Vietnam - Mai Chau

I slept well last night with the help of a herbal sleeping tablet so felt much more refreshed this morning. We had a delicious breakfast and then met our guide Sean (his name is unpronounceable for Western tongues so he told us to call him Sean!) plus another local guide who led us on a hike up the mountain then across the valley to a local Thai village. We needed a local guide as there is no established path, it’s just a muddy buffalo track and not easily detected. The weather was great for hiking, about 20C with low cloud. 

We were walking through dense vegetation, I could imagine what it was like for the Viet Cong soldiers trekking through the jungles on their march from the north to the south of the country during the Resistance War Against America (what we in the west call the Vietnam War) although our area was not as dense as what they encountered, and here were fallow rice paddies, plenty of cassava growing everywhere and some corn and banana crops. Over the mountains was Laos, we were less than 30km from the border.  We arrived at the Thai village and were invited into the home of one of the local families, where we were served a local tea and some fruit, persimmon and oranges. Our local guide spoke Thai so could chat to the family, whereas Sean who is Vietnamese does not understand Thai so could not converse with them. Their homes are usually on stilts with a large open plan room on the first floor where the family sleeps, eats and socialises. The open sided ground floor is where the animals were traditionally kept but these days it’s a storage area and their motorbikes are kept there. The family had pigs outside in a pen and also kept birds in a very small home made cages which upset me to see how restricted they were. This image is of the scenery on our hike over the rice paddies, and the extra is a typical village house. The traditional thatched roof is replaced with asbestos (!) or corrugated iron, and you can see the motorbike on the ground floor, and the dog and chickens outside the house.

As this area is considered a ‘frontier' and economically challenged, the government provide free schooling to the people here, whereas in all other areas of the country schooling has to be paid for. Primary schooling is meant to be free across the country but the cost of uniforms, text books and other activities means it is not truly free in other areas. The country is a socialist democracy yet they have very few social benefits. Our local guide went to school here and even stayed in a type of boarding school, and she was one of very few people from these villages who went on to university in Hanoi to study law. In 1945 when Vietnam was under French colonial rule it had a literacy rate of just 10%, but now it has a literacy rate of about 98% which is one of the highest in the world. It was very interesting hearing from our guide how the country has developed since 1995 when Bill Clinton lifted sanctions against this country, and trade improved and progress was made. He was telling us how the Vietnamese love Bill Clinton! After this visit we walked through the village and down the hill to where the car was waiting to take us back to the resort. 

We had a light lunch and then had another massage booked for the afternoon. Today Gavin had another back and shoulder massage but I was sure I would be a bit tender from yesterday’s massage so opted for a foot massage instead. It was both relaxing and very painful at times, especially when the therapist pressed on the reflexology pressure points. 

Gavin spent the afternoon catching up on work while I wandered around taking photos of the waterfall and pool area. 

Tomorrow we have a full day out to visit the Pu Luong Nature Reserve, with another hike.