For only VND500,000 to VND700,000, tourists can have a homestay tour to the Nam Dong mountainous area in Nam Dong District, Thua Thien-Hue Province. The tour uncovers primitive scenery of the terrain as well as the daily life and customs of ethic Co-Tu and Van Kieu residents.

The tour is part of the project of preserving the biodiversity of Bach Ma National Park via community tourism initiated by the Hue Center for Scientific Society and Humanities under the sponsorship of the Ecosystems Grant Program (EGP) and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) of the Netherlands. Therefore, locals are trained in tourism service skills and some of them are trained tour guides.

Visiting this area allows the chance to explore mysterious scenery, poetic rivers, and springs, softly colored orchid gardens and a lizard farm. Tourists will be served local fresh water fish specialties and wild forest game.

Each resident’s house is licensed for 20 tourists to stay at one time. Staying in a local home, tourists will have a chance to experience traditional Vietnamese lifestyle including wooden camp-beds and bathing with a ladle. These houses are surrounded by green trees and dense groves. Nights lying on a camp-bed looking out the window toward the forest with the cool wind, the bright stars and the screeching insects are a large part of the tour.

Tourists can enjoy ethnic music and dance performances in the Goul, a communal house of each village. Tourists even can join with them to dance and sing and enjoy ruou can (wine drunk out of a jar through bamboo pipes).

Foreign tourists can rent a bicycle to discover some of the forest, including waterfalls, for US$5 for a half day, inclusive of lunch.

Overnight home stays are VND50,000 per person.

To book the tour, call (84-54) 3832 788 or email: cssh@vnn.vn