Lan Xi A Hamlet is cradled by karst mountains and threaded with valleys and farms.
The houses climb the hillside in tiers, one or two stories tall, their walls made of soil in the H'Mong trinh-tuong style. Each home sits a little higher than the one below, tucked between rows of fir trees.
All 83 households in the hamlet are H'Mong. Their lives are shaped by the fields, and their daily customs unchanged over generations.
Vang Mi Po, the hamlet's Party Secretary and its sole operator of tourism, has converted his house into a homestay. But guests are a rare sight, with only 10 visitors passing through in a month.
One of his two houses serves as the homestay. Since there are not many guests, his family still lives there. He has noticed guests feel more comfortable with some privacy, and plans to move out once business picks up.
Dong Van District once planned tourism development in Lan Xi, but the plans were shelved after last year’s provincial mergers. With little information available, most visitors to nearby Pho Bang Commune turn back, never knowing Lan Xi A exists.
One house, more than 40 years old, clings to a steep hillside, its walls worn by time. The villagers are welcoming, though few speak Vietnamese. When visitors ask to look inside, they smile and open the door without hesitation.
Thao Thi Tung, 86, has lived in her 45-year-old home her entire life. The door is just a wooden plank and is never locked. She can no longer work the fields though in this hamlet it is not unusual to see H'Mong women farming into their nineties.
Po believes homes like hers could become an asset if the hamlet develops tourism.
Authorities have encouraged residents to keep their rammed-earth houses. The yin-yang tile roofs are no longer widely used since skilled craftsmen are hard to find, but about 90% of homes still keep their original form. Only a few have switched to cement-block roofing.
In a house lit by a single bulb, Va Chia Dinh, at 88, the hamlet's oldest resident, lives alone and sticks to the old H'Mong way of life. Each morning he puts on traditional clothes and cooks three meals of rice from scratch, avoiding modern foods like instant noodles and pho.
His home has two hearths: one for boiling animal feed, the other for daily cooking. He keeps an oil lamp that is lit only from Lunar New Year’s Eve to the third night of the Lunar New Year, as tradition requires.
Po says village tourism works only when the community moves together. Households can run homestays, while others continue farming, raising cattle and selling produce. Visitors would experience not just a place to stay, but everyday life.
"This place has everything it needs from forests to culture. Whether tourism succeeds here comes down to whether everyone pulls in the same direction."
