{"id":51422,"date":"2025-08-06T04:38:19","date_gmt":"2025-08-06T08:38:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/try-this-hill-tribe-trek-in-vietnam-instead\/06\/08\/2025\/"},"modified":"2025-08-06T04:38:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T08:38:19","slug":"try-this-hill-tribe-trek-in-vietnam-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newssprinters.com\/index.php\/world\/try-this-hill-tribe-trek-in-vietnam-instead\/06\/08\/2025\/","title":{"rendered":"try this hill-tribe trek in Vietnam instead"},"content":{"rendered":"
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This article was produced by National Geographic Traveller<\/i> (UK).<\/p>\n
In the mountainous jungles of Hoa Binh province, a dark leaf glistens on a pale tree. \u201cHeartbreak grass. Touch it, and you could die,\u201d says hiking guide Manh Tan, with alarming insouciance. \u201cKeep an eye out for snakes, too. King cobras, pit vipers \u2014 it pays to watch your step around here.\u201d<\/p>\n
Our surroundings, in the remote valley of Mai Chau some 80 miles southwest of Hanoi in northern Vietnam, are so serenely beautiful that it\u2019s hard to believe they harbour such dangers. The forests of fig and alder trees are still but for the rustling of our boots on the leaf-strewn floor. Occasionally the trees clear to reveal sweeping panoramas of the valley, where the Ma River winds through orchards of dragon fruit and mango trees, and jagged fingers of karst erupt like stalagmites from flooded rice paddies.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were tigers here, too, as recently as the war,\u201d Tan goes on. \u201cBut we haven\u2019t seen one for a while.\u201d More common \u2014 for now, at least \u2014 are pangolins, which local people still hunt to sell their scales for use in traditional medicine. \u201cThis is why we need tourism,\u201d says Tan. \u201cTo show the people there\u2019s another way to earn money.\u201d Tan is leading me to the village of Pu Bin, where an embryonic community tourism programme is transforming the lives of the local White Thai people. These are the region\u2019s predominant ethnic group, named for the white tunics of their traditional dress, who originated in the same area of southern China as the Thai peoples of Thailand and Laos.<\/p>\n
Quite suddenly, the thick jungle thins out and we emerge into a clearing where a tiny wooden stilt house, creaking under its own weight, has all the essentials of rural Mai Chau life: a rice paddy, a plodding water buffalo and a satellite dish. A cheery \u201cXin chao!\u201d (\u2018Hello!\u2019) drifts from the upstairs window, where a man appears, clutching a wooden flute on which he blows a jolly tune. Unprompted, he invites us inside and, leaving our shoes at the bottom of a wooden ladder, we climb into the house. It\u2019s dark but cosy and warm, the ceiling blackened by wood smoke rising from the kitchen stove. Bundles of herbs and dried mushrooms are hanging on the wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cMedicinal,\u201d explains the homeowner, a spry, rosy-cheeked man who introduces himself as Ha Luong. \u201cWe don\u2019t have much here, but we live long lives.\u201d His stilt house, Luong explains, is typical of this region \u2014 a hangover from the time when tigers needed to be kept from entering houses at night while people slept. Luong picks up his flute again and plays a lilting tune, interspersed with simple, sung verses in Tai Khao, the language of the White Thai. \u201cKids only learn Vietnamese in school; our own language isn\u2019t valued. But it\u2019s important we speak it,\u201d he says quietly. \u201cOr we will forget.\u201d<\/p>\n\n