In the highlands of Tay Giang, Quang Nam Province - the western province bordering Laos, Pôloong Plenh- an officer of the Tay Giang District Culture and Information Department is known for his role as the person who connects tourists with the spectacular beauty of nature, culture as well as interesting and impressive cuisine of Co Tu village. However, this place has been empty of foreign friends and adventurers who love to explore the great mountains due to the COVID-19 surge and natural disasters.

In the traditional tray of rice gathering together under the duong hut (choi duong) of Por'ning village, Lang Commune, Tay Giang District, leaves such as banana leaves become substitutes for cups, plates and trays. That's how Poloong Plenh chose to "live with nature" with old emotions about the way of life of his ancestors in the past. It’s not too fussy but enough for visitors to push away the noise of daily life to feel a strange experience in the natural space of the forest mother, where there is no phone signal, no electricity.

Before the resurgence of the COVID-19 pandemic, guol, moong (Co Tu community house); duong huts, or waterfalls... are all on the list of visitors every time they come back here.

“I want to keep what is most natural, restore and preserve the oldest cultural values of my forefathers. It is also a way to promote, introduce and form "nature-oriented" tours that are popular with tourists. However, it's been two years since we haven't received any visitors because of the complicated and prolonged COVID-19. Therefore, the tourism projects in the mountainous areas, which have just been formed, have shown signs of fading ", Ploong Plenh confided.

These days, the villagers of Pơr'ning are busy with the roofing work of the Guol house to prepare for the Tet holiday. In addition to the purpose of preserving traditional culture, Guol house is also used as an accommodation for visitors. The idea of upgrading and making use of the traditional stilt house space of the villagers for visitors’ homestay accommodations of Mr Poloong Pnhanh has aimed to bring a place to rest and relax for tourists, and at the same time contribute more income to the local people.

After many years of operation, the model of community tourism in the village of Por'ning has welcomed thousands of tourists to visit and learn about the unique culture of the Co Tu people in the legendary Truong Son mountain range.

Poloong Plenh (fourth, left) on an occasion to bring tourists to visit the former pomu forest complex.

Poloong Plenh hopes this year will have the opportunity to welcome tourists to visit the village. He has prepared enough homestay space, attractions for tourists to explore the architecture of the village, the ecological forest in the middle of the jungle since Tay Giang could not be without tourists. They are the "messengers" transmitting the fastest and most effective images of the village and locals of the highlands.

According to Plenh, in Quang Nam, there is no mountainous locality with more potential for tourism development than Tay Giang. Not only has many beautiful waterfalls spreading along with the communes from highland to lowland, Tay Giang also attracts tourists and businesses by traditional cultural values as well as a bunch of unique products

In addition, Quang Nam is also the only locality that preserves rare Pomu forest complex and Iron-wood (Lim) forests with thousands of ancient trees recognized as heritage trees; especially the population of azaleas, Ga Ry oranges are gradually becoming a new brand for Tay Giang in attracting tourism investment.

Moreover, local delicacies here are not too sophisticated to cook with most of them being prepared according to traditional methods such as grilling in tubes to bring a strange yet also familiar taste in the way Polong Plenh wants visitors to experience.

As shared by Mr Avery Blui, Vice Chairman of Tay Giang District People's Committee, the locality has recently been directed to develop experiential tourism associated with forest ecology. This is considered a new direction to help stimulate potential service demand, which is considered a lot of advantages for Tay Giang and neighboring mountainous localities.

The highland in this season has a wind blowing against the foot of the mountain, bringing a cold feeling like early morning dew. The story of "green tourism" in the mountains budding after the efforts of the community but could not last due to the pandemic and natural disasters. Therefore, connected people like Polong Plenh can only mournfully pray that the COVID-19 will end soon, natural disasters will be less raging so that they can restore the community "green tourism" model. They miss visitors, and they are waiting for the return of happy days like before

Reporting by KHANH NGUYEN- Translating by T.VY