Laos throws doors open to ‘eco tourists’
In a hilltribe settlement in the forest of northern Laos, an old man sits on the ground weaving a basket while another villager hangs out her washing to dry. It is a scene of everyday life for the Akha communities living in the Nam Ha Protected Area, where elephants, gibbons and leopards roam among giant bamboo near villages perched on the banks of a tributary of the Mekong river.
The 220,000-hectare national park is at the forefront of efforts by the landlocked, impoverished nation to become a leading eco-tourism destination — an effort that appears to be paying off. Lured by the wild beauty and cultural riches of the numerous ethnic minorities, almost 250,000 tourists visited northwest Luang Namtha province in 2010, up from 20,000 in 1999, according to the Laos tourism administration. “Compared to Thailand it is definitely a lot more authentic, better run and the fact that we were just a small group, just four people, makes it a much more genuine experience,” said 28-year-old British tourist Joe Park. “We perhaps leave less of a footprint and not too much of our own culture in the area, so I think it was fantastic,” he said during a trek inside the park.
While some ethnic villagers, such as the Lanten, still wear their indigo traditional clothes, they make no particular effort to dress up for tourists and go about their normal lives as much as possible when they come. It is the fruit of years of planning by the Communist nation to attract more foreign visitors while preserving its cultural heritage.