Moon Garden Homestay – a truly authentic Vietnam

Moon Garden Homestay is a small resort located in outskirt of Hanoi – Ky Son Village, Xuan Son commune, Son Tay district. It takes about 2 hour moving by shuttle bus from center of Hanoi to this peaceful area. Visiting Moon Garden homestay, tourist will have chance to discover the daily life of local people– a deeply touch to Vietnam traditional culture.

Moon Garden homestay accommodation:

As a small village, Moon Garden homestay has the traditional ancient houses,  house on stilt, and a small cathedral.  There are four ancient houses there: Mango house,  Pomelo house  Frangipani house in  traditional style with 3 parts of living room and two bedrooms, and a smaller house with only one bedroom is Guava house. Why the houses are calling ancient house? Because tourist can find the traditional architecture feature here. The roof  tile is Vietnam's traditional tile called shoe peak tile or dragon scale tile. The doors and almost the furniture are made from wood. The houses are decorated by distiches, all the furniture from tables, ottomans to beds are decorated by carving traditional pattern: lotus, peach blossom, phoenix and dragon. The windows have the circle shape symbolize for conception about Yin and Yang. Especially, the Frangipani house has the Buddha altar. In front of the house is a large yard where children can play traditional games. The yard has areca and betel trees that involve to a folktale in Vietnam. Moon Garden homestay also has a large garden with many kind of fruits and flowers as pomelo, mango, logan and many frangipani.

Moon Garden homestay has only one house on stilt. House on stilt is traditional architecture style of ethic groups in Vietnam. This kind of house help them to avoid beast, snake and insect. The house on stilt in Moon Garden also has the unique feature of traditional house on stilt. The roof of the house has four side with steep slope.  The house was made by wood with many pillars to hold up the main part. The House on stilt is decorated by many traditional pattern of ethic groups as brocade, wooden lotus in the crockery vase or ruou can (wine drunk out of a jar through pipes).

A specialty of Moon Garden homestay is it has a traditional cathedral inside the campus area. Thai Binh province is very famous for Christianity. People here was built many small cathedrals, because of the increase of follower, they want to destroy the old ones and build the new ones. The cathedral in Moon Garden was bought from this area. After buying the church, it was dismantled into different parts and moved to Moon Garden to reassemble. Therefore, this cathedral stills keep the traditional feature of the original one.

Moon garden Homestay Activities:

Coming to Moon Garden homestay, tourist will have chance to enjoy many activities that give them a deeply touch to authentic Vietnam. After a long way coming to Moon Garden, tourist will be welcomed by a cup of green tea to refresh them own. Cooking class is a very interesting activity. Tourist will be taught to cook traditional food of Vietnam as spring roll or leaf wrapped beef roll. After learning they will be conferred a certificate of learning cooking class in Moon Garden homestay.

biking is an important part of the tour to Moon Garden homestay. Tourist will ride bike through the village, pass through the small path to see the green field, visit the temple and pagoda. They also can visit the local kinder garden. Tourist even have chance to working on the farm as a true farmer: grass cutting, harvesting, picking cucumber, fishing and so on.

After some activities, tourist will be relaxed with hand spa and steam bath with fragrant herbs like lemon grass, pomelo leaves, holy basil leaves. In the morning, they will have chance to join Yijinjing – a traditional exercise, and in the late afternoon is Buddha worship ceremony.

If staying longer, Tourist will have chance to visit Thuy Thuy An village – a center of habitation for handicapped children and Ba Vi National park with rich of diverse tropical and subtropical species of flora and fauna.

Moon Garden homestay is not only a peaceful and les-touristic destination, it also a ideal destination for tourist who want to discover the traditional architecture and culture of Vietnam.