Herbal bath in Sapa Vietnam, spending the whole night on the train and
some more hours on a coach, I finally travel in the tourist town of
Sapa. Being exhausted, I only wanted to take a nap but Phuc, a local
friend of mine, said, =93Don=92t sleep, that=92s a waste!=94 and brought me=
to
a =85 public bathroom.
Bathing with herbs in Sapa Vietnam
Having just entered the bathroom, I immediately caught a whiff of
fragrant herbs. I scooped my hands into the viscid, dark red water
inside the wood-bathtub and threw it on to my face to feel the warm
and fragrant water. I then entered the bathtub to immerse my whole
body in the herb water.
Sweat beaded on my forehead and dripped from my head. Each pore
relaxed to absorb the herb water to each fibre of my body. Around ten
minutes later, I clearly felt the recovery in my body. After the whole
35-minute period, my body was refreshed.
The owner of this public bathroom, the most famous herb bathing
service in Sapa Town, Le Van Minh, said that as a member of the local
traditional art troupe, he often went to mountainous villages to
collect traditional songs and dances of ethnic minority people. Once
in the village of Red Dao, he caught a heavy cold. The locals quickly
treated the cold by putting Minh in a big wood cask full of red water.
They told Minh that they used a traditional remedy of herbs which has
existed for hundreds of years.
As he lived in Sapa Town, a famous tourist site in Vietnam, Minh
immediately thought of using this traditional herb remedy of Dao
people to serve tourists. He successfully convinced some Dao families
to transfer their traditional remedies to him. Minh has built nine
bathrooms to serve tourists for the past year.
Herbal bath in Sapa, each herb remedy for bathing includes 12 to 14
kinds of herbs, plus three kinds of herbs from Minh=92s family. The
herbs are boiled for 3-4 hours to extract the essence, and then mixed
in water to serve tourists.
According to Minh, the herbal essence accounts for 2% of the total
volume of water in the bathtub and water must be 30-37oC. Healthy
people should soak their body in the bathtub for 30-35 minutes and
20-25 minutes for weak ones. After the bath, massage and point
acupuncture can help people recover their health. The fragrance of
herbs will be on the body for up to three days later.
Minh=92s public bathroom welcomes around 30-70 customers a day. The
service price there is quite cheap, VND50,000 ($3)/person/time. He
also sells dried herbs for VND20,000/kg ($1.25).
Herbal bath in Sapa, at a public bathroom in Sa Xeng village, Ta Phin
commune, Sapa district, Lao Cai province, I saw four foreign visitors
who had just left the bathrooms. They smiled and said, =93Number one=94.
The bathroom=92s owner, a Dao ethnic women named Ly May Chan, said that
she opened this public bathroom nearly five months ago and the service
had been attracting many visitors. Chan is convincing villagers to
build a larger public bathroom of over 100sq.m. Chan and her friend
are trying to commercialise the bathing herb remedy. However, six
kinds of herbs in the remedy are facing extinction so they are trying
to plant them.
Dr. Tran Huu Son, director of the Lao Cai provincial Department of
Culture and Information, said that Dao people often used herbs to bath
all the year round. Their traditional herb remedies for bathing can
include from ten to 120 kinds of herbs, which help bathers refresh
their bodies, make their skin smooth, and can cure some kinds of
diseases like rheumatism, pain in the bones, colds.
To turn those remedies into unique tourism products, many
organisations have helped Dao people to process herbs into resin or
powder for easy use. The Global Environment Fund is implementing a
project to help preserve the valuable genes of herbs and help locals
to plant herbs in their gardens.There are 11 public bathrooms using
the traditional herb remedies of Dao people in Sapa town and Ta Phin.
Herb bathing has become a unique tourism product of Sapa.
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