A stilt house of Muong people

Many Vietnamese visitors have exhibited bad behaviour while visiting important sites, including writing on the walls of But Thap pagoda and thoughtlessly discarding burning cigarette butts.

Four Vietnamese visitors burned down the last hundred-year-old Lang stilt house of Muong ethnic minority people in northern Hoa Binh Province in October 2013 after they tried to cook corn inside the building.

The incident stirred a public outcry over the lack of awareness by local visitors at tourist and cultural sites.

“It was a great loss when the house burned,” said artist Phan Cam Thuong.

Another artist, Thanh Chuong, said, “I find it hard to understand why visitors to my tourist site throw burning cigarette butts on the roof of my stilt house."

He said tourists throw rubbish everywhere and show little respect for national heritage.

"I gather trash right in front of them in the hope they will change their behavior," Chuong said.

Donations are being collected to rebuild the Lang house, but its original heritage value has been lost because a group of tourists didn't think about what they were doing or where they were.

“Gathering the exhibits on the display inside the house is a great challenge,” said historian Duong Trung Quoc.

Dtinews