(TITC) - Uva Village is located in Noong Luong Commune, Dien Bien District, Dien Bien Province, about 15km to the southwest of Dien Bien Phu City. The village not only has charming scenery but also contains a lot of unique cultural, historical, archeological values.
Uva is a slang speak of "U Va". According to the local language, "U" means madam and "Va" is cradle. Legend has it that, Uva Village has beautiful scenery, especially the dreamlike mineral stream, so in the olden times, fairies in the heaven often descend to bath, sightsee and teach villagers to plant mulberry, raise silkworm. So local people compared the stream as a beautiful cradle.
The village covers the area of 170ha and is home to more than 60 households, of which Thai people are the majority. In the minds of Thai people, Dien Bien is a mecca and Uva Village is a sacred place of that mecca. Because of according to the legend, Uva has Hoa Cat rope which connects the Earth with the Sky, and from here, the soul of people can fly to the heaven.
Uva exists cultural quintessence of Muong Thanh area expressed evidently through architecture of stilt houses, culinary, traditional crafts, festivals, folk songs, instruments performances, folk games, especially archeology values. Archaeological excavations in Uva Village revealed household articles with exquisite decoration and bronze drum (from 12th century). The process of researching decoration in antiques shows that many antiques originate from Thailand, China, etc., which proved cultural interference for a long time between this place and countries in the region.
Besides, Uva also owns valuable natural resources (lake and hot mineral stream of Uva) to develop eco-tourism, leisure tourism and medical tourism. According to scientists, Uva hot mineral stream has a high mineral content, average temperature from 76oC to 84oC to appropriate with treatment of skin diseases, blood circulation. Three mountains of Nang Non, Tao Non, Pu Huoi Chon with two beautiful rivers of Nam Rom and Nam Nua created charming beauty for Uva Village.
Grasping the great tourism potentials, since 2004, Uva villagers have begun to develop community based-tourism to serve tourists, especially tourists from the northeastern provinces of Thailand, the northern provinces of Laos and Southeast Asia region through Tay Trang border gate (Dien Bien). Many tourism services have been focused to invest such as: textiles, embroidery and knitting products; performances of folk arts, traditional food, especially service of spa bath in Uva hot mineral stream.
Unspoiled natural landscape, unique cultural characteristics and hospitality people are invaluable resources creating special attractiveness of Uva for domestic and international tourist.
Thu Giang