A ROAD TRIP THROUGH NORTHERN VIETNAM - Part 1

Rice fields in Mai Chau.

This road trip was something very special in our year of traveling. This was probably one of the most authentic experiences we have had traveling.

Emi and I were sitting in a gloomy hotel of the capital of Mongolia waiting for my Chinese visa. As I was making dinner I noticed that Emi was in a very lively conversation with a couple looking very Spanish. They turned out to be Catalans on their back home after more than a year of traveling. The conversation was move like a river of information being poured over Emi about a must do motorbike tour in Northern Vietnam. Martina and Sergio told us how that impulsive trip ended up being their favorite part during their whole 12 months of wandering around the world. Needless to say, Emi was sold on repeating this journey as soon as he heard the stories of deserted mountainous roads, hundreds of indigenous villages on the way, valleys of rice fields and no white foreigners around.

A Rest Stop Somewhere.

Once in Hanoi, we were into the preparations for the trip. Ironically, it turned out that Katya, our host in Hanoi, knew all about independent moto trips through the north as her ex-boyfriend was the owner of a motorbike rental place that set up most foreigners with all the necessary gear and information. The Catalans rented their motorbike form the same guy as well. The trip was going to be a little over 1000 kilometers that we were hoping to cover in 5-6 days. It could have been much longer if we decided to continue on and explore the north of the neighboring Laos, but at the time we decided that a 6 day loop was going to be enough of an adventure.

Day 1: Hanoi – Mai Chau: 188km, 6hs.

On the Way Home from School.

Leaving Hanoi was easy, but long… Everyone drives at the speed of 5km an hour and there is traffic of all kinds at all hours. We left early to avoid the peak of congestion, but that did not help much. Nevertheless, thanks to Emi´s amazing navigation skills we did not get lost once and eventually got out of Hanoi in the right place. Our first overnight stop was planned for Mai Chau, some 100 km southwest of Hanoi. We got there a few hours before sunset, which was not exactly planned this way, but worked out perfectly because the place is absolutely stunning and it would have been a huge loss not to be able to document it in photos. The place is known for its traditional tall stilt houses spread over luscious rice fields. In the golden pre-sunset light the village and the valley looked as a perfect scene from National Geographic. The people turned out to be also extremely friendly and welcoming, even though it is very touristy. Mai Chau is the closest traditional Vietnamese village to Hanoi, so busloads of farang tourists are delivered there daily. The Catalan couple, as well as many other independent travelers, prefer to stay away from such touristy places for this reason, but we felt that following this logic we would be robbing ourselves of seeing some of the most amazing places in the world. So, despite the white grandmas walking along narrow dirt village paths, we were happy we did not skip Mai Chau. It was surreally beautiful!

Rice Harvest.

Despite its popularity with tourists, the village still lives by its agricultural traditions. When we arrived, it was harvest time and we got to see how rice was separated from its husk and hey. Most of it was done manually by beating the rice plants against the ground and stepping on it, or with a mechanical beating machine, which is operated by a pedal, much like an old pedal-operated sewing machine. Sometimes a few families collectively rent an industrial electrical device to process their rice, but since we did not see much of it, it must be expensive for the farmers, so most of the rice is planted cared for, harvested and separated manually!

Some Local Ladies.

Another reason why we wanted to go to Mai Chau was because we wanted to stay with a Vietnamese family and learn a little about their life and the way they do things. We did not have to look for a place to stay as the first guy who appeared at the entrance of the village persuaded us to stay with his family. The stay also included a dinner and a breakfast, which was just perfect. The meals in Vietnam always consist of rice accompanied by multiple dishes served for everyone to share. The individual plates are not really plates, but are small bowls which you refill several times during the meal. The utensils are chopsticks or hands. Fruit is commonly eaten as a desert and as a breakfast treat. Breakfasts, as we know now, doesn´t really exist in South East Asia. For them, breakfast is just another meal that is eaten early in the morning (around 6 am), and so it can be a traditional bowl of noodle soup, rice with vegetables and chicken or meat. It is all very delicious, but in the morning…I still prefer my croissants or a toast with cheese!

Day 2: Mai Chau – Thuan Chau: 217km, 7hs.

New Lunch Friends.

With our stomachs full and our butts sore from not being used to spending hours on end on a motorbike we were off. Our goal for the day was to cover some 200 kilometers and spend the night in the town of Thuan Chau. I thought that the farther we got form Hanoi the less populated the countryside was going to get. However, I forgot that we were in Vietnam – one of the most populated countries in the world, with almost 90 million people spread throughout its country side. There were villages along the road almost everywhere. Some looked like small towns and others were just a collection of several wooden huts planted in between fish ponds and rice fields. We also noticed that among the working in the fields there were never children, unlike in some parts of Latin America. We saw them helping out the adults later in the evening, but during the day they were all in school. It appeared that there was a very strong emphasis on education in Vietnam and teachers were very well respected in the society.

In between Villages...

Little by little we began noticing that people were looking differently from one village to the other. We began seeing people wearing characteristic traditional dresses that distinguished them from the natives of the other surrounding villages. Some had long velvet skirts with bight color belts, some wore Andean-like colorful multilayered skirts and embroidered tops, others had special head wear pieces and distinctive hairdos. It was not surprising to me how many different types of ethnic minorities that we saw, but I was shocked at how closely they lived to one another, and how they all coexisted without visible conflicts and animosity. To us, the people were always very friendly and welcoming. Every lunch stop turned into a story of meeting the whole family of the restaurant owners; or some game with the local kids; or a drunken celebration of life with the local field workers, who took their time to enjoy the food, each other’s company, and telling us (in Vietnamese) about their lives.