Mai Chau

I spent the weekend about 4 hours from Hanoi in an Ethnic community of Mai Chau. I left Saturday morning with Pam and Frankie, two other volunteers as we had arranged a tour through an agency. The guide spoke very good English. The traffic in Hanoi is bad so it takes a while to get out of town. The first road is freeway, maybe the best road in the country. The remaining three hours is spent on local dusty roads where you have to be patience. Our driver took his time and was the least aggressive one I encountered in VN.



Mai Chau is an white Thai community who where a different dress and live in stilt houses. The houses are built with the first floor used for animals, or storing equipment, and you have to climb the stairs to see the living areas. There are related to the Hmong people too, so they do lots of stitchery, knitting, and other sewing. In Mai Chau, it is easy to walk around to see the different houses and farmers. I didn't buy anything but everywhere they sell what they make. In the evening, we stayed in a stilt house, which is built above the ground, with bamboo floors, and mosquito nets. They do have electricity which is fairly new and now western toilets, so not roughing it too much, except that this weekend it was quite crowded with many local VNese visiting and some foreigners. One group of local VNese party men looked at me as if they had never seen a foreigner before. One man in the group tried to talk to me but know no English and never smiled, and it seemed lit he was asking for my passport. I was a little fearful because he seemed almost hostile and our guide wasn't there at the time, plus we was with about 6 other men. One of these men actually tried to pick me up. Later the guide came and I found out that they just wanted to know my age by looking at my passport.



After eating dinner at our guesthouse, we attended a free dance and music show, where locals dressed in costume, sang and danced. It went on for about an hour. After that we had coffee mom and pop store, then hit the stack. It was a little cold in Mai Chau because we were in the mountains and forest area. Lots of noise like barking dogs, wood chopping, my volunteer friends cackling will two hens. Lots of laughs. You have to be careful about going up and down the steps to your stilt house because a fall would be disasterous. In the morning, at 6 am, people are already on the street selling. During Sat. afteenoon and Sunday morning, we spent the time trekking through local villages, seeing their farms. Many people rice fields, but also vegetables. Wells for water, and animals for farming. Dogs were everywhere, but mostly friendly. Tapioca and sugar cane are a big products in this area. In some places, we were invited into homes, just to visit.
Now back to the school on Monday.






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