Day 22 and 23 - Mai Chau

Mai Chau is west of Hanoi.  After a four hour drive through the lushest countryside I've seen yet we came to the Valley.The suburbs of Hanoi in this direction are first a muddle of, of all things, allotments, that become more market gardens as the space between houses increases.  By the time we hit highway 4, of which my guide, Dzun and driver Duc, were very proud, I had seen every vegetable possible growing from tomatoes and maize ('corn') to the inevitable bananas. They use the banana trees as edging around properties and fields and outside their front doors and shops.  Though I had noticed market gardens on the road to Ninh Binh I had not realised how common or important they are.  Every spare inch is used up along the roadside. As well as the banana, mango, guava, Jackfruit and Malay Acama (?) trees (for shade), corn and later sugar cane was growing in every scrap of land between shops, that land that in Britain would be dirty scrub. Rice paddies feature too of course, on the flat at first and then 'stepped' as the countryside became more mountainous.  We passed the University of Forestry. Forests seems to be made up of  Red Gum trees from Aus. and huge black stemmed bamboo. Also saw the odd stand of cinnamon trees, steep slopes covered in ferns and hundreds of Robinia Frisisa!  Sugarcane is the specialty of this region: Hoa Binh. On the way in we stopped at a cafe briefly where they were selling pickled scorpion and had a cobra in a jar. I wonder if they were pickled in the local green tea? (which I tried and was disgusting). The same cafe also had caged bird of course, this one made some spectacular noises though. It was gunmetal grey, about the size of a blackbird, with a black crest. Stupid thing, if it didn't sing, it wouldn't be kept caged. Then again it would probably be pickled. 

Mai Chau lodge is something special. Everything works! The food is fantastic and they don't try too hard. There is even complimentary rice wine! It is situated on the edge of a lotus pond that I found very zen. After check in and lunch, where I found myself taking pictures of the food seriously for the first time - banana flower salad, 'farmer' vegetable soup, catfish fritters and caramel pork, with watermelon tea for dessert - we set off for a cycle ride. 

It was 40 degrees, however it was great; we saw most of the valley in a only a couple of hours.  I got some fantastic shots of the rice paddies and farming,  saw butterflies: tortoiseshell, a large black, two black and white types and a most spectacular huge black or purple and iridescent blue swallowtail variety (the Chinese Peacock). An old woman noticed my interest when I first saw it and tried to call my attention to it when it appeared again. Unfortunately I could not capture a pic. 

We cycled along the edges of paddies where they were rotavating the fields after harvest, saw the seedlings in small squares at the corners of the fields and elsewhere saw them burning off the haystacks.  The buffalo graze the stalks while they are still standing. There were irrigation channels and wild streams, small bridges, surfaced lanes and as we went round Lac I and Lac II, two of the local handicraft villages the area is famous for, people would call out 'hello' and I would answer. My favourite sights were the cow in the bamboo byre, a buffalo being yoked and a red brick kiln, which I wish I had a photo of as it was just so large and unusual to my British eyes. An abandoned bicycle next to the path usually meant a lady in the circular 'non la' hat inspecting the rice in the nearest paddie.

Mai Chau is primarily the home of the White Thai people, second most populous of the 54 ethnic minorities that the water puppet theatre taught me! There are also Black Thai, Tay, Zao and Hmong people in these parts. The Hmong are the most distinctive with a traditional embroidered skirt that the women still wear. We saw women working at their looms and men carving and welding (modern welding).  Also heard a man playing the traditional local wooden flute. I had been admiring the design of their traditional stilt houses for a while and only with hindsight have realised this design indicates a lack of theft, however beyond their bikes and working tools they do not have a lot inside, as I found out on Sunday. Meanwhile,  as we cycled along the main road along the valley we stopped to watch the local saturday volleyball game. It was a tournament between villages taking place on the rec ground in front of the local theatre, all the men sitting around on their bikes watching and cheering. Seemed familiar.

Back about 4.30pm meant there was time for a swim and a head and shoulders massage before supper.  Unfortunately the massage, which was the best I've ever had, (45 mins, $18, read it and weep), triggered a coughing fit. I must have been a most unpleasant guest that weekend but all the staff and my guide were thoroughly kind and even overly solicitous! I had to explain I was tired to everyone from the chambermaid to the manager! Dinner, in the company of a very cute gecko who wanted to walk about inside my lampshade so that I could admire his feet, was heaven sent crispy fried spring rolls. The lodge guests then watched a display of traditional dance (snake dances and love dances, deary me humans really don't change their priorities the world over) in a gaspingly hot and humid basement room. Vietnamese, particularly those who have been at the rice wine, do not shut up during performances. It was now raining: the monsoon has apparently finally arrived. 

Day 23 - Sunday - TOAST! Need I say more? Next morning dawned cloudy and later the rain set in in biblical fashion. My hair curled. Saw the nearby Mo Luong Cave first thing - yet more calcium carbonate, spooky ladders, tiny bats (the local guide did not know what type but Dzun says they have enormous fruit bats where he comes from, further north, halfway to Sapa) and to hear more history about stored explosives and snakes that grew up to be dragons. The cave was unlit in patches and there was batshit everywhere. I got a bit spooked on my own with just two guides. And a hard hat. Yes, a yellow hard hat had to be worn. Sigh. However, it turned out I needed it as I did indeed clonk my head on a stalactite! 

Had a nice long rest during the middle of the day, where I discovered Vietnamese television is VTV 1,2 and 3, news and nonsense, and that very violent movies are on early. The kids at school often draw missiles and guns amongst their drawings of animals and houses. My hotel room had a kettle and shampoo and shower gel bottles that were imitation rice wine flasks - nicest way of doing this I've seen I think. On the way home the temp dropped to 23degrees in the mountains and there was a heavy mist (unal-nathrac-besooth-methud etc). There had been a landslide on the way in yesterday so the driver was going slowly. We stopped at a roadside market way up in the mountains, belonging to the White Thai people, where Dzun bought some (a huge bag of) snails to give to a friend, as we were going to tea with him!

Hmong Brother, ('An' means both brother and England), who used to own a resaurant and now owns two stilt houses thatched in palm, gave us tea and rice wine. Both delicious. Herbs were added to the rice wine to make my cough go away (it has possibly worked). He lives there with grandma, who was asleep beside a fan on the floor when we arrived and got up to fetch a thermos full of boiling water for the tea; and his wife, a nice ordinary lady who is a history teacher. His daughter had got married about four years ago and there was a huge wedding photo over their bed, with photos of the grandchildren stuck on a calendar next to it. The Hmong people have no religion. They worship their ancestors. The (scrumptious) son in law wandered in while we were there and sat on the broken but useful office chair which was the only chair in the top part of the house ( the lower part, under the stilts seemed to be being used for joinery). We took off our shoes before heading upstairs. I was allowed to sit on the very low bed, which had a wicker counter pane over it. The office chair is also used at the computer table, which had a printer on it. There were two cupboards, a silver Panasonic tube TV, satellite box (I had noticed a lot of satellite dishes in Lac), a large running water fish tank water feature in front of the TV, and a large wooden trimmed aquarium. It was a gorgeous place to live. I suspect a cooking area and WC round the back on the upper level too, but did not get a glimpse though I could smell something cooking despite the rain.  I was glad we did not stay for snails though. I was also glad the driver, Duc, did not drink the rice wine. 

Final view of the day was of the Hoa Binh Dam, Vietnam's largest HEP provider from 1979-2004. Dzun  likes dams. I can also relate some final trivia about Vietnamese motorbikes and farming: the best bikes are the Hondas, most bikes are 110cc but you can have 175 cc though you have to pass the higher level driving test for that. Red Bull does have a stunt team show here and there was a Ho Chi Minh marathon and mini Tour de Vietnam last month.  Vietnam has just taken over from Brazil as the worlds biggest exporter. of coffee, last year apparently, and does grow cacao and tea as well. (Vietnamese coffee is tasty). The verges of the Highway were planted with oleander and Robinia Frisia - (no wind I thought, and later a whole branch came down at my morning bus stop!). Dzun calls churches 'Jesus office' -as a joke- and petrol stations are 'car ba' ('ba' means drink). There is a beautiful golf resort west of Hanoi in the most spectacular countryside, which may or may not be called 'An Lac'. There are cemeteries; walled, wild areas; memorials and pill boxes here and there if you look.