For tourists visiting Hoa Binh and want to make their vacation truly memorable, taking a homestay tour at Mai Hich Commune may be an experience they will hold special for the rest of their lives.

Mai Hich Commune is located in the Northern Province of Hoa Binh, about 160 kilometers from Hanoi. It has rich forests, majestic mountains, and lush farms, among others, a generally spectacular landscape and quiet means of living that tourists always long for.

Taking a homestay tour includes several activities. First of all, the guests are greeted by their hosts with such warmth and hospitality one may never find anywhere else in the world. Dressed in traditional costumes and welcoming faces, the visitors are welcomed with a traditional tea that makes them feel at home right away.

Homestay guests are treated to mountain crabs, a local delicacy at Mai Hich. Mountain crabs live in mountain caves and holes and can be found only in this region. They are best caught before dawn when it's still dark because as soon as the sun rises, these small creatures hide deeply into their homes. Crickets and insects are used as bait to catch mountain crabs, their favorite food.

A trip to the “ghost forest” is another homestay tour activity guests will find exciting and memorable. The term is what locals use to call their graveyard, which is different from any other in that each grave is built as a mini-house with stilts. New graves are laden with food and farm tools as offering to their loved ones who have recently passed away.

For those who want to get a little workout while vacationing at the same time, the Long Cave may be a good exercise. 200 meters long, it's a 10-minute climb up stone steps. The cave is filled with many bats, an adventure tourists will definitely find exciting.

Banh oc is a gastronomical experience not many guests may find very pleasing, at first that is. It's a snail-shaped cake, made from glutinous rice and black beans. It is steamed, flavored with black sesame and white salt, and covered in banana leaves until it takes the shape of a snail. It may look unpleasing at first, but especially for hungry visitors who have gone through a whole day of adventure, it becomes a delicious treat.

A trip to the Xia Stream is one experience tourists will find liberating. At first sight, it seems frightful with young men steering seemingly frail and undependable rafts made of bamboo trunks. But once they discover that the simple, homemade watercrafts are actually unsinkable, and seeing the crystal clear water and beautiful forest along the way, the ride becomes a much-anticipated one, even worth taking a second trip at.

At night, a performance of traditional music played by the locals becomes a celebration of unity as well wherein the tourists are not made mere spectators at the show, but encouraged to take part in the performances themselves, thereby merging what is different and what is familiar into one entity celebrating culture and life itself. Through the whole activity, tourists and locals alike drink ruou can, wine drunk through pipes.

Homestay service had become a dying economy at Mai Hich. But through the mutual efforts of the Centre for Community Health and Development and tourism sector from HCM City-based Comtour Company, homestay tours have become a growing economy again. Today, farmers work as tour guides, cooks and performers, all trained to provide professional yet warm service to their guests. Homestay tours bring nothing but goodness to Mai Hich, creating additional jobs and income to local residents, promoting tourism, and perhaps most importantly, preserving its traditional culture, bringing different worlds together in a one-of-a-kind adventure and truly lasting memory.