April 13, 2015 Since we were stranded in Hanoi for an extra couple of days due to issues with our Egyptian Visas, we decided to take advantage of the extra time and get out of the city.  We decided to go on a 3 day visit out to Mai Chau Valley to do a homestay in a village in the mountains.  We thought this would be a great opportunity to get out of the city and to see the countryside and how the people in the villages actually live.  We were not disappointed in the scenery, that is for sure!  It was about a 4 hour drive to the valley and we stopped on the road above the village to get some great pictures of the view.

Once we arrived to the village, we had lunch at a local home.  It was fabulous!  I think that when we get home, I need to learn how to cook Vietnamese food.  From there, we too, bikes into the house where we were going to be staying for the night.  Luckily, they had a perfect bike for Hayden to ride on.  (He hasn’t gotten the hang of bike riding again following surgery).  After a few minutes (and a VERY rickety bamboo bridge), we got to the house where we would be staying.  It was a stilt house where you sleep on the second level on a bamboo floor with a mattress on it.  It was a little unnerving to step on the floor for the first time, because it’s just pieces of cut bamboo and you can see right through the floor!  The bottom level of the house (ground floor), is used for eating, hanging out, etc.  The area was absolutely beautiful…the pictures don’t do it justice.  Hayden also made a new friend, the local dog which he named Fluffers (the dog didn’t have a name according to the people at the house).

The next day, we got up and started to head up to the mountain via motorbikes (which we had to learn to ride before we took off).  It was a little nerve racking to start, but we got the hang of it.  On the way up, we made a quick stop at a chopstick factory which was very different.  Basically a big covered area with a couple of machines that split bamboo into smaller pieces to make the raw chopsticks (they also made icecream bar sticks).  It took about an hour to get to the starting point of the trek up the mountain.  It was a beautiful climb and we had a great group of people.  We met 4 really nice girls (2 from Germany, 2 from Holland) that we talked to much of the way up and back down.  We did lots of walking up to the top and even got to do a small river crossing.  It was actually pretty funny because there was a bridge to cross the river, but the guy that built the bridge sits next to it and if you cross his bridge, you have to pay him 5,000 VND.  We opted to walk through the water to save the money.  Up to the village were many terraced rice fields, it was a beautiful walk up.  Once at the top, we met 7 kids that were in the village while their parents were working in the fields.  One of the older kids (about 10-13) watches them along with a grandmother.  Hayden got to play ball with them and they were all jumping off of the rocks, it was a really neat experience.  On the way back down the mountain, we stopped to skip rocks for a while at the river before getting on the motorbikes and heading back to the house for dinner and bedtime.

That night, we had a BBQ dinner, which was great!  They had a dance show after dinner where the local people did the traditional dances.  Hayden, as always, was a hit with the girls.  He was the first to volunteer to get up to do the dances.  It’s so funny that he is so outgoing in a foreign country, but gets so anxious about these types of things at home.

The next morning, we got up and took the bicycles and went to the 1,200 step cave.  This cave was used during the bombings as a shelter for the local people.  It was a VERY long climb to the top.  Hayden counted each step and got to 1,148, so he felt a little cheated that he didn’t actually get to do 1,200…I was OK with the missing steps.  After finally being able to breathe again at the top, it was a beautiful view.  After getting back down, we stopped at a local market and had a pineapple on a stick!  We figured it was a “real” pineapple popsicle.  lol

Next, we’re on to Ho Chi Minh City for a few days before we move on to Cambodia and Thailand.