We had a great village tour and warm welcome by the local community. Very interesting to learn about the everyday life, very authentic and very kind people, old and young. This tour is developed together with the local community and they benefit from it; they explain about their lifestyle, their town and history. The tour offers a very peaceful and authentic introduction to traditional village culture. Very much recommended.
As far as I know, Yen Duc tour is a new product from Indochina Junk but I still decided to join the 2 hour tour after our cruise on Dragon’s Pearl 2 days 1 night. My boyfriend and I were arranged into another car with a tour guide, Mr. Tony. He told us that there were two of us only so I started worried if I made a wrong decision.
After about two hours, we reached to Yen Duc Village. The first impression, it is quite empty but clean, peaceful and different from the sites we visited in Hanoi.
We followed Mr. Tony and walked into the village to a local community. We are welcome by many old people, they sang us Quan Ho. Tony translated some parts of their singing while my boyfriend and I enjoyed the melody of the songs.
Next we visited a mountain (I forgot the name) and listened to the story about the war. We were impressed by the bravery and solidarity of local people.
Then we visited a local house and met the villagers. It is my favourite part of the tour as I expected to see their daily life. The house owner, a old lady and her family, invited us to her house. She prepared sweet potatoes and green tea. When we talked and asked them about their daily life, they replied us very sincerely. I really love the friendly people here.
Saying goodbye to the old lady, we continued walking to a pagoda. On the way to the pagoda, we saw the rice field, local houses with garden and pond, and a small boy climbed up a tree. He just smiled with us, do not follow us or try to sell something. The pagoda is very beautiful, big and quiet. I felt so peaceful in the pagoda.
We finished our 2 hour here and returned to the bus to Hanoi. I satisfied with my decision to join the trip. My boyfriend and I felt happy, relaxing and comfortable then. We discovered Halong Bay with its natural beauty and experienced the local life in Yen Duc village. To us, it is a good stop on the way instead of in a restaurant or a shop. The other two hours to go back to our hotel is not very long.
We wish that the village and its people are not affected by tourism business.
Abbiamo soggiornato in questo bel villaggio perchè inserito in un tour di 3 giorni e 2 notti con la Indochina Junks.
Questo è un posto che, se farete un tour con la Indochina Junks (ma anche con altri operatori),vedrete comunque perchè ubicato nella strada di ritorno dalla baia di Halong verso Hanoi e dove vedrete un bellissimo spettacolo di marionette sull’acqua,per poi ripartire.
Ma noi ,al momento della prenotazione , abbiamo optato per una notte aggiuntiva in questo caratteristico villaggio di contadini,ed è stata una scelta azzeccatissima!!!
Innanzi tutto conoscerete persone straordinarie, che vi faranno vivere qualche ora come dei veri vietnamiti e vi spiegaranno ogni cosa sullo stile di vita di questo stupendo Paese.
Poi imparerete a pescare pesci gatto nel fango con l’aiuto di cesti, un’esperienza fantastica, imparerete a sgranare il riso tramite antichi strumenti a corda, cucinerete dolci vietnamiti .
Insomma vivrete per 24h come veri contadini vietnamiti, in mezzo a sconfinate risaie e paesaggi mozzafiato , immersi nella pace più assoluta dove vi depurerete dalle scorie dello stress.
Mi sento davvero di consigliare la visita di questo villaggio.
Una esperienza che ricorderete per sempre.
When we added the Yen Duc experience onto our Halong Bay boat cruise with Indo China Junk we thought nothing could top the beauty of Halong Bay. We visited Yen Duc at the end of our 20 day trip after the craziness of Saigon, Hanoi and everywhere in between. What we found in Yen Duc, helped immensely by the best guide we had on our 20 day vietnam trip, was a clean, caring, friendly and beautiful village. We got to try some of the more traditional activities like fishing, making rice, making brooms etc which on the outset sounded a bit boring but actually turned out to be lots of fun. Because our guide Na knew so much about the village and wanted to share it with us, our experience was so much deeper than we’d experienced on other tours. She took care of us from the moment we arrived and her depth of English was very impressive. We had the most complex discussions with her that we had in Vietnam. The village also has a water puppet show, show casing the stories of the villagers and this was really entertaining to watch.
Yen Duc is really worth a day of your time. It is a beautiful, relaxing and refreshing demonstration of how vietnam can be clean, caring and where the people can be supportive of each other. We highly recommend you request Na for your personal guide.
We were given the option of a two night junk cruise or a one night cruise and one night in a village. Figuring we would experience more of Vietnam on land rather than on a boat I opted for the one night in the village option. Our family of six all agreed it was the best decision I could have made. The accommodations exceeded our expectations, the food was over the top in terms of quality and quantity, and the service was second to none. Can’t recommend this village tour enough.
We booked this as an add-on to our 2-Day, 1-Night Bai Tu Long Bay cruise with Indochina Junk. We came SOOOO close to canceling the Yen Duc Village portion of our package as we were pretty exhausted after the cruise (23 hours on the boat with back to back, quasi-mandatory activities planned). The thought of another 24 hour tour with an itinerary of activities did NOT seem particularly appealing. We were all but decided, but took one more peruse through the Yen Duc Village Tour reviews here on TripAdvisor. I was quickly reminded why I had booked the tour in the first place – the reviews are overwhelming – “best time we had during our month of travels”, “most genuine experience”, “just book it NOW”. After a final consultation with my wife, we decided to follow the unanimous recommendations and just do it. Our guide, Cuc, met us and whisked us away to our gorgeous accommodations. We explained that we were pretty exhausted and wanted to know if there was flexibility to take a nap before embarking on any activities. Of COURSE, she quickly replied, this tour was ours to customize however we wanted! We immediately knew that we had made the right decision. The next 24 hours were nothing shy of incredible (after our much needed nap, of course). I won’t bother listing out the things we did because those have been mentioned in others’ reviews of the tour and the highlight of the experience isn’t the agenda, it’s the people. Suffice it to say, we concur completely with the other rave reviews. This was our favorite day of our entire three week honeymoon. The people of Yen Duc Village are the kindest and most welcoming people we met during all of our travels. And the town was surprisingly immaculate – the nicest and cleanest streets of anywhere we’d seen in Vietnam. This place is magical. You won’t regret your decision, I can pretty much guarantee it, unless you come in with an expectation of “roughing it”. There was nothing rough about the experience – we were treated like royalty, with a private tour guide who is amazing (intelligent, informative, engaging, accommodating, friendly…I can go on and on about Cuc), with a massive bedroom in our own “villa”, amazing seven course home cooked meals, fun activities in town with the locals, and a genuinely warm and welcoming reception from every smiling person we passed in the street. Even the dogs seemed to smile and nod as we passed. There must be something in the water in Yen Duc Village. Well, this is still Vietnam, so we don’t actually recommend drinking the water. We can’t praise this tour or the idyllic village enough, and we will absolutely be back again.
Wir haben uns vom ersten Moment an wohlgefühlt. Das ist nicht einfach eine Ferienanlage, sondern ein sehr persönlicher Einblick in das Leben der Leute vor Ort. Wir bedanken uns bei Na für die persönliche Betreuung.
Nous avons passe une journée et une nuit au village, avec notre guide Thuy ; c’est l’un de nos meilleurs souvenirs, nous avons visité le village en velo, visite une ancienne pagoda et le marché. On avait peur vu les commentaires que ce soit surfait mais en fait au contraire c’était authentique et la cuisine sur place est , il faut bien le dire, l’une des meilleures qu’on a goutées au Vietnam. donc Bravo Indochina Junk et Thuy 🙂
We took this tour when we first moved to Vietnam. I had my doubts, but everything was as advertised and more! The village was very welcoming and genuine – we learned so much about Vietnamese culture without feeling like we were being intrusive.
From the beginning, food was of a high quality and abundance. Great care was taken to ask about children’s dietary requirements, however the colors and smells were so appealing that our children tried everything and surprised themselves. It set the stage for their culinary experimentation for the rest of our time in Vietnam.
What we liked most was the light cycling around the area, meeting the villagers for tea, conversing with the market women (our Host was beautiful in her patience while translating my family’s many questions) and fishing for dinner with the baskets. I personally found it very frustrating trying to make a broom, but that is a different story.
My concern with these types of tours for the family is the lack of privacy and down time. We packed a lot in, but didn’t feel overwhelmed and found a good balance of free time to enjoy the holiday as a family. A lone traveller was also staying when we visited, but the accommodation was large enough to keep each of our privacy while sometimes crossing over at dinner and a few tour activities.
Since living here, we have been on several good tours in Vietnam – but this was by far the best and most memorable (it inspired me to write my first review). I would recommend this tour for both families, couples and single travelers.
Yen Duc village tour is quite luxurious and definitely does not make you fell like you are living in a village. What sets it apart is the range of activities provided which included cycling around the village to see a traditional house, learn how to make rice, fishing in the village ponds, broom making, visiting a local market, etc. The 2d1n we were at the village were absolutely packed with activities and they were well organised and a whole lot of fun. The staff at the village are warm and hospitable and the food is great. We absolutely loved our time at Yen Duc and were sad when it ended. I would definitely return if I had the opportunity.
Collection of reviews about Yen Duc village tour, luxury homestay near Ha Long Bay, Vietnam 