Mai Chau, Vietnam - a totally random experience

Mai Chau was a bit of a last minute decision for us. We had a bit of time before our plans to do the Northern Loop via motorbike so we were planning on going to Sapa however we had a couple of friends come back to Hanoi and say that the weather was so bad, it wasn't really worth it. That, and apparently the tour guides and locals are extremely pushy trying to sell you their goods. I had heard various things about Mai Chau from different people along the way, mainly good things so we booked to go for 3 nights.

We booked a bus with our hotel (Golden Time Hotel). A minibus picked us up early morning and we presumed we were being transferred to a bigger coach as per standard practice however this minibus was headed straight for Mai Chau, apparently we had gatecrashed a pre-organised tour group. Standard Vietnam, you never know what it going to happen!

The minibus took about 4 hours, stopping once at a rest stop. The views up to Mai Chau were incredible. You could see lots of paddy fields and little wooden houses scattered throughout the distance. The bus dropped us all at the tour groups guesthouse which was about 3km walk from our own homestay we booked (Quan Hang Homestay). It was a fairly hot day and the thoughts of lugging my huge backpack 3km was daunting. Luckily the receptionist could see the dread in our faces and asked us which homestay we were staying at. She kindly called the owner for us and 20 minutes later he showed up in a golf buggy, we were so happy!

The drive to our homestay was great. The sun was shining so the paddy fields were such a vibrant green colour and there were mountains in the backdrop. Our homestay was a 2-storey wooden house. It had a lovely dining area out the front. The owners had very, very little English so it was difficult to ask anything, even their names. The lady showed us to our room which had gorgeous views. The bed was as hard as any in Vietnam! We asked if they had food and the woman nodded, then went off and cooked us the most extravagant lunch of fried spring rolls, rice, fresh vegetables and chicken. We were not expecting that at all. It seems to be the thing at this homestay, you ask for food and they rustle up whatever dish they fancy.

Over the next couple of days, we hired a bicycle and just cycled through the paddy fields and around the local village. My bike had no brakes, so that was semi-interesting! You just come to expect these things and for $1 a day who can complain. Although complain I did, not to the owner just to Denver!

My favourite and most frustrating day was our 3rd day. We decided to explore further so organised a bike through one of the hostels in the village. We decided to go to check out Pu Luong National Reserve. There had been serious rain overnight so the roads in the town just before the reserve were extremely flooded. There were so many trucks driving on both sides of the road and for that reason, there were crater size holes in the mud road. I don't know how Denver navigated his way through it all but he did and we eventually got to the start of the reserve.

We drove through a lot of ethnic minority villages, there were kids and adults waving and screaming hello at us. This was pretty much the theme the whole way around. We were about 20 minutes on the road and our motorbike broke down on a bridge. Denver spent the next 15 minutes running up and down the bridge with the bike trying to get it started and eventually it came back to life.

We started off again and did about 15km uphill with not a lot to see along the way. Next thing we know is Denver has smashed into a rather large pothole on the road, it was only a minute before he felt the flat tyre. We looked around and were seriously in the middle of nowhere!! Denver wheeled the bike for a couple of minutes back down the hill to a house we had seen. There was a man and a wife outside. We tried our best to explain the situation to them, pointing to the tyre. At this stage, there were kids coming out of all areas of the house to have a look at the stupid tourists. The man got a pump and pumped up our tyre but a friend of his that had arrived must have seen how dire the tyre was that he said to follow him.

I got on the back of his gorgeous white bike and Denver followed us back down the hill. We ended up at what looked like a motorbike repair shop. There were a few men and lots of kids around. The guy who brought us there explained the situation to them and in between laughs and chatter they finally took a look at our bike. There was a lot of conversation and checking this and that and then they sent a guy off. They had no English but we gathered from their actions of explanation that the guy had gone off to get a part for the bike that they did not have.

We were waiting and waiting and trying to make conversation with great difficulty. There was something quite nice about seeing these tribes lives up and close. There was one little girl who took a shine to me and anywhere I went, she moved her chair too and kept smiling at me. I guess they don't have too many tourists stopping at their house. After about 3 and a half hours, the guy came back with a tube. They put it on the bike, pumped the tyre, we paid 300,000VND ($13.50USD), said our goodbyes and off we went again.

This reserve is just beautiful, aside from all of the smiling, friendly locals there were so many pretty rice terraces. We drove for a long while just taking it all in. We were pretty hungry by now, it was 2pm. We must have tried 3 different villages for food but after a while, we realised this is their nap time. Super!

We came across another town, still no food but disaster struck again. The bike died. Denver managed to start it once more, we got about 1km and you couldn't even write it, we broke down for one last time right outside a mechanics. We were so lucky. After much explaining, the mechanic called our bike renter back in Mai Chau. We have no idea what was said but what we needed was a new battery. We were irate at this stage that so much could go wrong with a rented bike. The mechanic replaced the battery, another 300,000VND later we were able to make our way out of the reserve and back to town.

We had quite a heated argument with the bike owner as he refused to refund us any money we had spent on his bike. All we wanted was the money for the battery. We eventually settled on only paying for half of the rental fee because we were exhausted at that stage.

We walked 4km back to our homestay and had a big feast. What a day! That's the thing about travelling, you kind of get used to things happening that are out of your control but I always try and take away the good. And the good was meeting all of the lovely people we did, seeing the amazing sights, making memories and having a story for life!

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