Just three hours drive from Hanoi,
Giao Xuan Village is a familiar stop for foreigners who enjoy the countryside
and prefer to stay with people in the local community rather than hang out in a
luxury hotel.
(Vietnam Visa On Arrival) From Hanoi, tourists can go in
groups of twenty people in a 29-seat car with each person only paying VND600,000
for the two-way transport cost. Budget travelers can take a coach from Giap Bat
coach station in Hanoi straight to Giao Xuan Village for just VND70,000 each.
Along the roads leading to the eco-village, tourists can enjoy rice fields and
green gardens along the National Road 21 towards the east.
“Giao Xuan Village now has 21
families who can accommodate tourists during their trip here and the homestay
services create an income of some VND800,000 for each family,” said Phung Thi
Thin, chairwoman of the village’s Cooporative of Community Tourism.
‘Homestay services’ explains Phung,
is the best choice for local people to live on without overexploiting the
natural resources such as seashell, shrimp as well as improving the
environmental condition of the village.
The village started its ‘community
tourism’ in April 2006 with only some simple projects like fish sauce
production, worm breeding, seashell breeding, and renovating the gardens to make
temporary sleeping places for the birds living in the Xuan Thuy national park,
which is some 10 kilometers from the village.
“Next year, the cooperative will
help develop five more houses having enough facilities to be ‘typical homestays’
so we can receive more tourists because numbers of visitors are increasing these
days,” Phung adds.
Giao Xuan is traditionally a farming
village, located in Xuan Thuy National Park in Nam Dinh Province. The growing
number of ecotourists has prompted local people to build new cement roads,
reorganize their livelihoods and develop a new respect for the environment.
Tran Thi Phuong, who used to be a
farmer in Giao Xuan village, now has six years of experience as a tourist guide
and says she loves her job because she earns more money and learns more about
life.
She said the village now has three
main teams to provide for community tourists, offering a traditional music
band, homestay houses and tourist guides.
“When I decided to change my job,
from farmer to a tourist guide, I and my team joined a tourism class in Hanoi.
However, I soon felt happy with my new job because it helps me improve my
knowledge,” Phuong told the Daily while she guides a media group from HCMC and
Hanoi to view a local house making very good fish sauce in the village.
On the small path leading to another
house in the village, the group could smell the fish sauce. It came from the
house of Mr Phung – who has spent nearly forty years making fish sauce from the
local catch.
Phung said his sauce, which has a
strong traditional salty taste, earns him around VND200 million each year,
partly thanking to the increasing number of tourists coming to the village.
His yard contains nine large
troughs, each filled with 1.8 tons of fish and 200 kilograms of salt. “After
nearly eight months, the mixed component will give some 600 liters of fish
sauce”, he said while opening one of the covers and releasing a pungent fish
smell.
Before saying goodbye to this old
fish sauce maker, some of the group bought some products as gifts to their
friends after the trip.
The media group were in the village
as guests of Ecolife Eco-service Company Limited, a social enterprise providing
work for the community in ecotourism. It is one of a growing number of social
enterprises, business models that priorities their social role over making
profits, that are spreading across Vietnam.
Source: SGT
