We were running out of time and had a choice – Halong Bay on a Vietnam holiday week (Independence Day and Labour Day), when everyone who could was travelling to Halong Bay or go the other way deep into the countryside. We chose the countryside. Everyone we have met along the way says that Halong Bay is too crowded and too polluted with dodgy boats. We have decided that the best way to do it would be to go for 3 or 4 days on a private junk so we can go a lot further and see it at its best – and also at a quieter time. So this time we take the trip to see the minority people, both White Thai and Hmong in tiny bamboo stilt villages some 4 hours from Hanoi, and plan a less crowded longer trip to Halong next time. We have seen a lot of Vietnam on our travels, but there’s still lots left – look out for “Hidden Vietnam” in future blogs. We travel over potholed roads and bounce over the most spectacular mountain passes, far more beautiful than the famed Hai Van pass. We were up in the clouds. Then suddenly we start to come down, and laid out before us was the most beautiful green valley, was this Shangri La? We weave down the side of the mountain through hairpin bends and finally reach the wide valley floor, covered in the greenest paddy fields ever. We arrive at Mai Chau village, home of some of the minority people and the first thing we notice as we get out from our transport is the silence. No motorbikes, no blaring horns, just the sound of the odd chicken. The village we arrived at was White Thai and made up of bamboo stilt houses where the local families live. They are basically a large room built up on stilts – the space under the room is the “kitchen” where there is an open wood fire for cooking and a place to keep the animals. Ours was one of the bigger ones (about the same size as our living room villa at the Nam Hai) and as such was able to take in the odd paying guest such as ourselves. At night, they section off the large area with mozzie nets and whoever is there sleeps on the floor….. But we were lucky (?) and got an upgrade. Attached to this larger hut was a smaller one – same design but tiny, and we were allocated it. So in we checked – one bamboo square hut high off the ground, large enough for one very thin mattress on the floor and not much else, at night they would string a mozzie net over it. There were windows, well not actually windows as such, just square holes of bamboo missing on two sides…. What the hell we thought, it was best available - we laughed! We were then guided back to the main hut for our lunch which we ate on the floor, no chairs or dining tables here. After lunch we take a walk around the village. Some families had made little stalls downstairs to sell the locally made handicrafts to the few tourists who come here. We buy a few bits and pieces and then decide to take ourselves off deeper into the fields by taking a couple of bikes. After a kilometre or so, the pedal falls off Gill’s but was rapidly repaired by a group of local boys who were gathering together for an evening game of football (see pic). We look out over the river where water buffalo wallow in the cool, slow river. Bike fixed, we cycle off down the rough paths along the banks of the narrow river. At one point we meet a local with a huge gun (or was he just pleased to see us?), at least five foot tall and taller than him. His gun was resting against a nearby tree as he had scrambled up high into another one to retrieve his catch – the bird, which we assume he had shot, was caught in the high branches. He gets the bird down, and waving us goodbye with said gun and a big smile, he takes his meal home. We cycle further on as the road gets even rougher, and watch another man catching his meal in the river. Hitting the water with the oars from his tin bath shaped boat, he attracts the fish and then catches them in his net. The road runs out so we turn back – and as we do, the pedal on Ant’s bike promptly falls off – good stuff this Vietnamese technology! As we look at the pedal and separate bike, a lady comes out of a stilt house and using sign language, offers to help. She scoots off to find a hammer and a nut as we look helplessly on. She can’t find the right stuff so calls her neighbour from across the track to come and help. He finds a bigger hammer and as he is effecting repairs we are invited in to the house to take refreshment. We manage, again through sign language, and I hope poilitely to refuse. Bike repaired (see pic), we realise that we had cycled some distance and were in need of refreshment. We had spotted a “proper” hotel outside the village (everything is relative…) so make our way there where we find decent wine, so of course, sampled it. A bottle later we decide we need to return to our village before darkness fell – we realise there were no lights on the bikes and obviously not a street light to be seen. We wobble back towards the village and have to negotiate a steep hill. This was not a good time for Ant to discover his bike brakes were not in the best condition – he now has the yellow jersey for the speediest downhill into the village ever! Back just in time for dinner where we ate a repeat of lunch, again on the floor. Concerned that sleep would be difficult in our airless eyrie, we decide that a bottle of the local Dalat wine would help. Felling mellow after dinner we lie back on the floor to watch a display of local dancing – music provided by banging sticks… It’s amazing how strong the bamboo floors are as the whole house wobbled on its stilts as the dancers moved around. It was all of 8 o’clock and that was the only entertainment available so we relaxed into it. The Dalat giving us courage, we also took part at one point – or that may have been more to do with the fact that that particular activity involved knocking back a measure of sweet rice wine. Dancing over by 8.30pm we twiddled our thumbs deciding what to do next – it was far too early for our thin mattress. But help was at hand – it was Labour Day and the village was celebrating by building 3 bonfires in a field just outside. In the pitch dark we walk blindly towards these fires, over the rickety bridge to see something reminiscent of Lord of the Flies meets disco. All the young men in the village, to the beat of loud house music, were holding on to one another and running around and across the bonfires. Amazing what passes for entertainment in these parts. Ant, still fuelled by his Dalat, was persuaded to join – not the fire jumping bit, just the frenetic dancing…. I have the video to prove it if anyone is interested…. But at 10pm, the party, suddenly and with no warning, came to an end – and everyone started walking back to their villages – no idea how everyone suddenly knew it was time to go – perhaps Uncle Ho’s ghost had appeared! As we returned to our village, a little handicraft stall was still open across the way so we go and buy a couple of friendship bracelets that we had been searching for ever since we arrived. As we tied them on each other’s wrists we reflected on how much more friendly we were about to become - we were about to sleep together in a little bamboo hut with no bed, grubby looking pillows and no windows… Finally after chatting away for a while and feeding a lovely local dog with crisps we decided we really had to climb up the wooden ladder and brave the room. As a precaution, in Hanoi we had invested in silk sleeping bag liners to protect us from grubby bedding and pillows. The struggle to get into them was caused by more than our lack of co-ordination following the two bottles of local wine. Then we realised our error – buy a sleeping bag in Vietnam and it will be made to fit a Vietnamese - they were approximately half the size required! But in some situations you just have to go with it, and we place our heads (Gill’s still itches thinking about it…) on the Donald Duck pillows and fall instantly asleep! At this point we remember where Carole and David are sleeping this night – in a luxurious bed in one of the best hotels in the world, the Oriental in Bangkok, whilst we were on a bamboo floor, no aircon, no windows, no bed – how the mighty fall! Village life begins early and given holes for windows and bamboo walls you wake up feeling that you are out in the open. Gill manages to doze for a bit but Ant is up bright and early to eat a “pho” and then go for another bike ride through the paddies. At 8.30am we walk to see some other villages. One called Van was like going back hundreds of years – not another tourist in sight as we enter this 1,000 year old village through yet more amazingly lime green paddies. It’s rather hot as we look for bottled water – we really have gone back in time – it’s not sold here. We were offered a couple of small bottles, but it was obvious that a bit of local re cycling had rapidly gone on with the bottles wet from recent refilling with tap water… Now we’re all for local entrepreneurship but this was too far! Again, we were offered local hospitality in this village with nothing. Old women were returning from the forest laden with wood which they were carrying on their back, supported with a wide band around their heads. We decide to walk back out of the village through the fields and the paths separating the individual paddies. We end up going down the hill towards the river floor, through another part of the village with smaller fields of veg and dammed up bits of river where fish were farmed. We take several wrong turns and come to dead ends, could we end up wandering around this piece of Shangri La for ever we wonder? Eventually, we find the way out and make our way back through yet another old village to get back to where we started after walking about 10kms. On the way we pass through the local small market – and for the first time see close up, dog meat on offer – in joints or the whole animal. After another interminable four hour bumpy journey, lashed by rain, we were never so glad to see Hanoi and our last night. We return to our favourite restaurant, the Quan an Ngoc, then back to the Rising Dragon to pack our little suitcases (getting bigger by the minute with shopping) for the next stage on our adventure. Vietnam has been third world, huge energy, a fantastic adventure with periods of respite at the Nam Hai and Hoi An. The people have all been great and very welcoming . We have used every means of transport – cyclos, boats, planes, sampans, rowing boats, fishing boats, bamboo boats, ferries, trains taxis, cars, coaches, minibuses, feet, bikes, mopeds. Au revoir Vietnam, we will be back.
