Tan Hoa (Quang Binh) used to be a poor rural area, suffering from annual floods, but has now become "the best tourist village in the world".
Around 7pm, the darkness had "embraced" the small village of Tan Hoa, Minh Hoa district. Occasionally, a dim light appeared from a passerby's flashlight. The space was quiet, only occasionally was there the sound of a motorbike engine whizzing by. Everything was almost no different from a normal village.
Tan Hoa started developing tourism around 2014 when the Tu Lan discovery tour routes were put into operation. In the 10 years from 2013 to 2023, the total number of visitors reached about 63,000. In the last three years, the number of visitors recorded strong growth from less than 4,000 to more than 9,000.
A "rural homestay" in Tan Hoa has barrels attached underneath to help the house rise up during floods. Photo: Tu Nguyen
Visitors to Tan Hoa have two options for accommodation: "rural homestay" and Tu Lan Lodge. Currently, the village has 10 rural homestays, with nightly costs ranging from VND950,000 to VND1.5 million (cheaper in low season). Some homestays are separate from the host's house, while others are located right on the premises.
The homestay is rustic, from the choice of blue color, flower basket decoration to thatched roof. At the foot of the house are barrels used as buoys during flood season. Thanks to that, even in flood season, visitors can still come here to experience. This is how the village develops tourism to adapt to the weather.
The interior is about 30 square meters with a private bathroom, two beds, and a small camping-style coffee table. All the furniture is kept as simple as possible but still provides comfort and meets the basic needs of visitors.
Outside, the rain began to pour down harder. Quang Binh was entering the flood season (June to September of the lunar calendar). In 2012, the water level rose to 12 meters, submerging almost all the houses in the village. Since then, Tan Hoa has been known as the "flood center of Quang Binh".
After this flood, some solutions were proposed such as relocating people or destroying mountains to create flood channels, which required high costs and affected the natural ecosystem. Necessity is the mother of invention, so Tan Hoa people created floating rafts, which were later upgraded to floating houses to live with the flood.
In the morning in Tan Hoa, visitors can experience ATV off-road vehicles. This is one of the popular activities for visitors to Tan Hoa, besides exploring caves. The vehicle gathering point is near the house of Mr. Truong Xuan Do - famous throughout Quang Binh with the title of "lim forest ranger". The lim forest area in the ATV tour is also the forest he spent decades guarding. However, the tour only goes through the edge of the forest, not deep inside.
"People are born more and more but the forest is being destroyed. I have to preserve it for the next generation," said the 73-year-old man.
Inside the ironwood forest area that visitors will pass through when joining the ATV tour on October 18. Photo: Tu Nguyen
The journey to explore the lim forest is not long, lasting about 45 minutes, but visitors continuously pass through steep slopes and curves where the driver has to exert all his strength to keep the vehicle from flipping over. Interspersed with those heart-stopping moments are some flat sections of road, so that both the driver and the passenger can feel the pristine beauty of Quang Binh's nature.
Tan Hoa has people who love nature and are creating tourism products associated with nature. This is also the leading tourism trend in the world after the Covid-19 pandemic, especially attracting foreign tourists.
Following the tourism development model in Tan Hoa, Oxalis company has linked up with the village to create tourism products and jobs for the people. Up to now, in addition to 10 homestays, this association has created 70 jobs for porters (people who carry goods through the forest and mountains), 10 home-cooked meals and four households providing food and vegetables.
Tan Hoa village seen from above. Photo: Oxalis
Tan Hoa people will carry out the operation and service. In the future, when tourism develops and people have a firm grasp of tourism activities, Tan Hoa can move towards forming a community tourism cooperative model. Currently, Tan Hoa people are only in the first steps of getting acquainted with tourism, mainly doing the service.
Mr. Nguyen Chau A, Director of Oxalis, said Tan Hoa is taking "slow but steady" steps instead of developing tourism massively. Despite possessing great tourism potential with a massive cave system, majestic natural landscapes and historical relics, Tan Hoa people do not have the concept of "doing tourism". Therefore, the company needs to influence and guide them gradually so that they can absorb this new knowledge.
Mr. A said that at first, they hired both domestic and foreign experts to write operating procedures and teach employees (who were from Tan Hoa) but failed. After that, they decided to let people do it themselves according to their habits and then gradually standardize it. That is also the reason why the furniture in the rooms of the "rural homestay" and Tu Lan Lodge are quite few and simple. Mr. A said that the more complicated the furniture, the more confused the staff will be.
The change in the perception of Tan Hoa people is also increasingly positive thanks to tourism. Previously, Tan Hoa men only went to the forest and did not do anything else. At first, when hiring local men as porters for tours, they refused to cook for guests because they thought "that was women's work".
However, over time, when they saw that everyone was willing to cook, including their superiors, they were more willing to learn and work, and could earn more money after each tour. Now, whenever Tan Hoa commune has an event, the men themselves rush into the kitchen to cook.
Tourism in Tan Hoa also has a positive impact on the environment. Most porters come from the "forest" profession - or loggers, who operate mainly in the Tu Lan forest. They exploit wild honey, catch wild animals and wood to sell. This has seriously affected the ecosystem of Tu Lan, causing many rare species such as wild elephants, tigers, bears and deer to gradually disappear.
Many porters said they found it strange when tourists “wow” when they saw gibbons or ancient trees. That moment made them understand that they had to protect the forest so that more and more tourists would come.
Tourism also provides job opportunities for households who cook for tourists. Truong Thi Huong, the owner of a cooking household, who has only been working with the company for a year, said that her life has changed significantly since working in tourism. Huong’s family only needs to worry about cooking, the company takes care of taking the guests home. The job also helps the family earn an additional 7-8 million VND each month.
Mr. Tran Xuan Hung, Vice Chairman of Tan Hoa Commune People's Committee, said that the village still has many things to improve, even though it has just received the title of "Best Tourist Village in the World". Tan Hoa has about 3,000 residents, but the number of households that can access tourism jobs is still relatively small. In the future, Mr. Hung hopes that at least 1/3 of the villagers can participate in tourism development.
Mr. Hung shared that participating in tourism is now the dream of most households. For example, a purely farming household in the past could only earn about 3 million VND per month at most. Meanwhile, the salary of a porter during peak season can be up to 13 million VND per person.
"People are gradually adapting to tourism, from cleaning up trash on the streets, tending flowers in front of their doors and paying attention to education," he said.
Tu Nguyen
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