnam instead

This article was produced by National Geographic Traveler (UK).

In the mountain bush in Hoa Binh, dark leaves shine on a pale tree. “The weeds of the grass. Touch, and it can die.” “Snakes also.

Our surroundings, in the distant valley of Lami Zhao, about 80 miles southwest of Hanoi in northern Vietnam, are very beautiful that it is difficult to believe that it houses such dangers. Fig tree forests and Aldr are still to shave our shoes on the floor full of leaves. From time to time, the trees are clear to detect the sweeping panorama in the valley, where a river explodes through the orchards of fruit trees, mango trees, and closed Karst fingers like stalagas from the rice fields flooded by floods.

“There were tigers here, too, recently like war,” Tan continued. “But we haven’t seen one for a while.” More common – at the present time, at least – is Banglain, which is still looking for the sale of their standards for use in traditional medicine. “This is why we need tourism,” says Tan. “To show people there is another way to earn money.” Tan leads me to the village of Bu Ben, where the embryonic community tourism program transfers the lives of the local white people. This is the prevailing ethnic group in the region, which was called the name of the Casablanca of its traditional dress, who grew up in the same southern region of China as the Thai peoples in Thailand and Laos.

Suddenly, the thick forest understands and appears in the clearing that has a small wooden house, wandering under its weight, all the basics of the Mai Chau: Bed Rice, Bavalo Blang water and satellite dishes. “Shen Chao!” (“Hello!”) He is drifting from the top of the top floor, where a man appears, holding the wooden flut on which Jolie’s tone is hit. It is not annoyed, calls us inside, leave our shoes at the bottom of a wooden ladder, we continue at home. It is dark but warm and warm, the roof is black with wooden smoke that rises from the kitchen stove. Packages of herbs and dried mushrooms hanging on the wall.

“Medicinal”, the owner of the house, a pink cheek, explains himself as Ha Luong. “We don’t have much here, but we live a long life.” Luong explains that his home is a typical matter for this area – it is a waste of time when the tigers need to keep homes at night while people sleep. Luong picks up the flute again and plays a reckless melody, interspersed with simple lyrical verses in Tae Khao, Thai white language. “Vietnamese children learn only at school, our own language is of no value. But it is important to talk about it,” he says quietly. “Or we will forget.”

We say goodbye to Luong and walk across the forest again before its appearance, after it rose for three hours in total, in PU BIN, a group of wooden houses, which are bordered by cabbage spots and rice fields, and stunningly clinging to the mountains that are closed with fog. We met Cao Thi Hong Nhung, the young woman responsible for the project to bring community tourism to PU BIN. Tourism has barely reached My Chao, making it a quieter and quieter alternative to Saba. The former French colonial station Hill has become a center for tourism that wanders in the hill in Vietnam, with the completion of casinos, balls-crowd. “Even we built a hospitality house 10 years ago, there was no electricity or paved roads here,” says Hong Nong. “We get only one rice harvest per year – in Delta Micong have three – so we needed a new source of income. This is where tourism comes.”

While walking in the village, a tiger of women stood in the rice field, depth in the water, and planting small green rice buds. A man from the fields that carry a mesh on a long stick, which he used to pick up the golden snails of the apple – is a type of gas that eats rice plants, but is cooked locally with hot pepper and lemon. He presents himself as Ha Hyung. Like many men I see in the fields, he wears a round Vietnamese army helmet, which looks very new so that they are not a 50 -year -old war. Hyung explains that helmets are still made throughout Northern Vietnam, the heart of the communist resistance against the United States during the war in the fifties to the seventies, and it has become a must -to -civil attachment. He says, “We are proud of war.” “We have overcome the American army. Not many people can say that.”

Hyung leads us to a simple and open house, where an old man-Hyung, Ha Tong-on a pile of bamboo strips, and woven into baskets traditionally used by villagers and now sold to travelers as a letter letter. She invites me to try my hand in it and hardly five minutes, my soft fingers are torn and exploded from acute wood. A decision he saw enough, standing Teung and disappearing to find a drink.

Return to appear with an inappropriate green glass bottle from the local Tipple everywhere: the wine of the rice linked to the house. Teung pour wine in gunfire and suggestions for us to hit the drink again in one. I am bound, but the strong spirit strikes my throat back, and hesitates when Tong immediately pours another snapshot. Teung in his seventies, and the creation of travelers here is a major change for him, but he welcomes him. “Tourism is good.” “Visitors respect our culture and get to know their players. It gives us a new source of income, but also more when we do not succeed in planting – making handicrafts, making wine.”

It is almost time to have lunch. Hong Nong leads me to another wooden house and shows me its owner, and Hong, an elderly woman in a luxurious velvet shirt and headscarf. It offers handshake and symptoms, revealing her rugged shiny teeth-as a result of black traditions that are once a sign of great beauty among Thai white women. The age of Hong is 82 years old and is still captain of the Keeng Long Dancing team – an ancient popular routine that reflects rice production movements. The giant mortar guns have handed over and a pledge to reap some peanuts, while Hong Haong wraps from sticky rice in banana leaves.

I heard a group of local women preparing for traditional bamboo dance to welcome us in the village. “All the elderly go out to see it, not just tourists. It is a great thing,” says Hong. Certainly, after lunch, I find an increasing crowd of spectators in the yard. The bamboo columns are placed in a network -like formation on the floor and the dance team file, wearing the brocade skirts and colored platek scarves. Hong explains that the arrival of travelers helps to maintain authentic cultural traditions such as these, which you remember from its youth and were at the risk of death. “We have almost lost the bamboo dance, but tourism has brought it back,” she says with a smile.

Posted on the July 2025 issue of National Geographic Traveler (UK).

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