Cycling in the morning at Mai Chau valley

7 October 2018

I was wondering if I should wake up early to catch the sunrise over Mai Chau valley on my first morning in rural Vietnam. Hearing the rooster crowing in the distance, the “photographer” in me told me to get up and go out at 6 AM.

It was a misty morning or perhaps the mornings in Mai Chau valley are always like this. Located only a few hundred metres above sea level and surrounded by hills on almost all sides, the humid air in the cool morning is sure to produce mists. Obviously, there would be no spectacular sunrise on this day but there were still plenty of subjects for a photographer to shoot.

Mist over rice paddies at Mai Chau valley

I was the only one walking around the gardens of Mai Chau Ecolodge, one the best places to stay in Mai Chau valley. Set on the slope of a hill overlooking the rice fields, the gardens within the ecolodge are also well planted.  

Bird house and gardens of Mai Chau Ecolodge.

In the surrounding rice fields outside the lodge, farmers had started work on the fields and others were on bicycles and motorbikes on their way to the market or to work. In this rural part of Vietnam, the locals start early in the day while the tourists are still in bed.

Breakfast was served at the restaurant overlooking the pool at 7 AM. The best place to sit was at the few tables on the veranda where the cool morning weather could be enjoyed.

Lobby and Restaurant at Mai Chau Ecolodge.

At 8.30 AM, we met our guide, Mr Long, at the bicycle sheds next to the back gate of Mai Chau Ecolodge. Guests could borrow bicycles and cycle around the countryside. After selecting our bikes, we went out from the back entrance of Mai Chau Ecolodge and straight onto the single track road that cuts through the paddy fields.

We had not been cycling for a long time, so we were a little unsteady on our bikes. Fortunately, the terrain at Mai Chau is relatively flat.

Exploring Mai Chau on bicycles allowed us to cover greater distances and explore more of the countryside. Morning is the best time for cycling as the air is cool and we get to see the village and farm activities before the midday heat chases the locals back into their stilt houses.

We stopped a few times to witness village activities. One such stop was to see a local villager constructing and assembling tables and chairs made entirely from locally sourced bamboo. The design of the furniture is similar to those tables and chairs we had used within Mai Chau valley so far. Mr Long told us a set of tables and chairs could be sold for about USD 40. They are durable and could be used for many years.

A stop to see a villager constructing and assembling tables and chairs in a village at Mai Chau.

Using bamboo to construct tables and chairs without using any nails.

Most of the houses in the villages are built on stilts. Some of the houses in the larger villages had been converted into guesthouses and homestays due to the booming tourism industry. 

Handmade cross bows for sale.

We cycled past a small village market selling traditional handicrafts, including crossbows and arrows.  I was tempted to buy but I doubt I could bring it across our strict customs and immigration checkpoints back home. 

Most homes in the village have a weaving loom.  We made another stop to watch a women performing traditional weaving using a loom. It requires hard work and skills to push the needle through the multi-coloured threads to weave intricate patterns and designs on the finished products.

Unlike Sapa, there is no one pushing us to buy anything while we were exploring the villages or countryside in Mai Chau. Although we are not the type to buy souvenirs while travelling, we bought a small handmade purse for 50,000 VND to support the local community.

Leaving the village, we pedalled slowly through the flat Mai Chau countryside lined with green and yellow paddy fields and hazy mountains as the backdrop.

It was generally safe to cycle on the narrow pathways through the peaceful countryside, although there was one short section where we had to cycle on the main road.

Since we came to Mai Chau on a weekend, we saw more Vietnamese visitors than oversea visitors. It was a little ironical that the locals were the one who borrowed or bought traditional ethnic tribal costumes to wear for selfies or photos. And they were also the ones moving around in electric-powered carts which could be a menace to bikers on the narrows pathways. 

Long took us through “off-the-beaten path” routes as well. On one such bumpy road, one of us lost control of the bike and dropped an unopened bottle of mineral water into the paddy field across the bamboo fence! Mr Long tried to retrieve it unsuccessfully. A farmer would be very glad to find it on a hot day in the future.

 

We finished our cycling at about 10 am. By that time, our butts were hurting a bit from the cycling.

We had ample time to shower and checked out from our room. Our driver then drove us to the Pom Coong Village nearby for our lunch before making the road trip to Pu Luong Nature Reserve.

We sat beneath a stilt house for our lunch. Also having lunch at this place was another European couple (with their private tour guide/driver) and a Vietnamese family who came by their own car.

We had a multi-course lunch that was very well presented and tasty. Once again, there was just too much food for the two of us.

Our multi-course lunch at Pom Coong village, Mai Chau.

In particular, we enjoyed the chicken cooked in bamboo, spicy curry beef and salad with crunchy peanuts and tangy sauce. The green vegetable was something I had never seen before and Long told us it was some kind of local squash that grew only in Vietnam.

A whole plate of sweet local mangoes for dessert.

Last look at beautiful Mai Chau valley from our car.

We left Mai Chau after lunch and headed towards Pu Luong Nature Reserve. The journey by car would take about 2 hours. We will do some trekking in Pu Luong Nature Reserve before spending the night in Ban Hieu Village. 

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Road Trip From Mai Chau to Pu Luong Nature Reserve

7 Oct 2018

Pu Luong Nature Reserve is among a few "off the beaten path" places near Hanoi. Tall limestone mountain ranges enclose a fertile river valley, dotted with small settlements of wooden houses on stilts.

We would be spending the next two days in Pu Luong Nature Reserve for trekking and homestay in an ethnic minority village at Ban Hieu, plus a stay in the more luxurious Pu Luong Retreat resort.

Located in the Ba Thuoc District of Thanh Hoa Province, Pu Luong is best accessed from either Mai Chau or Ninh Binh. From Mai Chau, it would require about 2 hours drive through mountainous roads and back country roads to get to Ban Hieu Village where we would be staying the first night.

Water wheels near Ban Hieu village in Pu Luong Nature Reserve where we would stay for the next two days.

We started on our road trip to Ban Hieu village after a morning of cycling in Mai Chau valley. From Mai Chau, our driver Ha drove southwards on Highway 15.

Somewhere near the Nam Ma River, he exited Highway 15 onto a muddy single-track road and made a stop at a small bamboo factory located under a large open shed by the river.

Nam Ma River with bamboo forests on both banks.

Bamboo factory located under a large open shed by the Nam Ma River.

Large stacks of bamboo trunks that had been floated down the river waiting to be processed.

Here, our guide Long walked into the factory like he owns the place and showed us how bamboo trees are processed into chopsticks or rulers.

The long bamboo stems are first sawed into the required lengths.

The next step is to split the newly sawed stems into halves. The sawed bamboo pieces roll out from under a zinc corrugated sheet. A worker sitting next to the sawing machine receives them immediately. He then splits the stem down the middle lengthwise, with a single stroke of his razor sharp machete while holding it with his other hand.

He worked very fast and skilfully as his daily pay depends on his daily output. 

Using a machete, this worker is splitting the bamboo pieces into halves in rapid-fire speed.

The next step in the chopstick making process is extremely dangerous, I think.

Workers feed the sawed and halved bamboo stems by hand into a cutting machine that works like a machine-gun. It has with a rapid-fire moving bolt that punches the bamboo stems against a set die with a round hole in it and literally pushes out the round shaped chopsticks out from the stem.

Ting! Ting! Ting! Ting! ……

We could hear and see the chopsticks flying out like bullets and striking a metal plate before ricocheting onto a large pile at the receiving end.

Workers feeding sawed and halved bamboo stems by hand into a machine that chopped them into thin and round chopsticks.

The workers risk losing their fingers if they are not careful while feeding the bamboo into the cutting machine.

The newly processed chopsticks are then bundled and left in the sun to dry before further processing.

Bundles of newly processed chopsticks.

The factory also produces rulers. In this case, a die with a rectangular hole is used at the “machine-gun” cutting machine.

From the factory, we continued on the single track road. Driver Ha expertly negotiated a flooded muddy section without getting the vehicle bogged down in the mud. I am sure the Toyota Innova does not have 4WD and getting stuck in mud would be bad news.

Back on the main Highway 15, our car turned off into Highway 15C and started to climb up a single track road and crossed the unmarked boundary into Pu Luong Nature Reserve.

The nature reserve is situated along two parallel ranges of mountains running from the north-west to south-west, with its lush central valley scattered with many idyllic villages of Thai & Muong ethnic groups and vast area of farmland and terraced rice fields.

Highway 15C winds uphill on the southern mountain range. The road is narrow with blind corners at some places but our car seems to be only one on this road.

Our driver made two brief stops for us to get sneak previews of the terraced rice fields of Pu Luong.  Pu Luong is definitely more beautiful compared to Mai Chau.

Bird’s eye view of terraced rice-fields of Pu Luong at our first stop.

Rice terraces in Pu Luong at the second stop.

This cow and calf were probably surprised to see visitors like us in Pu Luong.

The best time to visit Pu Luong is during rice harvesting season, from September to November or February until May. I was glad we made our trip in October. The paddy fields are lush and green or golden yellow. The weather was pleasant and we would have a good chance of seeing harvesting activities during our hikes.

Our car soon turned off Highway 15C into an even smaller dirt road and headed down into the valley towards the remote Ban Hieu Village.

Just before arriving at Ban Hieu village, we stopped and took a short walk to see the famous water wheels of Pu Luong Nature Reserve.

Set in fantastically beautiful lush green valley, a series of three water wheels lined the side of a slow flowing river. Stones had been placed in the river to channel flowing water to the wheels and speed up the water flow.

Water wheels of Pu Luong Nature Reserve made from bamboo and used for irrigation.

 

This is another example of how the ingenious ethnic minority people put the easily available bamboo to good use.

These water wheels are constructed for irrigation. Powered by the river flow, the turning water wheels lifts water from the river, and pours them into bamboo aqueducts. The water then flows on these aqueducts to the paddy fields next to the river under the force of gravity.

Powered by the gushing water in the river, bamboo cups on the turning waterwheel lift water to aqueducts, also made with hollowed out bamboo.

The aqueducts carry the river water to irrigate rice fields. 

Shortly after seeing the water wheels, we arrived just outside Ban Hieu Village, where we would be spending the night. Our accommodation, Ly Van Homestay, is so remote within Pu Luong Nature Reserve that it is not accessible by car.

The owner, Mr Ly, came to meet us and took our luggage to his house by motorcycle while we hiked about 1 km up a gradual clay track to his house.

Our homestay is amongst those tiny huts in the distant.

Our suitcases being transported by the homestay owner while we hiked to his house.

Yellow fields of paddy almost ready for harvesting.

 

It was a pretty easy and nice walk to Ban Hieu village. We passed by yellow paddy fields, corn fields and even a small waterfall in a valley surrounded by mountains.

Waterfall on the way to Ban Hieu village.

Superb scenery at Ban Hieu.

Ban Hieu village at Pu Luong Nature Reserve.

Arriving at Ly Van Homestay, Ban Hieu village.

The Ly Van Homestay is operated by Mr and Mrs Ly, a relatively young couple with young children. We will join them for meals at their traditional stilt house but we were to sleep in our own private bungalow, located next to Mr Ly’s house.

This almost newly constructed thatch and wooden bungalow on stilts came with attached bathroom (hurrah!). The bathroom has ceramic floor and wall tiles, fitted with a shower with electric water heater (hurrah!), and Western style toilet (hurrah again!). 

Our bungalow is set on a slope with gorgeous views of the rice fields and valley that we had just hiked through to get to this village.

View from the balcony of our private bungalow at the Ly Van Homestay in Ban Hieu village, Pu Luong.

Bedding is simple. Two thick queen sized mattresses placed on a raised platform sitting on timber flooring with mosquito nettings above. Bath towels and blankets are provided.

My wife had been apprehensive about the living and toilet conditions in the villages prior to the trip. She seemed satisfied with our bungalow.

So far so good. For a city dweller, I was excited about experiencing life in a remote village.

More about our stay at Ban Hieu village in the next post.

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