12 km from Hoa Binh city center, Muong Giang Mo village is nestled under thousands of mountains and forests in a small valley at the foot of Mo mountain. With peaceful space and stilt houses looming on the mountainside, behind the terraced fields make Giang Mo an ideal destination for those who want to explore and experience the culture of the Muong and ethnic minority communities. Beautiful scenery in the mountains and forests of the Northwest.

Currently, in Giang Mo village, there are about 117 houses on stilts with over 460 people, all of whom are Muong ethnic people, mainly living by farming and animal husbandry. With the indigenous cultural identity, the typical traditions of the Muong ethnic group are still preserved and known to domestic and foreign tourists when traveling to Hoa Binh. 

Muong Giang Mo village

The highlight that creates a special attraction for visitors is the traditional stilt houses with the architecture of a turtle (turtle house), which has been well documented in the famous epic book "Give birth to the land, give birth to water”. According to legend, in the past, the first Lang Cun ( Name of Muong landlord) to govern Muong land together with the villagers working in the fields, accidentally discovered the turtle's footprint but mistakenly thought it was a raindeer’s footprint, so Lang Cun make peple trapped. When he returned to watch, he saw that he had trapped a turtle, but the turtle spoke as a person, it begged Lang Cun not to kill it and in return promised to tell Lang how to build a house to live in:

““My four legs like four pillars

The backbone like the roof of the house 

Ribs should be roof support bar

And buried the end of ribs made the entrance and the exit door

You can creat a three-compartment nine-window house”

                                (Excerpt from “Mo Muong epic Hoa Binh”)

Lang Cun immediately untied the turtle, returned to thevillage, Lang Cun started to build a house for himself and for the villagers based on simulations from the body and structure of the turtle. Just like that, the Muong people everywhere are eager to make their own typical stilt houses to live in, and since then, the turtle has become a sacred god worshiped by the Muong people.  This story is considered to be the origin of the Muong stilt house.

The stilt house is also associated with the customs, practices, and daily life of the Muong people, the stilt house is usually built against the high ground such as the hillside, the mountainside to receive the air and be convenient for the people hunting and gathering. The house consists of 3 floors, in which the top floor is for food and household utensils; the middle floor is a place for living and resting; The bottom floor (under the stilt house) is usually used for production tools and for keeping livestock and poultry. The architecture of the house on stilts can be large or small, but the main door, stairs, water trough and mortar must be placed in the right position. In the stilt houses of the Muong, there are still living features and many traditional production tools made from wood and bamboo such as looms, bows, crossbows, and farming tools for cultivation, etc. 

Traditional stilt house of Muong people

When visiting Giang Mo village, visitors can leisurely walk in the quiet space, on the small road running along the village to admire and enjoy the wild beauty, green with a green color of the mountains; Visitors who stop to visit any of the houses on stilts to learn about Muong culture can experience daily activities with the villagers such as taking care of livestock and poultry, farming, hunting, and picking fruits, gather vegetables, etc. to experience the rustic, purely agricultural life of the people here; look at the charming Muong girls in traditional clothes, listen to the Muong girls introduce about weaving and brocade products such as: skirts, dresses, bags, towels and souvenirs. For meals, visitors will enjoy the typical dishes of the Muong people such as: sticky rice with upland rice, sticky rice with rice, a dish of pork on banana leaves, stream fish and drink can wine. When visitors come to visit the families, they will be invited by the host to taste a cup of banana wine, fragrant corn wine, or enjoy the delicious sweetness of fruits in the garden, sit by the pink fire and enjoy folk dance performances, folk songs of Thuong Rang, Bo Meng, Vi singing perform by Muong boys and girls in harmony with the sound of gongs, drums, flute, listening to stories about Muong land or choose to buy yourself some souvenirs to buy.

Muong people in Giang Mo village with their own unique cultural identity and hospitality and beautiful natural scenery of mountains and forests will surely leave visitors with unforgettable impressions.

Vu Hue