“I did not expect the Son La mountainous region of Vietnam to be so beautiful. The winding roads in the mist, the long hills of white and yellow flowers, the warm wooden houses... moved me. I really like the people here - friendly, lovable, especially the owner of this homestay. I found his homestay through Google. It deserves a very good rating on this search engine”, Raphael - a Canadian tourist shared his feelings about the homestay of Trang A Chu - a Mong "carrying stones up the mountain", a pioneer in tourism in Hua Tat (Van Ho, Son La) - a former "opium barn".
Raphael is impressed with the owner of the Mong - Trang homestay, A Chu
The homestay of Mr. A Chu (born in 1982) is located about 300m from Highway 6 - the route connecting Hanoi to Moc Chau (Son La). The house has the architectural style of the Mong people with bamboo gates, stilt houses, wooden tables and chairs, in the yard there are plows, mills, pig troughs, corn, and pumpkins hanging everywhere. Each season, the house is covered with a color of flowers, sometimes peach blossoms, yellow mustard, white mustard, sometimes plum blossoms, apricot blossoms. A Chu Homestay has become a familiar name, trusted by many travel companies and loved by customers.
Mr. A Chu's homestay is crowded with tourists.
About 10 years ago, the land for this homestay was just a mixed garden. Mr. A Chu boldly left the city to return to his poor hometown, abandoned his familiar jobs of growing corn and rice, and started doing tourism alone, despite the skepticism of the locals. Mr. A Chu said that at that time, the couple sold all their corn and rice and had only 1 million VND. They "risked" borrowing 28 million VND from a friend with the promise of paying back 30 million VND, and asked his parents for another 1 million VND. With 30 million VND in hand, A Chu put down a deposit on an old house, asked the young men in the village to help repair and build the house, and when he had money, he would pay them. After nearly a year, the first homestay in Hua Tat village took shape, opening to welcome tourism companies to survey in September 2015. Up to now, A Chu has become a famous homestay owner throughout the province. But he is still the same, still speaking with the Mong accent, wearing a linen shirt, traditional wide-leg pants, serving quickly and smiling brightly when welcoming guests. A rare bachelor of the village, leaving the dream of the city to return to a poor village to start a business. Hua Tat village is actually called Hua Tat, which in Mong language means the end of a land. The locals named it that to mark the boundary of the place where the Mong and Thai people used to live. About 10-15 years ago, Hua Tat was still a poor village, people lived in poverty, self-sufficient in everything. In A Chu's memory, back then, every house grew opium. Young men smoked opium like young people smoke cigarettes now. Any house that had a party, funeral, or wedding would have the lamp table turned out. In those years, the number of people who went to school, especially those who went to college or university, could be counted on the fingers of one hand. A Chu's journey to the city to learn "letters" was interrupted many times because he had to go out to earn money to make ends meet. In 2013, when he was nearly 30 years old, Mr. A Chu graduated from the Food Technology major at Hanoi University of Science and Technology, becoming the first person in Hua Tat village to have a university degree in Engineering.
There was a time when the Mong man dreamed of a stable life in the city, escaping the poor highland village. But for a long time, he was like a "lost person in the city", missing his hometown, longing to return. He had worked hard to get a university degree, but when he returned home, there was no job, the food engineer profession "had no place to use it". If he put his degree away to work in the fields, the villagers would laugh at him: "You went to university and then came back to work in the fields like us, what's the point of studying?". At that time, many people also asked A Chu to join "running goods" in the border area, ensuring "easy work, high salary"... But the 30-year-old Mong man at that time refused to surrender to circumstances. In 2013, he accidentally participated in a tourism program of Son La province, for the first time approaching basic knowledge about community tourism. “Thank God, not long after that, I met Mr. Duong Minh Binh, a leader of a tourism company who was passionate about projects to build community tourism models associated with local culture. He said that at that time, doing tourism in Hua Tat was very difficult, requiring diligence and perseverance because the location was far from Moc Chau and the situation of opium and drug trafficking was complicated,” Mr. A Chu recalled. But A Chu still felt a glimmer of hope to start a business from tourism. He and his wife followed Mr. Binh to Mai Chau, learning the first lessons about community tourism. In the period of 2013-2015, Moc Chau - Van Ho tourism began to have a clear direction. Taking advantage of the favorable time, place, and people, A Chu's family borrowed money to build a wooden stilt house and open the door to welcome tourists. At that time, few people in the village believed in and supported A Chu, thinking that "he was crazy" to destroy corn and rice fields.
Nearly a year after the house was completed, A Chu and his wife ran out of money and could not afford to buy blankets and pillows. The Department of Culture of Van Ho district at that time also joined hands to support blankets, pillows, Internet connection, Wifi... And the first "homestay" of Van Ho, Son La was built from those efforts. With a passion for art, A Chu used his artistic eye to make beautiful decorative handicrafts, displayed everywhere in the house. Buffalo gongs, rice cake pounding troughs, aluminum pans, fish traps were all used to become lampshades, sinks, faucets in the homestay... Toothpick jars, trash cans, bathroom mirror trims, picture frames were all made from bamboo and wood. Those items make domestic and international tourists feel interested and curious about their origins.
During the early days of running the homestay, Mr. Binh still supported and taught A Chu and his wife little by little, from communication, cooking, living habits... From a straightforward, "hot-tempered and stubborn" Mong boy, A Chu gradually became calm, knowing how to respect and please difficult guests. After nearly 10 years, now, the couple is confident in knowing the personalities of European, Asian, and American guests, understanding what they like to eat, how to drink coffee, and how to chat. With domestic guests, they also skillfully serve to suit the tastes of Southerners and Northerners. Up to now, after many years of renovation and expansion, the homestay has 10 private rooms and two spacious communal stilt houses, which can serve about 60 guests per day. Before the pandemic, on average, Trang A Chu's "homestay" attracted about 400 - 500 guests per month to visit, relax, and participate in unique cultural experiences of the Mong people. On holidays alone, his homestay is always fully booked. In 2019, the homestay welcomed nearly 7,200 guests, not counting the number of guests who came to order food but did not stay overnight.
(Photo: NVCC) Right after Covid-19, while many homestays have "given up" or struggled to find ways to attract guests, A Chu Homestay is still a destination trusted by businesses. "A Chu has both preserved the traditional and unique features of Hua Tat and has modern amenities to serve the needs of tourists. Most importantly, he is very professional, knowledgeable, and quickly approaches new trends and requirements," commented a representative of a travel company specializing in the French tourist market in Hanoi. A Chu is also famous for keeping his word when for many years, he has "said no" to the style of doing tourism in a haphazard manner, suddenly increasing prices every weekend, holidays, and Tet without informing partners and tourists in advance. He said that this homestay always publicly announces prices to travel agencies 6 months in advance and keeps them the same, ensuring the same prices during the week and on weekends, while limiting surcharges for long-term customers.
From "opium barn" to tourist village Anh A Chu recalls that in the early years of tourism, the couple faced countless difficulties, even wanting to give up many times. At that time, Hua Tat village still had a drug problem. All night, the couple slept in hammocks under the stilt house, serving and looking after the guests' belongings. The long, fitful sleeps made them sick and tired all the time. "At that time, we didn't have enough money to buy a refrigerator or freezer. So on rainy or cold days, we regularly drove our motorbikes to Moc Chau town to buy food, cow's milk... from 4am. My wife stayed home to slaughter chickens and prepare breakfast," A Chu recalls. He admits that during those difficult days, the couple often had conflicts and quarrels with each other. It took them a long time to find a common voice, gradually understand and encourage each other to overcome.
Currently, his homestay has become a favorite destination for tourists. At the end of May 2022, A Chu homestay was also honored to be visited by Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh during his business trip to the Northwest. To create such a famous homestay, A Chu plays many roles at once, from receptionist, housekeeping, artist, tour guide and sometimes directly in the kitchen to cook for guests. Coming to ANH's homestay, visitors will learn about the life and lifestyle of the Mong people through activities to experience the lives of the people such as: harvesting peaches, plums, making sticky rice cakes, pounding rice, playing traditional games, farming ... A Chu also creates a space for visitors and villagers to get closer to each other through exchange and cultural activities performed by the young people in the village and A Chu and his wife. They perform traditional music, play the panpipe, Mong flute, jew's harp..., recreating traditional crafts such as beeswax painting on fabric.
Not only is he the first Mong person in Hua Tat village to pioneer community tourism, but over the years, Mr. A Chu has also guided and helped his brothers, relatives, and neighbors in the village and other villages to develop this model. Hua Tat now not only has A Chu Homestay but also A Cua, A Senh... Many youth groups in the northern mountainous provinces have come to A Chu homestay to learn. He is always ready to share his start-up experience, encourage and support them to do sustainable community tourism.
Mr. A Chu has been awarded many certificates of merit from various levels, departments and sectors as a recognition of his efforts and contributions to Van Ho tourism, Son La. Trang A Chu was also voted as one of the four typical young faces who successfully started a business in Son La. In the book "Stories about Vietnam tourism" published by the World Tourism Organization, "Homestay A Chu" is mentioned as a must-visit place, a typical eco-tourism destination. However, A Chu has never been satisfied with what he has achieved. He is still struggling with the difficulties and obstacles in developing community tourism in the locality such as policies on planning the purpose of using agricultural land, procedures and banking policies for borrowing capital to build homestays. He is also worried that many households have not really devoted themselves to tourism, still having the mentality of "wanting everything quickly". A Chu is hatching plans such as building a museum to display the daily necessities, costumes, and farming tools of the Mong people, in order to preserve and spread the cultural identity of his people.