Activity: Vietnam Quilts (now also named: Mekong-Quilts)
Location: Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi, Phnom Penh, Siem Reap
Tip: Take a magazine or some pictures along if you’d like a made-to-order quilt
By purchasing a handmade cotton quilt you help support rural Khmer and Vietnamese women. Regular income from quilting allows them to stay in their village with their children and dependents.
Training and reliable income
The experience: Belgian-French NGO, Mekong Plus, has turned quilting circles into a way to employ groups of rural Cambodian and Vietnamese women while
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Haivenu
Location: Hanoi and Northern Vietnam
Tip: Be ready to rough it
Two-week expeditions take tourists, who are willing to do without comforts, for a memorable experience to seldom-visited ethnic minority villages.
A Haivenu ethnic girl
The experience: For visitors willing to take that extra step to experience ethnic minority villages and immerse themselves in their culture, Haivenu veers away from the usual tourist routes and into the thick of Vietnam.
Among its tailor-made packages, Haivenu presents what it calls “Unusual Tours” that aren’t for “softies”.
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: BikeHike Adventures
Location: Hanoi and Northern Vietnam
Tip: Be in moderately good shape for biking the hills
Pedal, walk and paddle your way through northern Vietnam for a closer look at various ethnic groups.
Sea kayaking
The experience: BikeHike Adventures offers a 12-day multi-sport tour that explores the country’s north on mountain bikes, by foot and aboard sea kayaks. Vietnamese guides lead small groups of between two and 12 on a circuit that stops in Sapa, Bah Ha and Lao Cai. Extensions are available to Hoi An in the
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Craft Link handicrafts
Location: Dong Da district, Hanoi
Tip: There is a Craft Link outlet in the Museum of Ethnology
Browse for crafts created by a diverse group of Vietnamese ethic minorities in a shop once visited by former US President Bill Clinton.
Hmong embroidery
The experience: Craft Link was established in 1996 as a non-profit organisation to provide ethnic minorities and the disadvantaged with the chance to earn a fair wage and keep their culture alive through crafts.
Visitors to Craft Links Hanoi shops on Van Mieu Street
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Buffalo Tours
Location: Mai Chau, Hoa Binh province
Tip: Cyclists should be in good condition
Award-winning Buffalo Tours pioneered low-impact treks and cycle trips in Mai Chau. Volunteer projects and homestays build authentic cultural exchanges between visitors and villagers.
Finding the right balance
The experience: Buffalo Tours began taking tourists off the beaten track in the mid 1990s, providing those searching for an authentic experience with two-way cultural exchanges at local communities. Since then, Buffalo Tours has established a tight bond with grass-roots residents and ethnic minorities.
Buffalo Tours
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Sapa Tourism Information and Promotion Centre (TIPC of Sapa)
Location: 2 Fansipan Street, Sapa Town
Tip: The centre has good information on voluntourism and home stays
Take advantage of a not-for-profit information centre in Sapa to plan your accommodation and trips to the surrounding mountains.
Cultural Exchanges
The experience: With Sapa rising as the hub for travel in northwest Vietnam, the government decided to fund the Sapa Tourism Information and Promotion Centre (TIPC of Sapa), which opened in 2003. The objective of the non-profit centre is to disseminate
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Saigon-Mytho Toserco tours
Location: My Tho City, Tien Giang Province in the Mekong Delta region
Tip: Durians are too pungent to take back to your hotel or on a flight
Learn about the durian, rambutan, dragon fruit and star apple cultivation while sampling the products and meeting fruit farmers in their plantations.
Learn to make Leaf Cake
The experience: Saigon-Mytho Toserco is located in the My Tho Dai Pho area, or Cho Cu, formerly well known as one of the three largest commercial centres in Vietnam’s south, and
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Pacific Discovery tours
Location: Throughout Vietnam
Tip: If you want to see Vietnam through a tour bus window, these tours are not for you
This New Zealand operator keeps group sizes small, uses local transport and keeps group sizes to under 12.
Fanispan summit
The experience: After years of working for tour companies, Scott Burnett and Rachel Sanson envisioned a way to operate tours that ensured a better outcome for communities that tour groups visited and a lower impact on the environment. They established Pacific Discovery in
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Tokyo Trading & Tourist
Location: A Luoi and Nam Dong Districts in Thua Thien Hue province
Tip: Purchase Catu brocade as it is very rare
Take a deep forest trip with a company that has secured permission to visit remote ethnic villages and remnant war areas in Thua Thien Hue province.
A Nam Dong dance
The experience: Tokyo Trading & Tourist has been operating trekking and village tours in central Vietnam’s Thua Thien Hue Province since 1996, and continues to dedicate its efforts solely in
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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Activity: Mekong Horizon sampan trips
Location: Cai Be’s Phu An Hamlet in the Mekong Delta
Tip: Bring binoculars for mangrove bird and wildlife spotting
Discover quiet corners of the Mekong delta in comfortable sampans that sail in the opposite direction of mass tourism.
On the Cai Be Princess
The experience:Established in 2005 by Nguyen Nhu Ngoc, wife of the CEO of one of Southeast Asia’s leading tour operators, Mekong Horizon operates cruises away from mass tourist destinations in the Mekong Delta on board self-designed locally-built sampans.
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Category: What to Do in Vietnam
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