Discover Hua Muong

Hua Muong is located at the foot of the Truong Son mountain range. On the other side of the mountains lies neighboring Laos. For hundreds of years, it has been home to the Thai people, belonging to the Tay Thanh group. Before being renamed Long Thang, Hua Muong, along with the neighboring Na Xai village, was collectively known as Muong Dan, belonging to the former Hanh Dich commune, Que Phong district.

For about 10 years now, Hua Muong has emerged as a new tourist destination in the mountainous region of Nghe An. Besides its scenic beauty and traditional stilt house lifestyle, Hua Muong also boasts the Seven-Tier Waterfall, making it an exciting summer destination.

Thanks to investments in transportation infrastructure, access to the village is now much easier than before. Even so, the residents still maintain their old way of life, living in stilt houses, eating sticky rice, and speaking the Thai language. Women, especially the elderly, still wear traditional clothing in their daily lives.

Currently, there are two households in Hua Muong operating homestays. The majority of tourists visit during the summer and holidays. On weekdays, the homestays serve as places for rest and recreation. Thanks to the development of household economies such as livestock farming, agriculture, and small-scale trading, many families now own sturdy stilt houses and have been able to purchase cars.

To stimulate tourism, some homestay owners and local Thai people have recently organized cultural exchanges. During one such exchange, I met groups of Thai people from different regions of Nghe An, including a group from Con Cuong (formerly) with over 30 participants. Nevertheless, the agricultural economy remains the primary focus.

Mr. Lo Van Thuyen (60 years old), a relatively well-off household in Hua Muong, owns a spacious stilt house and a farm on the mountain. He shared: "The majority of people here still depend on agriculture. But thanks to the State's economic policies, many households have escaped poverty." Meanwhile, Mr. Lo Van Thang (30 years old), a skilled carpenter in the village, has also built a sturdy stilt house himself. Mr. Thang is also one of the households starting out in the homestay business.

"As a young person, I think I need to make more effort in economic development. I need to be more proactive and develop a multi-occupational household economy because tourism currently doesn't provide a stable income," Anh Thắng shared.

Besides farming and tourism development, the people of Hua Muong still maintain the craft of brocade weaving and traditional Thai folk songs and musical instruments, both to serve tourism and for cultural activities within the community. The brocade skirts of the Thai people in Hua Muong have certain similarities with the clothing of the Tay Thanh group of Thai people in other areas of Nghe An and Thanh Hoa provinces.

Today, Hua Muong still preserves many indigenous cultural features of the Thai ethnic group, from traditional stilt houses and the sound of looms weaving brocade to the slow pace of life amidst the mountains of Pu Hoat. These are the values ​​that create the enduring charm of Hua Muong, so that each person, upon leaving the village, still carries with them the feeling of having just passed through a peaceful realm of memories in the vast wilderness.