Palm houses travel beyond central Vietnam village to overseas countries
Palm houses travel beyond central Vietnam village to overseas countries
Artisans that make houses from palm in a small village in the central province of Quang Nam could hardly imagine they would one day be invited to build cafés, bars and restaurants from the unique material for domestic, and even foreign, customers.
Cam Thanh Commune, only five kilometers from the famed Hoi An Ancient Town, is known countrywide for its palm houses and structures made merely from nipa palm – a species of palm native to the coastlines and estuarine habitats of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.
The nipa palm's trunk grows beneath the ground, and only the leaves and flower stalk grow above the surface.
Artisans source the palm trees from a nipa palm forest called Bay Mau (Seven Mothers) in the commune.
The leaves, which can extend up to 9m in height, are the main material for the houses, besides other natural parts such as bamboo.
“What’s special about Cam Thanh palm houses is that no single piece of metal is used,” Vo Tan Muoi, 70, a seasoned palm house maker, said.
Le Cong Thang, a villager, said many tourists are intrigued by the palm houses in Cam Thanh.
One day, a representative of a resort in the central city of Da Nang contacted Thang and asked him to make a palm bar-café, he recalled.
“I nodded with butterflies in my stomach as I know it is not as easy to make a palm bar as a house,” he said.
The artisans gathered some skillful ‘colleagues’ to work on the order and the 100-square-meter construction was completed in 15 days.
“The palm bar won over many tourists and Cam Thanh palm houses have since become present at many luxury resorts in Da Nang and Hoi An,” Thang proudly said.
The palm houses also enabled Thang to travel beyond his village to the Central Highlands, after he received an order to set up a house in Buon Ma Thuot, the capital city of Dak Lak Province, last year.
“I spent a fortnight preparing materials and transported them on three trucks to Buon Ma Thuot,” he said, adding the order was worth VND80 million (US$3,765).
An ordinary palm house costs VND50-70 million ($2,353- $3,295), but a complicated structure can fetch as much as VND200 million ($9,414), according to the artisan.
The first Cam Thanh artisan to export his products is Le Lieu, who still sees his first export order as too good to be true.
A tourist guide from Da Nang named Hung took a group of tourists from the U.S. to visit his palm house years ago, and the holidaymakers were impressed as they felt cool while sitting in the house, Lieu recalled.
“I told them the house is not only cool in the summer but also warm during winter. Then one of them placed an order for a 30 square meter house to bring back to the U.S.,” Lieu said.
The artisan then began building the house and filmed the whole process so the American customer would have a how-to manual.
The completed house was next dismantled and its parts were shipped to the U.S. by sea.
“I then received two more orders from the U.S. and last year my houses reached Japan and the Middle East,” Lieu revealed.
