Youth take travel into their own hands

While travel agencies are claiming an increasing number of Vietnamese customers making domestic and international trips, many young people prefer to go it alone and they name it " du lich bui"

(self-designed, low-cost tourism) is ruled by four ‘nos’: no tour, no guide, no bus and no hotel.

"The most enjoyable thing about du lich bui is that I can be free to discover and make my own itinerary, without being forced to follow a tour schedule; having to meet on time, visit places with a time restriction and even eat at a particular time," says Minh Phuong, a 23-year-old sales director for a joint-venture company.

Phuong bought herself a return ticket to the Philippines, and after looking through the Lonely Planet guide book and asking her Filipino colleagues’ advice, she was able to plan her own five-day trip.

Nguyen Thanh, who works in marketing, spent two months travelling by motorbike through the central coastal provinces, up to the highland city of Da Lat.

"I’ve travelled a lot by bus," he says, "But now I feel the difference between travelling by bus and by bike. I enjoy the freedom of riding in the sunlight, breathing fresh gusts of wind from the sea and hearing the sound of waves crashing onto the beach. You can never experience that kind of joy when you travel by car, train or plane."

He once got stuck in a heavy rain storm when he was on a local pass. The road was blocked with mud, caused by a landslide from the hills.

"I was stiff with cold and hunger that night, but I still felt happy," Thanh recalled, "Happy becaof a feeling of freedom and of facing and overcoming challenges."

See the world on the cheap

Wanting to absorb the world, unmediated by a tour company is another reason why more and more people are choosing Du lich bui. For those with high incomes, it’s certainly not a question of saving money.

Twenty-five year-old Thuy Duong has travelled alone to Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and India.

"I love the feeling of travelling freely. I go by myself, plan my own trip and have direct contact with local people and local culture, not indirectly through a tourist guide," she says.

"Even though I’ve got enough money to buy tours, I’d rather view the world with my own eyes and not be influenced, or fixed by others."

Trang Ha, a female writer, adores free tourism. "I like to stay as long as I want in a place I like and leave a place I don’t like immediately. I like doing things without plans."

She added that she was afraid of "false impressions".

"Like when you haven’t been to Sa Pa, you only think of Mong ethnic people and the love market, or if you haven’t been to Japan but you know that the cherry blossom there is beautiful in April," she explained. "Your feelings are by advertising or through your own laziness and passiveness."

Lending a helping hand

The slang verb, luot phuot, means joining explorations at the lowest cost and reaching the furthest, riskiest destinations, but by the safest means. There are dozens of groups offering this kind of tourism, many of which take great care of the environment and help local communities on their travelling way.

Tay Bac Group (TBG) and Con Gio Mua Thu (Autumn Wind) (CGMT) gather clothes and books for poor pupils in mountainous areas and have never even broken a tree branch, taken a flower, or carved on stones as it could affect the stability of local environments.

"We once had to take a bag of rubbish several kilometres till we found a suitable place to it," remembers Tung, a member of TBG.

In 2005, CGMT travelled to Van Chan Commune, Tram Tau District in Yen Bai Province to give hundreds of gifts to pupils suffering from floods. In fact, CGMT always encourages its members to take along small gifts for pupils living in the mountains.

One member of a du lich bui group, who wishes to remain anonymous, always travels alone to places previously untouched by tourists. After one such trip, he returned with only his camera becahe had given away all his belongings, including his clothes, which he had given to some poor children he met on the way.

"I think too many young people get excited about the wrong things, like illegally racing motorbikes in city streets," Tung says, "Why they don’t take their bikes and love of speed to travel somewhere remote where they can enjoy freedom, feast their eyes on beautiful scenery and meet interesting people. Maybe from there, they can learn the true meaning of life."

Source Vietnamnet