Responsible Tourism and birthday in Hanoi

We arrived in Hanoi about a week ago. The rest of our traveling crew has already been here for the past 4 weeks now, so they have done quite a lot in and around Hanoi. For us, we are just warming up to this place. So far we have been catching up on work post India trip, tried a bunch of different Vietnamese food other than Bahn Mi and Pho (the two Vietnamese things most popular in America) and had a few days scouting for Pikkabox.

On Gaurabh’s birthday, which was day 2 in Hanoi, we made a trip to rural Vietnam with Bloom Microventures. Their business model combines responsible tourism with microfinance. It’s quite simple, they give microcredits/small loans to women of rural Vietnam who want to start a business. This money comes from what you pay them as a tourist. For your money, you get to meet the woman who will get the loan, interact with her, meet her family, spend some time in her house, help her with some farming activities, etc. We met Ms. Nguyên Thi Nga and learnt how she wants to grow her Pig sty farm. We saw the pigs, made Bahn Troi (a sticky rice dumpling filled with sugarcane rock candy and sprinkled with roasted sesame seeds) and saw the farm where she grows cassava (a starchy root that is used to make tapioca). We then went to a local restaurant in the village, also funded by Bloom, for lunch and saw a dance performance by the village folk. This was probably the most touristy part of the experience, the dance followed by the tractor ride. But when you go in a group, you take the fun with you. So we made fun of each other as we fumbled while dancing and created our own photo ops on the tractor ride. Regardless of how finely it sat on the edge of being touristy, it was genuine and the young women who were our guides for the day were very humble, sweet and honest people. It was a birthday well spent, I think.

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