Dac Lua Homestay

 Cat Tien National Park has partnered with the adjacent farming village of Dac Lua to provide two homestay options for tourists. Both offer simple and clean lodging in traditional style homes, and the chance to have meals with your hosts AND see some interesting agriculture projects.

We visited both projects yesterday and I was sorry to hear that they have not been getting any visitors. This is probably because booking information is not available on line;I will work with the CTNP staff this week to fix this (or at least make it easy to find on line). It is currently possible to call the homestay hosts on the phone, but unless you are already in Vietnam and speak Vietnamese, this is not accessible to most people. I think this activity would be most interesting to foreigners over 30 who are interested in food and conservation and generally meeting new people to learn about their lives.

Each homestay can host up to 5-6 people, depending on sleeping arrangements, for around $10 per person per night (200,000 VND); meals are a little extra ($1.5-$4). The guest beds are together in one room (it is currently unlikely that you'd be asked to share with people outside your group since tourists are extremely rare); the bathrooms are modern with flush toilets and hot water showers.

The first farm relies primary on raising silk worms; visitors can help collect the special leaves that the silk worms eat and learn about the whole silk process. There is a silk spinning facility in the village but I did not get a good look at it.  The house also keeps chickens and has cashew trees; it’s surrounded by rice fields (and other crops) and has pretty views of the forested hills on the edge of the Park.

The second homestay is situated in a gorgeous flower garden, and the hosts grow porcupines, pigeons and chickens, all for food (some for family consumption and some for sale to restaurants).  

With both homestays you have plenty of time for walking or biking the area and checking things out. People don’t really speak much English here so be prepared to smile a lot and rely on body language.

My suggestion for doing either homestay is to contact the Cat Tien National Park EcoTourism Center via email (cattien_nationalpark@yahoo.com) with the dates of your proposed visit, number of people in your group, etc, and ask them to make your reservations.  From the Park Headquarters, I would rent a bike for 3 days and bike the 17 km along the park road to Dac Lua Village. Make sure you get a map or something so you know where to go in Dac Lua. The road is paved for only about the first 5 km. Take your time on the bike and look out for monkeys, birds and lizards. A French woman told me she saw 2 gaur on this road! 

I would spend to nights at the same homestay and then bike back to the park, taking lots of time for photos, looking around at the various interesting ag projects, and of course having a traditional Vietnamese afternoon nap every day. This would be a good “add on” to more popular/well known Cat Tien activities like hiking to Crocodile Lake and the early morning Wild Gibbon Tour . There is a lot to do here!

If you don't want to bike, of course you could walk each direction, or hire one of the park vehicles to drive you to and from Dac Lua.

In case you are wondering why Cat Tien National Park is partnering on this project, it is because poverty, subsistence agriculture, and illegal use of the protected forest are all serious threats to conservation inside the park.  The more economic options available for the local people, the less they will be pressured to squeeze the protected forest and wild animals.  

Your $10 per night will be well spent in the village, and you’ll definitely have an experience that is missed by most tourists. I wish the Dac Lua Homestay project all the luck in the world- thank you for opening your homes and farms to me, David, and our short course participants!