Mr Phung, a resident in Giao Xuan Village in Nam Dinh Province explains the fi sh sauce making process to tourists - Photo: Van Nam

From Hanoi, tourists can go in groups of twenty people in a 29-seat car with each person only paying VND600,000 for the two-way transport cost. Budget travelers can take a coach from Giap Bat coach station in Hanoi straight to Giao Xuan Village for just VND70,000 each. Along the roads leading to the eco-village, tourists can enjoy rice fields and green gardens along the National Road 21 towards the east.

“Giao Xuan Village now has 21 families who can accommodate tourists during their trip here and the homestay services create an income of some VND800,000 for each family,” said Phung Thi Thin, chairwoman of the village’s Cooporative of Community Tourism.

‘Homestay services’ explains Phung, is the best choice for local people to live on without overexploiting the natural resources such as seashell, shrimp as well as improving the environmental condition of the village.

The village started its ‘community tourism’ in April 2006 with only some simple projects like fish sauce production, worm breeding, seashell breeding, and renovating the gardens to make temporary sleeping places for the birds living in the Xuan Thuy national park, which is some 10 kilometers from the village.

“Next year, the cooperative will help develop five more houses having enough facilities to be ‘typical homestays’ so we can receive more tourists because numbers of visitors are increasing these days,” Phung adds.

Giao Xuan is traditionally a farming village, located in Xuan Thuy National Park in Nam Dinh Province. The growing number of ecotourists has prompted local people to build new cement roads, reorganize their livelihoods and develop a new respect for the environment.

Tran Thi Phuong, who used to be a farmer in Giao Xuan village, now has six years of experience as a tourist guide and says she loves her job because she earns more money and learns more about life.

She said the village now has three main teams to provide for community tourists,  offering a traditional music band, homestay houses and tourist guides.

“When I decided to change my job, from farmer to a tourist guide, I and my team joined a tourism class in Hanoi. However, I soon felt happy with my new job because it helps me improve my knowledge,” Phuong told the Daily while she guides a media group from HCMC and Hanoi to view a local house making very good fish sauce in the village.

On the small path leading to another house in the village, the group could smell the fish sauce. It came from the house of Mr Phung –  who has spent nearly forty years making fish sauce from the local catch.  

Phung said his sauce, which has a strong traditional salty taste,  earns him around VND200 million each year, partly thanking to the increasing number of tourists coming to the village.

His yard contains nine large troughs, each filled with 1.8 tons of fish and 200 kilograms of salt. “After nearly eight months, the mixed component will give some 600 liters of fish sauce”, he said while opening one of the covers and releasing a pungent fish smell.

Before saying goodbye to this old fish sauce maker, some of the group bought some products as gifts to their friends after the trip.

The media group were in the village as guests of Ecolife Eco-service Company Limited, a social enterprise providing work for the community in ecotourism. It is one of a growing number of social enterprises, business models that priorities their social role over making profits, that are spreading across Vietnam.