It
took us half a day by motorbike to reach a small waterway near Uncle Tam Be’s
home in Tuong Loc, Tam Binh District of the southern province of Vinh Long. He
was waiting for us on his boat, ready to take us to his house that he runs as a
homestay, a popular new way of visiting the country with both domestic and
foreign tourists.

Simple life: Homestay tourists in Vinh Long Province can expect a warm welcome from locals. (Photos: VNS)

His family had
prepared dinner for us, as if we were long-lost relatives, returning home after
an arduous journey.

While we washed away
the memory of the dusty road, dinner was served, featuring a variety of local
delicacies including fried red snapper, spade fish soup and chicken and banana
flower salad. They were all delicious, but I was most impressed with the carrot
porridge, the ideal dish to help you recover from a long journey.

It was a warm and
touching meal, surrounded by people who already felt like family, despite the
fact we’d only met a few hours before.

“Homestays have been
around in Vinh Long for quite a long time, but have only become popular in the
last eight years. Foreigners were the first visitors to use the facility, and
the concept spread to local people,” said Nguyen Thanh Trung, a representative
of the Robe Tam Binh Garden House.

Trung said local
people, mostly farmers, were welcoming visitors into their homes, and allowing
them to share in their everyday activities such as farming, fishing, going to
the market, cooking and of course, eating with the family.

Our hosts were happy
to share their local knowledge with us, so we could get the most out of our time
there.

We tried to help Tam
Be catch fish by bailing out a small pool, a task easier said than done. Even
though the fish did not have enough water to swim in, they still managed to
wriggle away from us as we slipped around in the mud.

The morning ended with
a several baskets full of fish and all of Tam Be’s guests caked in mud. That
afternoon, we dined on a beautiful lunch, made from the ingredients we had
caught and gathered in our host’s garden. It was the first time I had tried
gardening, and we picked a variety of local fruits, including Tam Binh oranges –
a local speciality, that Tam Be sells at the Tra On floating market. We sat in
his garden and enjoyed the fresh fruit, which to me tasted a lot sweeter than
any I had ever bought at a market.

Keep the beat: Locals perform traditional southern Dan ca tai tu music.

Tra On is 13km away to
the south of the district. It is a daily market on the Hau River that attracts
hundreds of traders, bobbing up and down on their boats trying to sell their
wares.

Visitors can hire a
boat to visit the floating market, where a variety of goods are available, but
mostly fruit. Traders advertise their produce on the end of long poles, sticking
up out of their boats like slim masts.

“It was a really new
experience for me. I was enjoying myself so much, I nearly forgot that I’m
scared of water. I tried to buy as much of the delicious produce as possible,
even though our boat was moving up and down and I was in danger of falling into
the river,” said visitor Nguyen Tu Phuong.

Phuong arrived with a
couple from Australia who also expressed how much they were enjoying the tour.

“The people here are
really friendly. They teach me to cook, make tea and speak Vietnamese. I enjoy
the local cooking immensely. It is difficult to cook but delicious. And also the
language, it’s difficult to speak but I like it and have learnt some words,”
said Amanda Westwood.

The trio visited An
Binh islet in An Binh Commune for two days, which was enough for them to learn
how to wrap traditional cakes and listen to the dan ca tai tu (talent music
performance), performed by a group of artists who gather together once a week to
practise.

“In the past, tour
companies set up homestay programmes in northern provinces such as Hoa Binh and
Lao Cai. To give travellers more options, we decided to set up similar
programmes in southern destinations like Vinh Long,” said Nguyen Minh Quyen,
deputy director of the Ben Thanh Tourist Company.

“The daily life of the
southern people is an attractive aspect here. Our customers are especially keen
on travelling by boat, visiting handicraft villages and making traditional cakes
with the local residents,” said Quyen whose company receives more than 3,000
customers per year.

Vu Thanh Minh, a tour
guide, said homestays were a form of sustainable tourism which suited the
multi-cultural Viet Nam, helping them to introduce and promote different
cultures and landscapes to foreigners while narrowing the
gap between Vietnamese people from different areas.

However, Trung, who
organises tours to Robe Tam Binh, said although demand for homestays in Vinh
Long was high, they had been forced to temporarily postpone the service.

“In order to improve
the tours, provincial leaders have set rules on food safety and hygiene among
others. It’s a good decision but creates difficulties for us because many home
owners cannot meet the new standards,” Trung said.

“The standards have
been set too high for us. We will have to withdraw many of the activities on our
tour because of the new rules, which will detract from the whole experience,” he
added.

My group, Phuong and
her friends were lucky because we had the chance to live as real residents of
Vinh Long, even if it was only for a short time. I’ll have happy memories of my
time there, and Tam Be, who presented us with a large basket of fruit as we said
goodbye.

VietNamNet/Viet
Nam News