Healing Forest: Da Ban herbal walk and herbal farm

This is the gentlest forest day we sell, and the one with the most talking in it. The walking is short - two to three kilometres in about two and a half hours - because most of the morning is spent standing still: crouched beside a plant while the herbal guide explains what it is called locally, which part people use, and how it is prepared in folk practice. If you want to cover ground, this is the wrong day. If you have ever wondered what the green wall beside a forest path actually contains, it is the right one.

It suits families with children from six, older travellers who are steady on their feet for a few kilometres, and anyone who prefers learning something specific to ticking off a viewpoint. The afternoon moves from the wild forest to a working herbal farm, so you see the same kinds of plants twice: once where they grow by themselves, and once in tidy beds where a traditional practitioner cultivates them.

Every departure is private. Your group - two people or ten - has the vehicle, the English-speaking guide and the herbal guide to itself, and the pace is set by the slowest walker, not by a timetable shared with strangers.

Da Ban means 'table rock'. The stream runs over wide, flat slabs of stone, and that shape decides much of the morning: you walk partly on forest floor and partly on the rocks themselves, which are easy when dry and need care when wet. From the car park it is about fifteen minutes through the forest to the water. The entrance ticket is included and the guide handles it.

The herbal walk itself covers two to three kilometres between about 08:15 and 10:45, with many stops. At each one the herbal guide shows a plant growing wild and explains three things: what it is, how it is used according to folk remedies on the island, and how people in the past told a useful plant from a poisonous one that looks much like it. That last part is often the one guests remember. Which plants you see depends on the season and on what is growing along the route that month, so we do not publish a list.

There is a rest by the stream in the middle of the walk. When there is water, take your shoes off and put your feet in it. In the driest weeks the stream can drop to a few pools, and the rest happens in the shade instead.

The rules of the walk

• Look and learn only. Nobody in the group picks, digs up or breaks any plant, including the guides. The forest is not a supply cupboard for visitors.
• Do not taste anything unless the herbal guide hands it to you. Some plants along the stream are poisonous, and some look very like useful ones.
• Stay with the guide on the rocks. Wet stone is the main hazard of the day.
• Take your rubbish back with you, including fruit peel.

From about 10:45 to 12:00 the guides set out a picnic of local dishes on the flat rocks beside the stream - the 'tables' that give Da Ban its name. In the rainy season the water runs past within arm's reach. In the dry season, when the stream is low and the open rock gets hot, lunch moves to a shaded rock or a rest hut nearby. Drinking water is included all day; tell us about allergies or a vegetarian diet when you book so the picnic can be planned around them.

After lunch the car takes you to one of two farms for about an hour. Which one depends mainly on the season, and you can tell us your preference when you send the request; the farm is confirmed in your quote.

Outside the harvest or honey season you still get the walk, the explanation and the year-round activity.

The afternoon, from 14:00 to 16:30, is spent at the farm of a traditional herbal practitioner, about half an hour's drive from the pepper or bee farm. You are welcomed with a herbal drink, then walk through beds of the same kinds of medicinal plants you saw in the forest that morning, now cultivated. The practitioner explains why they are grown here rather than taken from the forest, which links back to the no-picking rule of the morning.

• Plant a tree. In the planting season you put a young medicinal tree in the ground with a tag carrying your name. Outside that season you see the nursery and the drying area instead. Whether your date falls in planting season is confirmed in your quote.
• Make your own foot-soak sachet. In the workshop you weigh dried herbs, mix them and pack a sachet to take home.
• Two demonstrations. The practitioner shows how herbal wine and a herbal poultice are prepared. Both are made in advance - herbal wine takes weeks, a poultice hours - so you see the method and the finished result rather than waiting for one to be made from scratch.
• The foot soak. 30 to 45 minutes with your feet in a warm herbal bath, with one drink, in the farm's calligraphy garden cafe. It is the quiet end of the day.
• The shop is optional. The farm sells its products. Nobody expects you to buy anything.

The tour runs all year, but the stream changes a great deal between seasons, and it is fairer to say so now than to let a photo set the expectation.

Nobody enters the stream during heavy rain - water can rise quickly. If the weather makes the forest unsafe, we cancel and you get a full refund or another day. Our when to go page sets this tour beside the others month by month.

Why the price is shown 'from' and how a quote is built: see the pricing page. The steps from request to confirmation are on how to book.

If ten hours is too long - with young children, for example, or on a day when you fly out in the evening - we can run a 7.5-hour version. It drops the pepper or bee farm and goes straight from the stream to the herbal farm, and you are back at your hotel at about 15:00. The forest walk, the picnic and the full herbal-farm session stay the same. Ask for it in your request and the quote will reflect it.

If you want a forest day with more swimming and less botany, the Suoi May stream day is the same activity level. If you want the herbal foot soak after a real trek, look at Trek & Heal.

• Anyone unsteady on slippery rocks. The walk is short, but part of it is on stream stone, and in the rainy season that stone is wet.
• Children under six. The morning is long on explanation, and the rocks are not a place to carry a small child.
• People who want exercise. You will walk 2-3 km in about two and a half hours; Trek & Heal or the Tien Son trek is the day for that.
• Anyone hoping the herbs will do something for a health condition. This is a day about traditional knowledge and culture, not a treatment of any kind.
• Groups larger than ten. We do not run this as a big party.

Not sure where you fit? The choose a trek page sorts all five forest days by fitness, distance and age.