No more haggling on the way up Chua Chan mountain

People walking up Chua Chan mountain. Photo: D.Phu

Unlike the summer tourist season of previous years, the shops along the road to Chua Chan mountain are no longer crowded and bustling, but quiet and deserted.

"People have left the mountain to find a way to make a living," said Ms. Nam Luu, who has been doing business in the mountain for more than 30 years.

Many shops are closed

At 8am on Saturday (June 14), the parking lots at the foot of Chua Chan Mountain (in Xuan Truong Commune, Xuan Loc District) were deserted, with no invitations or solicitations for customers to park their vehicles like before. Mr. Ba Hung (who has been parking at the foot of the mountain for more than 20 years) said that most tourists choose to go up the mountain by cable car, so few people use the road now. Therefore, parking and business services are very sluggish.

“Down here, there are still a few people trying to do business. Up above, almost all the shops are closed,” said Mr. Ba Hung.

After parking our car, we chose to walk up the steps leading up the mountain. Each step up the mountain was exactly as Mr. Ba Hung had said, and the two sides of the path were no longer lined with shops selling souvenirs, cakes, drinks, and offerings like a few years ago.

Ms. Hai Kha, a vendor at the three-root banyan tree, said that there are not many visitors going up the mountain and visiting the pagoda by foot anymore, and they rarely buy goods or eat while climbing the mountain. Therefore, in the past few years, business has been sluggish, so people selling on both sides of the road have closed their shops one by one, looking for ways to leave the mountain to make a living because they cannot stand the prolonged hardship.

Some roadside vendors said that when the cable car line had not yet been built and put into use, there were many people living on Chua Chan mountain, with over 200 households, creating a bustling scene of shops and restaurants; electricity was pulled up from the foothills and run by water turbines day and night; along with the constant sound of music, television, footsteps, and conversations of pedestrians. Now everything is completely different, many shops are closed, only a few vendors remain and tourists quietly walk past the vendors' invitations...

“Recently, local authorities have regularly propagandized people along the road to Chua Chan mountain to do business in an orderly manner, not solicit tourists and not engage in superstitious activities or begging,” said LUONG MINH TAN, Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Xuan Truong commune (Xuan Loc district).

Return the silence

In the 1980s and 1990s, the road to Chua Chan Mountain was still wild, but the population living along both sides of the road was quite dense, with dozens of households. On holidays, festivals, and Tet, pilgrims went up the mountain to sightsee and visit the pagoda in great numbers. Therefore, the shops on both sides were quite busy and provided services such as carrying goods and offerings to the pagoda, etc.

According to some tourists to Chua Chan Mountain, it is true that currently the road to Chua Chan Mountain does not have many shops, inviting and attracting tourists, temporary and shabby living as before, but there are still beggars, people wearing blue shirts begging for alms, asking tourists for money during holidays and Tet. The local government needs to continue to rectify to restore the original quiet and wildness of Chua Chan Mountain.

Mr. Ut Nhot, who has been living on the mountain for nearly 40 years, said that in 2009, poor people from all over the country started to flock to Chua Chan mountain to set up tents, and there were up to 200 households selling goods. Just like that, the shops were next to each other from the foot of the mountain up to Buu Quang pagoda and from then on, many new jobs appeared such as: frying bananas, making pancakes; selling traditional medicine, wild honey, wild bananas... to tourists.

“At that time, because of the thriving business and the large number of pilgrims, there was often a lot of haggling and fighting over customers among the vendors on the mountain. Now the road up the mountain is sparsely populated, business is sluggish and the fighting over customers no longer exists,” Mr. Ut Nhót confided.

Mr. Bay Sang, who has lived at the foot of Chua Chan Mountain for nearly 30 years, recalls memories of 10 years ago, when the number of pilgrims to Chua Chan Mountain was high, to attract customers, shop owners often hired 1-2 people on motorbikes to wait at Suoi Cat or Bao Dinh intersections, 15-20km from the road to the temple, to "intercept" the pilgrimage buses. This force is often called "temple brokers", and can be locals or people from other places. When there is a bus going to visit the temple, the "temple brokers" immediately rev their engines to follow the bus. To maintain security and order for pilgrims, local authorities have to take action to eliminate "temple brokers", beggars, superstitions, etc.

The story Mr. Bay Sang told is now a thing of the past. Nowadays, on the way up to Chua Chan mountain, many shops are closed because of poor business. It is very difficult to find people who carry goods for tourists, let alone the scene of fighting for customers. We stopped at the slope of the 3-root banyan tree for a while before seeing a young man (named Ti) carrying some goods on his back going up the mountain. We can easily distinguish the people carrying goods from the people living on the mountain because the calves of the people carrying the goods are big, strong, and muscular. Mr. Ti said that a few years ago, on a slow day, he would carry 5-6 loads of goods up the mountain. The goods he carried up and down the mountain were: rice, ice, groceries, vegetables, etc. The load was sometimes heavy.
40-50kg with wages from 100-120 thousand dong.

"Now I sit at the foot of the mountain waiting from morning to evening, some days there is no one to rent, thinking about it makes me sad" - Mr. Ti confided.

Shops selling Chua Chan mountain specialties are deserted.

On June 10, at the 28th Session (special session), the 10th Provincial People's Council, the Provincial People's Council delegates voted to approve the Resolution on the task of planning the construction zoning at a scale of 1/2,000 of the functional area on the top of Chua Chan Mountain. The Chua Chan Mountain area is planned with a scale of about 250 hectares to develop the Chua Chan Mountain area into a unique tourist center in terms of culture, spirituality, entertainment and eco-tourism. The specific goal of the project is to synchronously build commercial functions, accommodation tourism, high-class resorts to serve scientific research tourism activities, nature, ecological environment... to attract and develop tourism. In addition, the project also aims to preserve and embellish historical and cultural relics.

When we asked the people who are still clinging to Chua Chan mountain to do business, we got a frank answer from them. Although they still felt some regret, they all accepted the departure to make way for a modern, bright tourist area.

“When the cable car of Chua Chan Mountain Cable Car Tourist Area had not yet been built, the number of households living on the mountain to do business was very large, up to more than 200 households. Although the land did not have a “red book”, to have a spacious place to do business on both sides of the road up the mountain, some people had to transfer tens to hundreds of millions of dong. Now people have locked their doors, closed their shops and left the mountain to make a living elsewhere” - Ms. MUOI THUY (a trader on Chua Chan Mountain) said.

Doan Phu

Source: https://baodongnai.com.vn/xa-hoi/202506/het-canh-cheo-keo-tren-duong-len-nui-chua-chan-8941394/