Ban Mong Hot Springs

Three kilometers from the center of Sơn La city, a Thái village keeps pools of warm mineral water. Sơn La is not the first place people think of when they look for a hot soak. Yet this village is doing exactly that, and doing it quite well.

The village is Bản Mòng, in Hua La commune. The Thái are one of Vietnam's ethnic groups, and Sơn La is one of the provinces where they mainly live. Bản Mòng is presented as a community tourism spot, with mineral baths, Thái food and a space for local culture. It also appears among the community tourism products of Sơn La city.

The water is only part of the story here. The model here comes from the families themselves. They invested their own money. They built the bathing pools, repaired the dining houses and opened homestays. Then they set up a club for the cultures of the different ethnic groups, and a Thái xòe club, so they could share their culture with visitors. This is community tourism in the truest sense. No outside company runs it. The villagers themselves own the space where they live and where they welcome guests.

An afternoon here goes like this. A visitor soaks the feet, or the whole body, in a warm pool. Then comes a Thái meal of stream fish, wild bamboo shoots and local greens. With luck, a group arrives on the right day and can watch the village club perform xòe.

Xòe is a traditional dance of the Thái people of the northwest. In 2021, UNESCO inscribed the art of Thái xòe on its list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. Watching it here means meeting a heritage that the community has kept alive through many generations.

The provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism has placed Bản Mòng on the province's route of hot-spring resorts. So this is not a bathing spot that grew up by chance. It is part of the local tourism plan, and the people are the ones taking charge of the land where they were born.

From the warm water, a bather can look out at the familiar stilt houses and hear xòe music drifting from the head of the village. The northwest has far-off mountain peaks, and it also has warm, friendly corners like this one.