Peaceful Homestay Mai Chau
We thought things were idyllic in Tam Coc, but arriving to Mai Chau four hours northwest, took things to a whole other level. Mai Chau might just be as bucolic as it can possibly get…a rolling blanket of emerald rice paddies sprinkled with walking/bike paths, chickens clucking, (or doing other obnoxious chicken things), stilted wooden homes encompassed by forested craggy mountains and a plethora of homestay options where you can soak up the spellbinding serenity.
Of course when we first settled into “Peaceful Homestay Mai Chau,” our intention was to be there four nights. Little did we know, that would be extended to seven, and certainly not by our own volition.
But before we get to that…let’s enjoy the fun bits…shall we? 🙂
We truly loved our homestay. It was about a 25 minute walk from town and had a sweeping view of the valley floor, an inviting infinity pool, and an extra bed for…our backpacks…($20/night on Booking.)
Greg indulging in his morning coffee on the balcony. Unfortunately the room didn’t have a fridge or a kettle, so we improvised and used our electric coil to heat the water. And since long-life milk is available almost everywhere outside of the US, we were able to buy little boxes of it for our coffee cream.
Like in Ninh Binh, most days were coated with a layer of mystical clouds, but when the sun came out, Mai Chau sure did sparkle. The temperatures hovered around 85F/30C, but the humidity still soared like everywhere else making it much hotter than it actually was.
Our accommodation as seen from across the valley.
Greg enjoying his morning breakfast….which our lovely hostess, Hang, or one of her assistants, would bring us every morning! The included breakfast consisted of a choice of eggs/bread, noodle soup, or pancakes and a side of fruit.
For dinner, we often went next door to the restaurant, which offered dishes like lemongrass chicken (80k Dong or $3.15) which Greg devoured as his delicious welcome dinner.
As this laughable, and very Vietnamese advertising suggests, they are the places to stay in Mai Chau. This sign was about the size of a football pitch on the outskirts on the town. 🤣
Exploring Mai Chau (by Foot)
We chose to go to Mai Chau in lieu of Sapa, because we’d heard directly from many travelers about how inundated with tourists, particularly the bussed in variety, it has become. The enchanting Mai Chau Valley was a very good choice as an alternative because its rural emerald mountain landscapes, serenity and lack of crowds undoubtedly captured our hearts.
It’s located about 3 hours west of Hanoi, and is dotted with minority villages, most laden with skilled weavers and artisans of the “White Thai” people. Not to be confusing, but these people or not white, nor Thai. It’s a pastoral place to just walk, bike or motorbike around its stilted houses and welcoming people, and we still feel like there’s a lot more to explore. That said, we’d come back here again for a rural escape any day. It’s the kind of place you can pick your path…they all seem to lead somewhere captivating.
The vibrant and beautiful fabrics hand made on traditional looms from the local artisans.
What is it about this color that completely calms the mind?
We astoundingly came upon this local family in a tiny village on one of our walks at “Jungle Brews” which was listed on Google Maps as a “wine bar” and had exactly…one excellent review, (now two.)
When we arrived to their house, there was zero signage or indication that anything was going on. They shyly and quizzically peered at us from in the courtyard, until we greeted them with “Xin Chao!” and showed them the one existing review on Google.
Then, with instant recognition, the mom/brewer sheepishly smiled and excitedly said something that clearly meant “that’s me!!!” while pointing to herself and shuffling off to call her son, who could rescue her by speaking some English.
Needless to say, when Dat got on the call things became a lot less confusing 😂 He explained that he was just getting started with the business, while working full time in Hanoi. He then offered us to stay for awhile and have a free tasting! After translating to mom, she got to work pouring us a tasting while Dat provided us info as the intermediary.
It didn’t take us long to recognize we were drinking an absolutely lovely craft fruit/rice wine product, in equally beautiful packaging. We tried guava, rosselle, and mulberry, but Dat didn’t want us to try the banana because he was afraid we wouldn’t like the smell.😆
When we asked Dat the price for a 500 ml bottle, we immediately agreed to buy a rosselle bottle at 100k Dong or $4. Mom gleefully snatched the money like a child and proudly waved her sale in front of her son on the phone. It was cute.
We still have no idea what exactly rosselle is, but we couldn’t appreciate more what this local family is doing, nor the experience, so we were happy to support them! If you’re in Mai Chau and like wine, we encourage you to do so as well!
The inconspicuous house, in case you’re looking for it. 🙂 And yes, it’s on Google Maps too, along with our review.
One of the many traditional stilt houses sprinkled throughout the village. The stilts are used to avoid catastrophes during flooding of the valley and thick wood is used throughout. In the open area below is where families tend to eat eat and socialize.
And, clearly in this particular village of artisans….most of the stilt houses seemed to have one of these underneath.
The school impressively had nothing but English accessorizing its entrance. Even in this tiny village, they clearly are forward thinkers.
More scenery around the villages.
Even rows and rows of…CORN? (Exclaimed the midwestern US girl amongst us.)
And blatantly different tiled tombstones than the stone ones we saw in Ninh Binh
The main street of Mai Chau Town is nothing special, but we personally simply enjoyed the ease of walking across the street here without the fear of becoming road kill here. 😆
The town is big enough to serve the valley with produce sellers, a small Winmart+ market, and pharmacies all which were super helpful. Note: when the Vietnamese add a (+) after WinMart, it ironically doesn’t mean better. Quite the opposite. In fact, WinMart WITHOUT the plus is far bigger and better stocked.
But, they still manage to have some Vietnamese bling.
More walks, and more discoveries…including our favorite restaurant, “Mai Chau Restaurant Countryside” which also offers rooms in the village of Pom Coong.
It was a great place to grab a beer…($1/each), or a whole meal like Mandy’s plate of fresh spring rolls and Greg’s chicken noodles. ($6)
The Pom Coong Village community center and Mai Chau skyscrapers
This particular village, popular for homestays and tourism, also sells many artisan products, which includes more textiles, wooden craftsmanship, and traditional clothing, those of course aimed at wee ones.
Many families in this small tourist area, have their shops under their houses and live upstairs. Most seem open to the ailments. Although we did spy many fans and mosquito nets, it doesn’t seem AC is super common for these tough villagers.
If you’ve got more cash to burn than us, we highly recommend the appeal of Mai Chau EcoLodge. Oo la la! Not that $62/night would totally break us!!
More photos in and around the valley…there is something so tranquil about the sound of rice blowing in the wind. Like wheat grass, it kind of tinkles together, whereas corn sounds so much more aggressive… 🤣
Exploring Mai Chau (By Bike) and Resulting Doom
On what was supposed to be our final day in Mai Chau, we rented a motorbike for a day of stunning waterfall pools, blissful hot springs and exciting exploration in the emerald valley. Oh yeah…let’s not forget the police sirens, treacherous trails, and puzzling parasitic hitchhikers who would decide to take a seemingly never ending pilgrimage through Mandy’s digestive tract….
First…the pretty pictures…Ooo….ahhh…ooo…ahhh!
As usual, travel is not always what Instagram wants you to believe. This day was sort of a series of unfortunate events, which began by MISTAKE 1: our negligence in not packing snacks for the ride noticing there were “plenty” of restaurant options on the loop we planned to do. This is an imperative lesson we’ve learned in our travels before, but apparently someone thought it was time for a reinforcement.
As we scootered out of town with plenty of water but no food, it was beautiful and freeing at first, but it didn’t take long to realize the main road, called the “QL6,” was crawling with cops, the kinda that sneak up on you, sirens beeping at the last minute so your heart relocates to your thyroid. Considering we’d hardly seen A cop in our 2.5 months in Vietnam, it made us pretty nervous considering we were driving without a motorcycle license. (MISTAKE 2). This hasn’t been an issue with rental anywhere in the country, but we didn’t know what would happen if we got stopped, but that a hefty bribe was likely.
So, as soon as we could, we jutted off the highway toward a flag we had marked anyways and found ourselves encountering MISTAKE 3…not looking at the topographic Mapy map first, and considering the 10% downslope of the terrain.
Not slipping forward required full pressure of the surly brakes, and also full pressure of our thighs to clutch onto the bike seat like a vise. Greg, who is no amateur when it comes to motorbike driving, felt apprehensive with the grade so Mandy disembarked for a ~2 km downhill leisurely stroll (more like roll) in the baking mid morning sun while he cautiously continued to coast it down.
But the scenery…SPECTACULAR!! 🤣
We finally arrived in the village of “Bản Bướt” marked midway on the map where there was supposed to be a lovely swimming hole, but we only found a staircase proclaiming “Happy Seasoning” in Vietnamese which led to an abandoned lookout perch with shockingly, no cocktails on top.
Fortunately the road significantly improved after the village and Greg’s beloved cargo was able to saddle back on as we whizzed past our first terraced coffee fields…and another 6k onward, to our first actual waterfall of the day, Thác Tạt Nàng, which required about 3 minutes of walking to arrive at, and was entwined by some undeniable lushness. It was supposed to cost 10k Dong (~$.40) to go in but no one was there to collect! We did read it sometimes dries up in dry season so keep that in mind if you go.
Our next stop was to Suối Nước Nóng Bò Ấm or what translates to as “Warm Beef Hot Springs. Fortunately, no cows, nor hamburgers, were floating inside the springs.
This community based tourism venture, set overlooking rice paddies, was an absolute gem and if it hadn’t been super hot outside already, we would have truly gotten our 30k Dong ($.30) worth in the warm waters.
There were four pristine natural pools cascading from hottest to coolest, though none were exactly refreshing. There were also bathrooms, lockers and drinks available. And only a handful of people, a mix of locals and tourists, as well.
Greg lasted a lot longer in the warm water than Mandy.
Gò Lào Waterfall, where we would find ourselves next, looked way more inviting to her. So inviting that after a climb down the stairs and whipping off her clothes in the midday heat, Mandy plunged in, possibly a little too greedily getting river water up her nose. (MISTAKE 4?)
Who’s the lady picking her wedgie?! Better black box that, in case our Americans are watching.
It was sooo refreshing!!
And if this is where Mandy actually got sick, it may just have been worth it.
What was not worth it, was this plate. (MISTAKE 5?!) Yes, after the waterfall romp and several failed attempts to already find food, we were officially “starving,” and well past an amber alert in Hangry Town. We finally found one restaurant with a couple decent Google reviews that was open.
And, this is how we met this mound of mostly headless oleaginous fried river fish, which were meant to be eaten whole, as if you would a french fry and dunked in chili sauce. Needless to say, they were NOT good and definitely the worst thing we’d put in our mouths in Vietnam. But because we were really hungry, and almost anything is choke-downable when fried, we each swallowed more than half a plate. (For the bargain price of about $3/each.) 🤣
Already experiencing many unsavory fish burps, we agreed that some dessert was in order so we zipped up to the Top View Cafe to gaze at the magnificent valley from far above…
…while washing away the aftertaste with a divine Oreo and Chocolate milkshake. (MISTAKE 6?!) Surely not….but there’s always a small possibility with ice. This place seemed pretty clean and nice though….By this time, a storm cloud was looming overhead and we got back to the hotel just before it let loose.
Mandy, on the other hand, was still tightly sealed by the time our pre-ordered dinner from the restaurant next door arrived at 6:00. However, she admitted to Greg she still felt full and definitely didn’t feel like eating what was about to be dropped before us…or, our second plate of creatures that day. This time, however, they were in the form of…steamed Mannequin Mountain Snails. (An $8 plate ‘o fun).
The night before, when we’d ordered them, it actually seemed like a fun idea, in theory, to try the Hoa Binh regional specialty popularized by the traditional Muong people. But what we naively expected was a little more petite, a little more buttery…and a lot more French-looking than a pile of nearly palm-sized barely altered arthropods plucked from the earth.
We were instructed to remove the hardened suction cup, which covered the shell opening and to excavate the plump, juicy little slime ball using a wooden stick and a twist of the hand to match the curvature of its home
Mandy, already feeling uncomfortable before dinner, quietly grew repulsed watching the process, yet she ate at least six before surrendering in disgust at the flavor of “rubber bands rolled in dirt” and the cyclone churning in her stomach. Greg didn’t really like them either, but they weren’t quite as repugnant to his hardened gut bugs he acquired over years of gallivanting Mexico as a child, (inevitably way more dangerous to any tourist than a cartel).
It’s safe to say that the bamboo sticky rice dipped in peanuts was probably not the culprit.
It’s hard to say exactly what it was…the River water? River fish? The Milkshake …or the Snails? But, the following 72 hours turned quickly to hell for Mandy with the worst food/waterborne poisoning she’s had since India in 2019. But when she wasn’t getting intimate with the toilet, or crashing in utter exhaustion, at least she had a lovely view out the window.
She also had a cute errand boy with a lucky gut apparently lined with probiotic roses to bring her loads of coconut water to prevent dehydration, medicine and eventually, processed crap* because evidently, she still reverts to childhood food cravings when she’s recovering from this kind of tummy trauma.
*Yes, those “Pringles” are called “Slides” in Vietnam. Mandy can confirm, the marketing was true to its name.
We’ve found these little shots of probiotics are available almost everywhere in the world, even small villages like this one. She also reluctantly took a round of Cipro, which we always carry in case it was a bacterial bug.
Trying to get Mandy to eat on the morning of day 4. At this point, she encouragingly munched on the watermelon…stomached the walnut milk…but wanted nothing more than the wedge of fake vinamilk cheese. Her first cheeseburger in eons would follow a day later because it was the only thing that sounded good to her. Is she the only one this happens to?!? She would never eat these things otherwise…
After three extra nights in Mai Chau, we were finally able to relocate the three hours back to Hanoi thanks to Imodium and a comfortable private van transfer for $10/each. We’ve learned that when one of us is sick, frugality must be dialed down in lieu of comfort.
Arriving in Hanoi, we stayed in the old quarter where Greg was happy to have easier access to resources and Mandy continued to recover. Our amazing, hotel breakfast spread, where of that, still with no appetite, and most foods sounding repulsive, this was Mandy’s breakfast on morning five. By mornings six and seven, she was eating more, but stomach and strength is still far from normal. Greg gently reminds, this is the admission price for living a nomadic life. Indeed. 🤣🤢😁
But, to be honest, the track record really isn’t too bad for six years…
Scoreboard: Mandy: 3 (India, Bolivia and Vietnam) & Greg: 1 (Bolivia)
