Making it happen in THEIR community!

From left: Taryn, Zu, Caitlin, Steph, Kristine, and La

One of the strengths with working in Lao Chai village is the community of local Hmong guides who call Lao Chai home.

As children, girls like Lyly, Chai, Zu, Za, and La followed groups of tourists as they trekked through their village and onto the neighbouring village of Tavan. The afternoons would have been spent befriending some of those trekkers from all over the world. A product of those friendships was an uncanny knack for picking up different languages including English. The ability to speak English along with their local knowledge made them the perfect candidates to become tour guides.

Lyly and Zu leading a community mapping workshop.

Today this community of guides, most of them girls, are famous for their friendly, charismatic and cheeky approach to guiding. They make up the greater majority of guides in the Sapa region, and have moved on to leading and managing tours throughout Vietnam.

Za teaching her mother and sister-in-law how to cook pancakes for breakfast.

Over the past week we have had five of these guides join our CBT Vietnam team. With little direction Lyly, Chai, Zu, Za and La have transformed from translators – both from Hmong to Vietnamese and Hmong to English – to community based tourism experts. They are leading community discussions, acting as homestay consultants, and delivering training to THEIR communities, neighbours, friends and family.

Lyly, Chai, Zu, Za, and La, from the entire CBT Vietnam team from Capilano University and Hanoi Open University, thank you for your support. Your enthusiasm and spirit have been instrumental over the past week.

A Night in Taphin

A key objective for this trip is to, once again, bring the women entreprenuers of TaPhin back to Hanoi to meet tour operators.  We did this last October and have found some success in operators sending tourists to the Taphin homestays. 

There is a reason why people enjoy staying at these homestays and last night I had the pleasure of staying at the homestay of Ms. May Kieu.  I met May Kieu on our last trip, she has a quiet demeanour and a smile that lights up a room.  She is passionate about her homestay business and always ready to share her culture and engage in a participatory experience.  

She spent time showing me some of the items she plans to take to Hanoi and how she makes them.  Each is hand embroidered and each section has meaning, some show girls and boys, some have trees and flowers.  The piece is then sewn together with a sewing machine.

Showing me how she makes wall hangings

Her homestay is beautiful, with private rooms, platform beds, full washroom with heated shower and a kitchen with a huge fireplace.  All of this makes for a comfortable atmosphere. 

Beautiful Fireplace for Cooking

One aspect that is special about these homestays is the fact that the villagers grow almost everything they eat.  It puts 100 mile diet in a whole new perspective.

Tonight’s dinner consisted of rice which came from their fields, grated pumpkin and steamed pumpkin leaves from her garden out back and chicken which was brought in the house squawking at 7:00pm and we ate at 8:00pm.  During dinner she informed me that she also keeps chickens specifically for eggs and grows carrots and eggplant for additional vegetables.  I noticed a shelf full of pumpkin leaves on one side of the room, she said that those ones were no longer good and will be fed to the pigs.  When it comes to food waste, there is very little.

But that was not the best part of the evening.  That came when her husband, Loua, went out to their beehive and collected fresh honey.  This honey was bottled to give as a gift to one lucky tour operator next week in Hanoi. I had never tasted honey fresh from the hive and was able to sit and pick pieces off from a huge bowl with her mother-in-law and grandma.  It was delicious!

Enjoying Honey

It is this kind of experience that tour operators look for and they are fortunate to have May Kieu and the other Taphin homestays providing such a great product.

For more information on May Kieu’s homestay visit www.taphinhomestay.com and the Taphin homepage at http://www.taphin-sapa.info/ 

Submitted by: Stephanie Wells

It's More Than 'Build It And They Will Come'

One of the challenges, and concerns, of developing homestays in a new village is ensuring that tourists have a reason to stay. These homestay owners are putting money into their homes to make them welcoming for tourists.  Lao Chai is about a 30 minute motorbike ride from Sapa which is close and tourists can easily visit for a day.

Stephanie With Su

One product that we believe will assist in bringing the right group of tourists through is a 15km trek from Sapa to Lao Chai through the hills.  It is just long enough to challenge tourists and enable them to end in Lao Chai at a homestay for the night.  So, how do we make sure that the trek will work?

We do it of course!!

On Monday,  we were guided by a local tour guide, Su, who we hired from SapaO’Chau to take us through this route of Sapa - Cat Cat Village - Y Linh Ho - Lao Chai.

Waterfall at Cat Cat Village

All I can say is...stunning!

We meandered down a trail of stairs to the the waterfall at Cat Cat village.  It was incredible to see so much rushing water and the sound is deafening. While there we listened to some traditional music, looked at handicrafts and picked up some smoked buffalo to munch on along the route. 

Rice Terraces

It was difficult to not stop every few minutes and just take pictures of the sweeping views of rice terraces, bamboo forests and weaving rivers.  There are several ‘pinch me’ moments along the trek. 

Along Y Linh Ho

We stopped for lunch where we were served fried noodle with pork and egg (my xao). We then continued until we reached the homestay of Ms. Mai where we were ready to sit and just relax. Reward earned! Based on our day (with a variety of fitness levels) we completed the trek in six hours and just as we thought, a fantastic route for travellers who really want to trek and experience what Vietnam has to offer.

Submitted by: Stephanie Wells

3 Successful Days In Hanoi

We have been in Hanoi for only 3 days and have had great success! Here's a quick synopsis of what we've been up to and who've we met.

We met with the dedicated Hanoi Open University volunteers who gave us a very warm welcome and who we look forward to getting to know even better as we travel to Sapa to work hand in hand on the CBT Vietnam Project both in Taphin and Lao Chai villages.

We have met with many PATA members including Jewel Tours, Buffalo Tours, 365 Travel and Hanspan Travel. who are all excited about the CBT Vietnam project. They are looking forward to meeting the Red Dao woman of Taphin to learn about their homestays and herbal bath product and look forward to sending travellers to Taphin to enjoy an unforgetable authentic village experience. Equally excited were Footprint Vietnam Travel and Little Hanoi Hostel.

We have also gathered many supplies from Hanoi's shopping streets including what is needed for the environmental lessons we will deliver to the school children in Lao Chai.

 

Tonight we take the night train to Sapa.