Nam Khat’s community tourism opportunities

Nam Khat during the harvest season

Nam Khat, a vast valley

We had an opportunity to visit Nam Khat during the harvest and rainy seasons, the area’s most beautiful times of the year. For example, during the rice harvesting, Nam Khat looks like putting on a long and bright yellow coat made of ripe rice fields lined with streams and spotted with Mong women who rapidly walk across rustic wooden bridges. This pristine and peaceful beauty gives Nam Khat a distinctive look from the panorama of magnificent terraced fields in Mu Cang Chai.

We came back Nam Khat in late October when winter began and were eager for the piece of news that commune was scheduled to open a new community tour, with a view to help local people escape poverty while make the commune a popular tourist destination like Sa Pa in Lao Cai Province. The way to Nam Khat winds through a deserted forest of green pines whispering in the wind. However, when we arrived in the center of the commune, we felt the lively atmosphere especially in Nam Khat valley where Mong people, young and old, were hoeing, shoveling and excavating the soil in preparation for the winter 2015-spring 2016 wheat crop.

According to Nam Khat Commune’s Party Secretary Thao A Sinh, Nam Khat is one of especially difficult communes in Yen Bai Province, with 94 percent of the population being Mong people and a poverty rate of more than 50 percent. Thanks to state investment in recent time, it has become the best in terms of infrastructure among 24 communes in Mu Cang Chai District. Currently, Nam Khat has a covered road system through which cars can enter almost all villages in the commune, seven of its nine villages have had power supplied, many schools have been upgraded or newly built, health centers have met the 2010 targets, a 2,500sq.m market has been built and more than 82 percent of the population have access to clean water.

Nam Khat alive in winter-spring crop

Thao A Sinh took us to Hua Khat Village which had been selected to pilot the new community tour while said, “Nam Khat has suitable climate for resort tours. In addition to Hua Khat, the commune has many other interesting destinations for tourists including Hang La Cave in Pu Cang Village. These natural advantages have been discovered and have been considered as means to help local people escape poverty. The commune has launched a commune-level awareness raising campaign to encourage local people to be hygienic and preserve and develop their cultural identity.”

Along the entrance to the Hua Khat Village grew peach trees with early blooms. Hua Khat Village’s Party Secretary Thao Sinh Chu welcomed us heartily and led us to visit the traditional wooden houses nestled on the hillside. “We are happy to hear that our village has been selected as the first to pilot tourism community tour in the district, which is a good piece of news for villagers who want to improve their lives through promoting traditional occupations. However, we are wondering how to do and do not know when this plan is implemented,” he said While we took a panoramic view of traditional brown houses across the hills immersed in the valley.

According to Vice Chairman of the Mu Cang Chai People’s Committee Giang A Vu, in order to develop community tourism in Hua Khat, the first step is to change local people’s attachment to generations of rice cultivation to doing tourism. This is almost a great challenge which is time consuming and requires great determination from the local government and people.

The sun began to set behind the mountain as Thao A Sinh led us back to the center of the commune while saying, “We expect Nam Khat to soon become an attractive tourist destination and local people to thrive on community tourism development.”

Hoa Quynh