Spring Peak

With a few short days before Scott's return to China, I made sure he had the chance to visit Mai Chau (the farming village that lies at the base of a mountain range, I mention it constantly...). The weather in Hanoi had been the usual "baby rain" as my Vietnamese friends call it, and I was really hoping Scott could enjoy the city in the sunshine. The morning we were to leave for Mai Chau, I headed to our little bus in rain boots and with poncho in hand. I was expecting Mai Chau to be very much the same, leaving me to hike around in mud or sit around in a hut. As the trip progressed and we made it to the mountains, we broke through the ring of clouds to a perfect, sunny day; it was like entering Oz for the first time, when all the dismal grays suddenly splash into color. We quickly circled down the mountains to get to the village of Mai Chau. I have been 5 times in total now, and I was surprised that it could get any more beautiful than what I had experienced already. The area was at it's peak of the spring season, with flowers blooming everywhere, and the rice longer and greener than ever... all being tended to by women donning conical hats and vibrantly-colored farming clothes. There were baby animals all over the place, and the bamboo had become the most vivid shade of green. We did some hiking, as well as spent some time with a local family that is helping my friend Flip develop a small bungalow resort down the road. We sat down to a plastic bottle filled with honey bees. In this bottle, they had added some local alcohol and, well, I'm not really sure what else was floating around. Either way, my Vietnamese was not good enough to decline with dignity, so I partook in some mid-afternoon "medicinal wine" shots. I'm not sure why any of these things are referred to as wine, when it's all straight-up rice alcohol. Either way, the extremely old lady with black teeth sitting next to Scott was really enjoying herself, and put away around 6 shot glasses of this bee stuff. At this point, I was able to use my limited Vietnamese skills to congratulate her on her strength. After a long walk around the village, we came to the communal stilt house to chill around, have an enormous, locally-cooked dinner, and enjoy the calm of a countryside night. We spent the evening watching lightening jump among the mountains in the distance, but by 9pm the oft-heard sound of big, watery thuds drove us into a frenzy of moving furniture. By the time we got all 4 chairs under the stilt house, we were already soaked. Minutes later, all the lights went out. Given that we were in the middle of the countryside, this meant instantaneous pitch black. We managed to feel our way into the stilt house and got into bed, listening to the patter of rain for the remainder of the evening.

The drive home was equally as beautiful, with unhindered mountain range views for the first part of the trip. Unfortunately, the closer we got to Hanoi, the worse it got. Flip said this happens often, since Mai Chau is sheltered from all the foul weather by it's surrounding mountains, leaving it a happy, sunny oasis when all the other cities experience a constant, humid rain. Scott absolutely loved Mai Chau, citing it the best part of his trip (I think the crazy onset of the monsoon rains did the trick). I'm really glad that I got to take him to see what I consider the most underrated place in Vietnam.