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LUANG SAY ECOTOURISM POLICY AND PRATICE

• Our Luang Say Cruises stop in local Mekong riverside villages every day that we cruise. In these villages we support the local community by buying their handicrafts. We also help the village school and temple with donations and aid the villagers to clear litter and other debris from their paths.
• Pakbeng has no proper water supply system or sewerage system in place, everything from other guesthouses tends to get put straight into the Mekong River. At Luang Say Lodge we have installed our own sewerage system to prevent this from happening. We have also built our own water supply from mountain streams, while adding pipes so that local villages in the area can benefit from the same water system.
• All bottles, cans and plastics that are used at the Lodge are recycled.
• Many of the vegetables at the Luang Say Lodge are organically grown in our own garden, using our own compost instead of artificial fertilizers or pesticides.
• The opening of the Lodge gave employment to 37 villagers and tribal people, where wages earned are three to four hundred percent higher than the local standard. Villagers around the Lodge are encouraged to grow fruits and vegetables and raise livestock as all their products are purchased by the Lodge.
• In Ban Houay Xeng Kham village, a very poor Khamu village close to the Lodge, we have helped build a small school and supply the school with books to help the children with their education.
• The riverbank across from the LuangSay Lodge has been denuded by logging. We are in the process of getting permission from the Sayabouli province (not the same province as our Lodge which is why it is taking a long time to organise), to replant teak trees on this land.

For more information on ecotourism in Laos please check www.ecotourismlaos.com.

CULTURE

Villagers around the Luangsay Lodge are encouraged to grow fruits and vegetables and raise poultry and all their products are purchased by the Lodge. The Lodge also has its own eco project where we have a garden and plant nursery to provide vegetables for the restaurant, a fish pond for fresh fish (ask the staff if it is feeding day and you can help feed them). We also have a small farmyard with goats and cows.

Staff working at the Lodge are taught the importance of hygiene and living in a healthy environment, and they are provided with free meals and possibly needed medical attention.

Luang Say Lodge hired a dance instructor to teach Kamu and Hmong people tribal dancing, which is now performed regularly. The Lodge also supports the financing of local musical instruments. Dancers and musicians are now able to earn their living without sacrificing their culture and traditions, as Luang Say was able to revive these old traditions for them which had been lost from the Pakbeng area.

The Lodge staff are still continuing to improve their English and customer service skills and we regularly send the staff down to Vientiane for training.

Today all the workers at the Lodge live and work in harmony and consider one other as family. This is the beauty of the Luang Say Lodge.