Tel. +44 (0)1273 600030 (UK)
Environment
Halong Bay cruise: The junk’s environmental project takes place in Vung Vieng fishing village, where many families live. The campaign is to encourage local people and nearby businesses to collect litter and protect the appearance and ecology at a community level. On the day the campaign was launched, 50 rubbish bins were given to families living in this village. More importantly, the project focuses on education and communication in hopes that all the locals will soon realize the benefit of conservation.
Community
In addition to environmental issues, they are working hard in seeking support to help build schools and create job opportunities for the local people here. A community house in Vung Vieng fishing village was built in order to accommodate tourists and provide local people with jobs.
Mai Chau Lodge involved the local community in its initial planning stages, and hires only from the hill tribes of this region, providing them with language, hospitality training & opportunity. Mai Chau Lodge was built with local materials and its restaurant serves food that is grown in the local region. Locals are also given employment through presenting traditional dance performances, which in turn help to preserve and keep alive cultural traditions.
This is a private tour so group size is kept to a small number so as not to be too intrusive on the local villages. We provide income to local families and villages by using their homes for accommodation. All our guides (and cook on the trek) are locals.
All guests are emailed our Responsible Travel guidelines policy prior to travel and guides are also fully trained in this. We donate to many local charities, such as funding a nutrition program at Binh Luc Orphanage and sponsoring an annual trip to Halong Bay for underprivileged disabled children & their families from ‘Blue Dragon’. We hold an annual medical trek with local & international doctors and medical students into the hill tribes of Northern Vietnam, and organise many volunteer projects such as building wells & housing in Agent Orange affected communities and teaching English.
We invite every traveller who books a holiday via us to send in a review. Because we don't run the holidays they're completely independent and unedited... remember to read between the lines though, as two people on the same holiday can have different views!
