Sustainability is no longer a trend, but a lifestyle embraced by more and more people. We witness every day the consequences of man’s actions on the environment and we become increasingly aware that the only possibility to save our planet is to change, even in our way of experiencing tourism.
Southeast Asia’s diverse landscapes and rich culture make it a fascinating destination for any traveller. If you’re the type that likes to learn as you go, take it slow, and give back along the way, you’ll find countless enriching experiences to choose from here. Here are 7 ideal experiences for a sustainable tour to Southeast Asia.

Table of Contents

Vietnam

1. Paddle Boat Tour in Trang An

The Trang An Scenic Landscape Complex, located near the southern extremity of the Red Delta River, offers stunning paddleboat rides in one of Vietnam’s most picturesque settings.

Trang An in Ninh Binh attracts nature enthusiasts due to its beautiful natural mix of limestone karsts and submerged valleys, as well as its cultural significance dating back 30,000 years. This paddle-boat trip employs thousands of locals and pays them a fair, regular monthly income. Navigate dripping tunnels and tranquil streams without damaging the wilderness of this UNESCO World Heritage Site. You’ll stop at quiet pagodas along the way and marvel at the stunning rock formations as you glide by.

2. Yok Don Ethical Elephant Tour in Dak Lak

In Dak Lak province, Yok Don National Park and the international charity Animals Asia collaborated to offer Vietnam’s first ethical elephant trip.

The elephants come first on this tour: tourists are not permitted to approach, ride, or wash the pachyderms. Guides will accompany you to the national park’s elephants, which were once captive but have since been rehabilitated. Watch the elephants graze, eat, and sleep as they like, while learning about their individual personalities and backstories. Guides will also impart their expertise of numerous plants, particularly those utilized in their communities’ traditional medicine. It is hoped that high demand for these trips would allow more captive elephants to be released into the program.

Cambodia

3. Bird-watching tour in Siem Reap

Boating around the floating communities on Tonle Sap Lake reveals the hidden magnificence of their traditional way of life. The journey begins with a boat ride to the adjacent floating hamlet of Kampong Phluk, from whence you will go to Prek Tual, a bird sanctuary that is home to an amazing diversity of waterbirds and endangered species like storks, pelicans, and ibises. We recommend that you visit during the dry season.

A normal journey will begin early in the morning, when the hamlet is already bustling with fishermen. When you arrive in the settlement, you will be transferred to a smaller boat that will take you to the bird sanctuary. There, you will go bird-watching in the forest. After a few hours, you’ll return to the town for a prepared meal. The boat will return at sunset, providing you with an incredible view of the city. You can negotiate the pricing of this excursion based on the size of your group. Drinks, lunch, and entry costs are usually included.

Thailand

4. Experience agrotourism in Chiang Rai

Agrotourism is a concept that stems out of eco tourism where visitors or tourists are encouraged to get acquainted with agricultural life at a farm or ranch first hand. Agrotourism comprises all aspects of agriculture, horticulture and animal husbandry. Endless rice farms and cultivation of herbs and vegetables together with gardens full of flowering plants and fruit orchards make for a delightful experience.

Ban Hua Mae Kham Agrotourism Center at Chiang Rai and Phu Rua Highland Agricultural Research Station and Loei are agrotourism centers ideal for experiencing local farm life and hill tribe plantations in Thailand. The Thai Elephant Conservation Center, Lampang offers a very interesting activity of learning how to tame and take care of an elephant. You can also study winery, tour private fruit orchards and learn traditional Thai cooking during your agro tour. Complete the experience with a night stay at a rural mud house.

5. Village Homestay

Several communities in Thailand welcome foreign tourists to their homes to experience their lifestyle. This particular activity has grown in popularity in recent years as it offers a tourist the unique insight into how farmers and village dwellers go about their daily lives of farming, livestock raising, fishing, etc. Hill Tribe culture and traditions are especially popular with tourists in Thailand.

At Chiang Mai you can meet and live with many hill tribes in their natural surroundings. The best thing is neither are these gentle village dwellers bothered by tourists nor have they been corrupted by the western influence that tourists tend to bring with them. Their lives remain untouched by modern civilization.
At Samut Songkhram one can take a nature trip and study the local riverside community.
At Krabi one can learn squid fishing and rubber tapping with the local people. You can live with the local fishing community of Phang Nga and learn how to make fishing nets and catch crabs.

Laos

6. Discover secrets of Laos textiles

Activity: Ock Pop Tok Textile Gallery and Weaving Center.
Location: Luang Prabang town.
Tip: Show commitment by taking a weaving course

The experience: Ock Pop Tok, ‘East Meets West’, is the innovative creation of two local women with a passion for weaving and a vision for showcasing and selling Lao’s textiles to the world. Fusing the best of western and traditional Lao design and techniques, their weaving center in Luang Prabang produces some of the finest silk textiles in the country. Visitors to the center can take a guided tour to observe the local artisans at work transforming raw silk into finished textiles and can even provide their own designs for the artisans to weave. After the tour, peruse the gallery for any textiles you may wish to purchase and enjoy lunch or coffee in the center’s café on the banks of the Mekong River. For enthusiasts, Ock Pop Tok also offers classes with their artisans (ranging from half a day to a week) in the crafts of silk dyeing and weaving and will soon offer tours and homestays in the weaving villages they work with.

7. A trip to Nam Nern Night Safari

Head upriver by boat deep into the jungle, where you can enjoy a campfire dinner before drifting back downstream, spotlight-searching for the rare and endangered species that live in this area of rich biodiversity.

The Nam Nern Night Safari is a 24-hour, boat-based tour into the core of the Nam Et-Phou Louey National Protected Area. The highlight of the trip is the nighttime wildlife-spotlighting, when long-tail boats drift down the Nam Nern River looking for wild and endangered animals before returning visitors to the ecolodge within the national park.

The trip is designed to support alternative livelihoods for local people and generate community support for conservation of tigers and other wildlife. It has already won the “World Responsible Tourism Award” twice.

Recommendation of Sustainable Accommodation in Indochina

1. The Yard Hostel, Bangkok, Thailand

Some of the structures are made from recycled shipping containers. Recycled paper is used as insulation to keep the buildings cool. Inverter air conditioners and LED lights save energy and refillable glass water bottles for guests eliminate the need for plastic, while composted waste keeps the garden green – and the mojitos minty. But what is really remarkable about The Yard (a reference to both the greenery and a play on the Thai word for “relatives”) is its location at the heart of the galleries, boutiques and eateries of the cool Ari neighborhood, a welcome respite from the concrete jungle and roar of traffic in the heart of Bangkok.

The Yard Hostel & Community Space

2. Golden Buddha Beach Resort, Koh Phra Thong, Thailand

There are just six hotels on remote Koh Phra Thong (Golden Buddha Island) and the island’s namesake resort offers comforts such as its own beachfront club house and bar. The bungalows and treehouses have no air conditioning, relying on sea breezes and solar panels that power fans and heat water. Waste is shipped to the mainland for appropriate disposal and the proceeds from recycling are returned to the staff. Plastic bags have been banned from housekeeping and reusable crates or disposable bamboo are used whenever possible. Other sustainable details include washing-up liquid produced from the peel leftovers from orange juice and gift shop items sourced in Thailand and made of natural cotton and hemp.

3. Mango Bay Resort, Ong Lang Beach, Phu Quoc, Vietnam

This sprawling beachfront resort on Vietnam’s largest island prides itself on raising awareness of green issues. On an island where tourism is fast supplanting the traditional trades of fishing and fish-sauce production, Mango Bay’s bungalows are built with low-impact techniques and materials that respect the landscape. The resort has supported the regeneration of the reef by working with local fishermen and sponsors regular cleaning campaigns. It also supports the work of NGO Wildlife at Risk in its work to preserve the island’s flora and fauna, including providing safe habitats and replanting native species.

4. Baby Elephant Boutique Hotel, Siem Reap, Cambodia

The Baby Elephant is a sustainable-focused property in the heart of Siem Reap, where most visitors who come to explore the sprawling ruins of Angkor Wat stay. Waste becomes compost and food for farm animals, and cardboard and glass are reused on site or given to people who reuse the items, such as glass bottles that go to the roadside petrol vendors. Cooking oil is converted to biodiesel by the NGO Naga Earth. The on-site organic garden provides ingredients for the bar, kitchen, spa and for staff meals. It is also a Refill not Landfill drinking-water refill station. Baby Elephant has taken its approach to the environment seriously, working with experts to examine every aspect of its activity, from optimising water drainage to planning maintenance schedules, from reducing plastic to training staff to be environmentally aware. Even mosquitoes are kept under control with non-toxic, fan-powered traps and lemongrass in the garden.

5. Eden Eco Village, Kampot, Cambodia

Started six years ago on the banks of the Prek Teuk Chhou, a short ride outside Kampot, the Eden Eco Village is a collection of bamboo and thatch bungalows on stilts, many of them right over water – and each unit generates its own solar power for lights and fans. Most of the produce is local and the site grows its own mangoes. It recycles and composts everything it can, including the waste of the compost toilets for fertilizer. Life here is set to the rhythm of the water: riverside yoga in the morning, followed by kayaking or dips in the river, natural treatments in the women-only spa and the spectacle of fireflies at night. It’s a short trip to the plantations that produce highly-prized Kampot pepper, the colonial-era town of Kampot and seaside resort of Kep.

6. Kamu Lodge, Luang Prabang

The Kamu Lodge is a beautiful eco-lodge in a remote location on the banks of the majestic Mekong River in northern Laos. Access to the lodge is by a private boat – a two and a half-hour ride upstream through glorious scenery from Luang Prabang.

Accommodation is in luxury safari tents, mounted on semi-permanent bamboo platforms with thatched covered roofs. All are fitted with solar-powered electricity and hot water. Beds are comfy, and the rooms are well located, with private balconies surrounded by forest and the river banks.

Introduction of Lux Travel DMC

Ready to dive into the gorgeousness of Vietnam? Book a tour with Lux Travel DMC to get the best out of your trip. We offer custom-made tour itineraries tailored to your demands, along with premium services that cater to your every need and unique cultural insights and experiences from our seasoned guides.

Recommendation of the list of Sustainable Indochina and Vietnam Tour in 2022 – 2023:

Contact us at:
Address: No.456 Lac Long Quan Street, Tay Ho District, Hanoi, Vietnam
Phone: (+84) 4 3927 4120
Email: [email protected]
Hotline: +84-336-276-996
Website: https://luxtraveldmc.com

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7 Ideal Experiences for a Sustainable Tour to Southeast Asia