Mai Chau and our final days

A night in the village near Mai Chau was definitely the antedote to Hanoi's buzz. The village was in a high valley surrounded by forest-covered limestone mountains. The valley floor is covered with rice paddies--all currently being prepared for planting. It was quite the bucolic setting for our final adventure here.

The White Thai ethnic minority occupy the hill country in several areas of northern Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. Originally from China, the White Thai began to move south in around 700 A.D. As their name suggests, their language is similar to Thai and completely distinct from both Vietnamese and Chinese. Tourism is a relatively new thing to this area, but now many families supplement their income by welcoming guests.

We stayed in a traditional stilt house--which is literally what the name implies, a house on stilts. Very handy for keeping critters and floodwaters out of your house--and for keeping cool as well. Most of the houses are made of rough-sawn timbers and split bamboo and are fitted out with only the most basic furnishings. We slept under mosquito nets on mats placed on the floor. Out our windows we had a mountain-framed view of rice paddies stretching off in every direction. It was one of our best nights' sleep since arriving just over a month ago.

When we started our trip a month seemed like such a long time. Now, looking back, it went too quick. I think we are just hitting our stride with this travel thing. We've covered more than 1200 km in that time--traveling by foot, bicycle, boats, buses, planes, trains and automobiles. We've met people from all over the globe and slept on boats, in stilt houses, beach shacks, nice hotels and so-so hotels.

All in all we handled the 24/7 togetherness pretty well. The kids got along great and we weren't at each other's throats all that often. As a trial run for international travel with the kids, this was definitely a success. And compared to Vietnam, many of our future destinations will be a piece of cake.