In addition to intangible cultural elements such as gongs, epics and traditional festivals, the stilt houses of the Ba Na people are a tangible cultural heritage worthy of pride and in need of preservation. Alongside the communal houses, these stilt houses have created a unique village space for the Ba Na community in the ancient village of Kon Jo Dri, Dak Ro Wa commune, Kon Tum city, Kon Tum province.
Muong Lay town was originally the economic, cultural and political centre of the former Lai Chau province (which included modern-day Dien Bien and Lai Chau provinces). It is now famous as an attractive tourist destination because of a street of stilt houses with stone roofs by the Da Giang River, creating a unique and poetic beauty.
The Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism has developed a plan to build ecological museum models in an attempt to preserve cultural heritages in ethnic minority communities in association with tourism. With over 90 percent of its population being Tay ethnic minority people, Nghia Do commune in Bao Yen district, Lao Cai province, has been selected to promote the model.
Roofs of stilt houses covered with thick green moss at an altitude of 1,000 metres above sea level along the Tay Con Linh mountain range in Xa Phin hamlet, Phuong Tien commune, Vi Xuyen district create unique beauty in the northern mountainous province of Ha Giang.
Thanks to economic development, many Muong families in Ngoc Lac mountainous district in Thanh Hoa province have built houses in recent years featuring new and modern architecture. However, many families decided to keep their traditional bamboo stilt houses, especially after the district introduced a policy preserving the stilt houses in association with the development of community tourism.
The central province of Thanh Hoa is making efforts to develop community-based tourism in its mountainous district of Ngoc Lac in a bid to preserve the traditional stilt houses of the local Muong ethnic people, which account for over 70 percent of the district’s population.
A flash flood in the north central province of Thanh Hoa on July 20, triggered by the inter-tropical convergence zone, swept away three stilt houses, killing two and leaving two others in a family in Lang Chanh district missing.
Lai Chau is a mountainous border province in the northwest of Vietnam with more than 80 percent of its population being ethnic minorities, creating cultural diversity.
