Hua Lu (Lost in Nature) Hotel
My wife and I stayed here for three nights in December 2023, but regretted that our schedule did not allow us to stay longer. The Hua Lu Hotel is a charming boutique hotel located in the Ming Shi village that features clusters of needle mountains that aggressively protrude from what otherwise appears to be a level agricultural plain. The origins of the village were for its farming potential but the stunning beauty of the location has popularized it as a tourist haunt, a place to visit either before or after checking out the Detian Waterfall on the China-Vietnam border. In among the locals’ modest houses, several B&Bs and hotels have sprouted to cater to tourists wanting a wide spectrum of accommodations from the extremely basic up to relatively high-end resorts.
The Hua Lu (Lost in Nature) is best categorized as a high-end boutique hotel. It is situated on the eastern periphery of Ming Shi well away (approximately a kilometer) from a busy highway around which many of its competitors are clustered. The accent at the Hua Lo is on tranquility. Our room was a well-conceived suite that had been furnished with a Zen sensibility. The bathroom featured an oversize bathtub and separate shower unit, and there was a spacious and comfortable sitting area. A south-facing balcony overlooked an intensely cultivated, multi-acre market-garden, irrigated by river-fed, man-made channels. Locals could be observed tending crops from dawn to dusk in these fields.
A Chinese style breakfast was included the room fee, but we also opted to eat dinner each evening in the hotel restaurant. Both breakfast and dinner meals were prepared with an accent on health and use of locally grown foods. After dark, an open fireplace in a courtyard was used to barbecue snacks such as sweet potato and chicken: the courtyard doubled as a children’s play area and storage place for bicycles (pedal) which could be used by hotel guests.
Evidence suggests that tourism has trumped agriculture as the main occupation of the Ming Shi village. For tourists who prefer a more communal experience, the village offers guided sampan tours on the river that wends its way through the village. However, the best way to benefit from the village scenery is by bicycle. Cycling around the village and its dramatic needle-mountain vistas is easy, the bike trails are converted ag paths that intertwine the crop fields. They are paved and free of the traffic of tourist coaches, trucks and E-scooters that rage along the main highway.
My wife and I felt that we had come across a gem of experience that vastly exceeded our expectations when we booked the hotel. We plan to visit again next year, to enjoy a longer stay with the R&R it provides.
Sean Bennett
