From the barren hills, exactly 20 years after the village was established, the Thai Hai Tay cultural village was awarded the "World's Best Tourist Village" award by the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in 2022. Compared to the Thai Hai Tay cultural village, the Chenh Venh community eco-tourism village, Huong Phung commune, Huong Hoa district, has more advantages. However, the exploitation and development of community tourism here still faces many difficulties, some people are not proactive in participating in promotional activities, serving tourists to visit and experience.
A corner of Thai Hai Tay cultural village, Thai Nguyen province - Photo: NTH
From the special Tay cultural village
Initially, Thai Hai village was not established for tourism but to preserve the traditional culture of the Tay ethnic group in the face of many Tay ethnic groups abandoning their traditional stilt houses to replace them with brick and cement houses. However, the peaceful scenery, delicious food and traditional Tay ethnic culture in Thai Hai have attracted tourists to experience and explore, becoming a model for community tourism exploitation for villages of 54 ethnic groups across the country.
The interesting difference of Thai Hai Tay cultural village is that the village has 30 stilt houses, each of which has different functions and tasks such as "pharmacy", "wine house", "weaving house", "culinary culture preservation house", "Then singing culture preservation house"... All production activities in the village are self-sufficient, from planting trees, raising livestock, fishing, making herbal medicine, making wine, producing bottled water..., ensuring no impact on the ecological environment and maintaining a clean food source for use.
Small families are assigned a job, each person has a strength to do that job, the products each person makes are collected, serving the needs of the village community. All the money that people earn from production, selling products and welcoming tourist groups is paid into the village's common fund to take care of the villagers' lives. All people work together, "eat from the same pot of rice, spend from the same purse".
Villagers live in harmony, love each other, and do not worry about food, clothing, rice, or money. The village chief takes care of all expenses and living needs, from private to essential, of each small family and individual, such as going to the doctor when they are sick, children going to school, even going to university or studying abroad.
Accommodation and cultural experience at Chenh Venh village, Huong Phung commune, Huong Hoa district - Photo: NTH
More than 20 years ago, in the Dinh Hoa Safe Zone, some people demolished the traditional stilt houses of the Tay ethnic group to build brick houses. Worried that future generations would no longer see the traditional stilt houses, Ms. Nguyen Thi Thanh Hai collected and bought 30 ancient stilt houses and then chose a bare hill in My Hao hamlet, Thinh Duc commune, Thai Nguyen city to establish a village to preserve Tay culture.
Not only preserving the ancient stilt houses and daily life utensils of the villagers, the village also preserves the soul of Tay culture such as language, traditional costumes, spiritual cultural beauty, and the transmission of Then singing and Tinh lute.
By 2014, Thai Hai Tay cultural village was recognized as a tourist destination of Thai Nguyen province. The Tay people are very hospitable, visitors to Thai Hai are welcomed by the locals as if they were relatives coming home.
The good news spread far and wide, and more and more people came to explore, experience the life and enjoy the cuisine of the Tay people in Thai Hai, contributing to creating income for the village.
Dreaming of a community tourism area in the West of Huong Hoa
Compared to Thai Hai Tay cultural village, Chenh Venh community eco-tourism village has the advantage of being endowed by nature with primeval forests that have existed for hundreds of years at the foot of Sa Mu mountain, covered in fog all year round, cool climate and Chenh Venh waterfall, wild and majestic in the middle of the mountains and forests.
Chênh Vênh village community forest is one of the first two community forests in Vietnam to meet FSC international standards. When coming here, visitors will be able to explore the bamboo forest, the ancient tree forest hundreds of years old, and see animals listed in the Vietnam Red Book such as langurs, seven-colored monkeys, deer...
Along with the potential that nature has given, Chenh Venh village still preserves and maintains the rich and diverse traditional cultural identity of the Van Kieu ethnic group. Many festivals here attract tourists to explore, discover and experience, such as: Gong Festival, New Rice Festival, Cuisine...
However, the exploitation and development of community tourism in Chênh Vênh village still faces many difficulties. The reason is that some people are not proactive in participating in promotional activities and serving tourists to visit and experience.
Bamboo forest in Chênh Vênh community forest - Photo: NTH
According to Vice Chairman of Huong Phung Commune People's Committee Ho Van Quy, in recent times, Chenh Venh community eco-tourism village has received support from Huong Hoa District People's Committee, MCNV Project and Haveltast Project to invest in building stilt houses as accommodation and exhibition houses, renovating 5 traditional stilt houses as accommodation houses; designing and repairing houses to become homestays, renovating landscapes combined with indigenous culture to attract tourists to visit and experience.
Huong Phung Commune has also established the Chênh Vênh Community Tourism Development Team consisting of 16 members, in charge of 3 tourist service points, including: bathing in the stream at Chênh Vênh waterfall; visiting the bamboo forest and camping, hunting clouds at Sa Muoi hill; staying and enjoying cuisine at the stilt house in the Rờ Vên residential area.
In 2024, the Chênh Vênh community eco-tourism village will welcome about 50 tourist groups to visit and experience. Revenue from tourism activities of members of the community tourism group is not enough to pay the average daily wage of local people.
Head of the Department of Culture and Information of Huong Hoa district, Ho Ngoc Tinh, said: Currently, the People's Council of Quang Tri province has issued a policy to develop tourism in the area, but it is very difficult to enjoy the incentives from this policy.
As in the Chênh Vênh community eco-tourism village, the condition to enjoy the province's tourism development policy is to be recognized as a tourist destination, and to meet the standards to be recognized as a tourist destination, it is necessary to invest in a number of standard tourism service items. The resources of the people are not enough to invest in building items to be recognized as a tourist destination of the province.
Therefore, there needs to be a "special" investment mechanism to turn the Chênh Vênh community eco-tourism village into a tourist destination of the province, thereby attracting businesses to invest in tourism development, contributing to exploiting the natural potential bestowed on the Chênh Vênh village community.
Thai Hai Tay Cultural Village was established in 2002 with the aim of preserving and promoting the tangible and intangible cultural values of the Tay ethnic group in Thai Nguyen province. The village's tourism products are the stilt house architecture, cuisine and traditional culture of the Tay ethnic group. Currently, Thai Hai Tay Cultural Village has the capacity to receive, serve food and accommodation for 1,200 guests at the same time. Tourists from more than 40 countries around the world have come to visit and experience the daily life of this village. |
Looking at other provinces, we see the proactive role of the people in developing tourism is very large, from a barren hill area has turned into the best tourist village in the world. Meanwhile, the Van Kieu people in Chenh Venh village in the West of Huong Hoa have not kept up with the development of tourism economy, are still passive, waiting for support from authorities at all levels, departments, branches, and organizations. There have been businesses raising the issue of cooperation in exploiting and developing community tourism in Chenh Venh village but have not succeeded, because the soul of community tourism is associated with indigenous culture, requiring initiative from local people.
The dream of one day going to the Western region of Huong Hoa to explore and experience the first international-standard community forest ecotourism in Vietnam in Chenh Venh village, watching gong musical instrument performances, listening to the folk songs of Ta ai and Xa not of the Van Kieu ethnic group and enjoying local products such as grilled chicken, sticky rice, wild bamboo shoots, sipping a cup of delicious Arabica coffee... at a standard tourist destination, seems too far away.
There is still much to be done to improve the infrastructure for tourism development, combining sustainable community forest management and protection, and creating livelihoods for local people. However, it must be affirmed that the appeal of the first “Community-based Ecotourism associated with sustainable forest management according to FSC standards” in Vietnam always promises to bring visitors exciting and different experiences.
Thanh Hai
Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/tu-lang-van-hoa-tay-thai-hai-nghi-ve-du-lich-cong-dong-thon-chenh-venh-190796.htm
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