Vietnam Part Six: Mai Chau continued

We spent the next two days in the Thai village of Mai Chau (referred to as one of the minority villages in Vietnam), where we stayed with a family in a stilt house. I tried to find out why they are called minority villages - not when I went there, just now as I was typing this, but decided who cares? It's what they are called. The village has limited supplies of water and electricity. These services were only available during certain hours of the day, but thanks to Eskom, I was well trained for this.

What follows is a list of Awesomeness that occurred during those two days:

My hand and ankle got bitten and decided to swell - the ankle so that I couldn't walk properly, the hand was so big you couldn't see my knuckles for two days.

Even without electricity our host family was still able to concoct mountains of the best food we had in Vietnam.

Shower - well, there wasn't one. There was a concrete bathing room with a massive tin tub that would be filled when the water was on, and a plastic scooper that you would dunk and then splash yourself. Possibly the best bathing experience of my life, especially as the water was cold, but the village was hot and humid. Although within five minutes I was icky sticky.

Toilet - squat (which Japan has gotten me used to), but this one required more use of a scooper to flush your waste product away.

The Beds- the house was one big room on stilts that the family did everything in, but at night sleeping areas would be partitioned with thin curtains. We then each had a futon with our own voluptuous mosquito net. In the candle light it was fairy princess heaven and what I had always wished for in a bed when I was a child.

I saw fireflies for the first time in my life. They are incredible creatures, for which faerie lights are a pale substitute. I would like to invite any fireflies and their glow worm mates looking for a home, to come and live with me and be my loves.

Waking up naturally at 5am. No electricity at night. Not a whole lot to do. Early Sleepytime, plus lots of walking = super happy sleep cycle.

Walking tour of the village by our hostess, which included a super scary climb up to a cave. A way awesomer cave than the one Sexy Mexican David took us to. We switched off the flashlight and blew out the candle and sat in solemn silence contemplating the darkness and the madness that would descend if you tried to do this longer than 5 minutes.

They had hammocks - Ah hammocks! Another childhood fantasy of mine that was thwarted by too-small gardens or trees that insisted on being in the wrong place or parents that thought the money would be better spent on new school shoes. Mr S got a cold on the second day and decided to stay at the house and rest in one of the hammocks. His ass decided to make a hole so big, it split the hammock in two.

Cycling - While Mr S was recuperating and killing hammocks, Mr N and I decided to take a bike ride through the village. We spent a lot of time shopping in the more touristy area, and then decided to head back. I made the mistake of entrusting our route to Mr N, who decided it would be "fun" to ride through the rice paddies. Unfortunately, rice paddies are not meant to be biked through, and the wee walking paths quickly become unnavigable, which resulted in us having to carry the bikes a fair way and me screaming expletives to the bugs that were planning an invasion of my skin. Later, when recovering with a beer, I pretended that it had all been a good laugh - I wanted to seem adventurous and high spirited and not afraid to carry a bicycle unnecessarily through a rice paddie when there was a perfectly good road only meters away. However, Mr N, should you be reading this, I lied.

Vietnam Part Five: Mai Chau

We catch a taxi from the backpackers to Ha Dong bus stop, or bus station - we're not exactly sure which. The driver deposits us in the dust with a wave of the hand that Ha Dong is somewhere Over There. We head to Over There, but the people at Over There tell us that this is not Ha Dong. We walk a little further down the road, and return to Over There and from Over There we think we see a sign for Ha Dong on the opposite side of the road. We ask the people at Over There if Ha Dong is across the road. They tell us `Yes, it is Over There` (Over There now having moved to the opposite side of the road). We cross to the other side and are back at Over There. We try to read the bus schedule at this Over There, but decide to seek refuge in the bank next to Over There where a lovely lady tells us which bus to get onto. The next Cowboy Bus that lasoos along, we hop onto. This makes the conductor very angry, but at least we are moving from Over There to Ha Dong.

A few minutes pass before I break Mr N's reverie at ruffin' it, to ask 'How will we know when we have got to Ha Dong?' Frantic questioning of fellow passengers ensues. Another lovely lady comes to our rescue and informs us that the Over There we just left was Ha Dong, and this bus is leaving Over There but not going to Ha Dong, because it was already in Ha Dong. Get off bus. Walk back to beginning. Discover that the place where the taxi driver (who we had been cursing as a useless sod) was Over There. Get onto bus. Weeee and away we go to Mai Chau.

We drive for two hours in a luxury upgrade of a South African minibus taxi. There is a steering wheel and the door only makes its surprise open sporadically. Plus, we have green velvet curtains.

We are shuffled off by an enterprising taxi driver (not the bus driver, another driver of a normal car) in a dusty town. We are now Taxi Central, as cars and motorcycle taxis swarm around us, each offering a dodgier deal the one before. A helpful shopkeeper - another lovely lady ( it seems all our heroes are female) saved us from the buzzers and helped us get onto the next bus that we needed.

The next two hours we bumpity bumped up the mountain road and I made friends with the refrigerator that was being transported in the aisle. We abruptly took a pee break when the bus ran out of petrol and Mr N, Mr S and I discussed the Nature of Smoking, and addiction in general.

Mai Chau finally greets us. Hungry and tired and full bladdered, we are approached by an enthusiastic businessman who wished us to stay at his house. Distrustful and grumpy, we attended to out physical needs before agreeing to a no-strings-attached viewing.

We agreed and we speed along on the back of motorcycles, the mountains opened up to rice paddies and a wooden village and our city slicker hearts were sold. Finally, we had stepped onto a slightly less beaten track and could feel superior in our rusticness when we told our stories back home.