Mai Chau activities

At the "suggestion" of James' siblings and siblings-in-law, we headed up to the mountains for a week, to the Mai Chau district. This was a much needed break from the constant movement, a chance to relax and do some nothing for a while as well as to regroup and plan for the next stages of the big trip. We enjoyed the pool with the view over the lake, and spent the first day or so in full relax mode, which made a nice change.

After a day or two of relaxing, we did get out and about to see some of the local attractions, and first on the list was a boat trip on the Hoa Binh Lake, overlooked by the resort. This involved a massive boat, with 2 tourists, a guide and a driver. We went to a floating fisherman's house, where we could inspect the fish farm set up that they have and go for a kayak around the little bay and islands that were there. It was a nice little bit of exercise after a couple of days where the most we had done was room-to-pool or room-to-restaurant. After putting the kayaks back on the boat, our guide Huynh was chatting to the fisherman who owned the place and offered for us to try their homemade plum wine (rice wine with plums soaking in it). Next thing you know, food started coming out of the little kitchen as we sat there with the fisherman and his brother, Hyunh and our boat driver. First was barbequed pork - delicious - then followed by roasted crickets. James decided that it would be a poor show of our appreciation of their hospitality to refuse them, so he had a couple. Gillian was less enthusiastic! When the (water cooler) bottle was finished, more booze appeared, including a fermented rice wine similar to the Korean drink, makgeolli. Another tour group came and went as we sat there drinking, and more food kept coming out of the kitchen (we had 4 or 5 different kinds of pork, basically, plus the crickets). At Gillian's insistence, the chef (wife of the fisherman, of course) came to join us and our tour eventually finished at 2.30 pm (scheduled finish time, 11.30am). The afternoon was spent sleeping it off, and there was no need for dinner either, after all the food we'd had. It was an entertaining, if dangerous, introduction to Vietnamese hospitality, and a salutary lesson in the perils of trying to keep up with locals who make their own booze...

The next day, after recovering surprisingly well, we were off on a full day tour of the Puluong region further up the mountains. It is home to a big national park, as well as some spectacular scenery, in particular views over the local farms, resulting in many photos of rice paddies cascading down the hillsides. We went walking through lots of the local villages and farming areas, and got an introduction to the comprehensive local agriculture. This included back paths through the farms and a visit to see some traditional bamboo water wheels, which are still used to pump water from the river into the rice paddies, using a simple, yet ingenious, system. They wear out after a year or so, but can be rebuilt in under two days by the locals. We walked back to the van over a bamboo bridge, which was nice and bouncy. Gillian was not a big fan...

Our other excursion from the resort was a bike ride through the town of Mai Chau itself, and the surrounding villages. It proved to be an excessively pleasant way to spend the afternoon, with the trusty Huynh guiding us around through his home town, conveniently located in a flat river valley. There was more spectacular scenery, as well as an introduction to elements of the local culture, including a weaving demonstration (on a loom somewhat simpler than the one we spotted at the Ethnology Museum in Hanoi). Huynh seemed to greet about every second person as we rode along, he obviously knows most of the people in the area. 

We had timed things pretty well with the weather, with our excursions not having any rain to speak of. However, during our stay there were some pretty spectacular storms, especially on our last couple of days. They were good days to pick to not do anything much, in anticipation of a lot more movement after departing. The rest managed to regenerate us somewhat, and we were ready to move on to further Vietnam adventures. Thanks to Cam, Clare, Kate, Kim, Dan and Tim for suggesting it...