Mai Chau and Home...ish

Birdsong, crickets, smoke from cooking fires, hazy horizions, a cool mountian breeze and the smell of rich clay. 

Despite running over someones chicken with the motorbike I wish I had more time to look around Mai Chau. It's bang in the middle of the mountians three and a half hours south west of Hanoi. The drive up in the bus was mental. It was about 35 degrees outside, the bus had no aircon and I was melting. The humidity percentage was around 75%  

Got off the bus and after the useual bombardment of men asking "motorbike?" we made our way to a little village called Pom Coonig. We stayed in a Thai stilt house which is made entirely of wood, most of it was bamboo. It was beautiful. After the mad hustel and noise of Hanoi and the crazy bus drive through the mountians this place was a dream come through. It was so peaceful and quiet. After meeting the people who owned the home we set off on a walk. The views of the rice fields and peoples wooden homes were really calming.

Met a really cool Japanese man called  Suzuki Kaita. He was also staying in our place and we got talking straight away. The more I talk to Japanese people the more I want to go to Japan and I can tell you it's very high on my "things to do after Austraila" list. Suzuki works for a travel magazine in japan and was spending 5 days cycleing around north Vietnam. Which is a bit crazy because there are a crap load of mountians.

http://suzukikaita.com/

In the house arcoss from ours there seemed to be some sort of party going on and our curiosity got the better of us. Suzuki and I ventured across to check it out and we were praticaly draged into the house. Drinks were put in our hands and we were asked by everybody (all men) to sit with them and eat. This is where the night started to go crazy. This party only happens once every 4 years so the locals, most of who were Thai men, had broke out the local brew called "ruou" which is made from rice and after looking it up I discovered that "ruou" litlerly means "alcohol" It kind of reminded me of japanese Sake but stickyier and sweet Jesus was it strong. As soon as my shot glass was empty it was filled again from a small green bottle and I must of had around 10 but strangly I wasn't wasted. It was a really happy kind of drunk and everybody was talking and singing. Watched some card games, went for a small drunken walk and after I found my drunken way into my bed I fell sound asleep. It was around 11:30pm.  

I was biblicaly hung over. 

Mai Chau was the last of our visits to the countryside and it was brilliant. Headed back to Hanoi and jumped on a plane to Sai Gon and the following day, after a bit of of last minute shoping, we got on plane to Kuala Lumbar (where I was robbed, my bag with a few bits and pieces in it was taken from under my nose) and then back to Perth. On the way back I wished I was going home to Ireland, I have so many more stories I can't wait to tell that just wouldn't be done justice in this mad blog.  

My 3 weeks around Vietnam have been nothing but fantastic. Even tho I had my board shorts stolen on the boat, I abandoned my camera on an island, I killed a chicken and I had my bag/wallet/clothes stolen in Kuala Lumbar airport I still feel like I had my heart stolen by the land, my belly filled by the food and I've been humbled by the hard working people of Vietnam. The last thing I will say about it is:

You should go. 

Redman out

P.S. Big thanks to the welsh boys who decided to put a mate up for a day or 2. Proper mates are hard to come by. And a big thanks to Duxxa and her family for letting me crash with them for a few days.