We were up early because we were leaving by 8. We are spending the night in someone’s house so we packed an overnight bag and checked out of the hotel. It was a 3.5 hour ride to Mai Châu, which is west of Hanoi.
Along the way Mai told us that Vietnam’s population is 100 million. There are 54 tribes. 86% of the people are considered Viet, and the rest of the tribes are fairly small. Today we are visiting the Thai people. This tribe originated in Tibet, then moved to Thailand and about 8,000 years ago they migrated into Vietnam. There are two Thai tribes, the white Thai and the Black Thai. According to legend, 2,800 years ago the king was trying to decide which son would inherit the kingdom. He had two worthy sons so he ended up splitting it. That’s why there are two Thai tribes.
We stopped to use the “Happy Room”, aka bathroom. We had to buy coffee in order to use the happy room. Rick had the coffee, it was very sweet because it had evaporated milk in it. The family who owned the rest stop supplemented their income by growing pomelos so Mai bought some for us to try. It was similar to a grapefruit. She also bought us some peanut brittle to eat on the bus. It was very similar to our peanut brittle but it had some sesame seeds. Mai introduced us to the owner of the restaurant stop who invited us into her home. There, she had a picture of her family. You can see many members were in the military. One of the woman’s sons was intellectually challenged as a result of exposure to agent orange.
We got back on the bus and our next stop was at a roadside market. There we tried two types of sticky rices cooked in bamboo tubes. Here are some pictures from the market.
Finally we arrived in the village of Pom Coong which is in the ward of Mai Châu. We immediately had a lovely lunch of squash soup, deep fried chicken, fish cooked in bamboo, garlic green beans, and cucumber salad.
While eating we talked (though Mai) to 78 year old woman whose family owned the guest lodge. Her husband fought for the north in the war and injured his leg. Each time he came home for a visit she ended up pregnant. Today they have 6 daughters. She chews betel nut so her teeth are all black. She also weaves and sell her wares but we decided we didn’t need anything.
After lunch we were shown to our sleeping accommodations. We’ve stayed in some unique places but never anything like this.
After we got “settled” we walked through the village. Everyone in the village has a rice paddy. They had already harvested the rice and were preparing the paddies for the next season. In the north they get one or two harvests per year; in the south they get four. We stopped to talk to a man who was watering his garden and he offered to show us his house.
Here are some other pictures from the walk.
We came back to our home stay and relaxed for a while. Before dinner we had a show of some of the local music and dances.
The last dance ended with us all up dancing and then drinking from a jar filled with liquor. This picture is one of our trip mates acting silly.
