Vietnam: Mai Chau: National Day 2014 (moved from old blog)

 Motorbiking round Mai Chau

I left Sapa and made my way back to Lao Cai to get the overnight train to Hanoi. Somehow I managed to pay for a hard sleeper bunk (cheapest) but got given a ticket for a soft sleeper which was a nice little bonus. The train takes about 10 hours and gets into Hanoi at 6 in the morning. I was lucky and bumped into some fellow Kunming holiday goers who knew the way from the train station to the old quarter so I didn't have to fight with taxi drivers telling me my hostel didn't exist (the current scam sweeping Asia).

Regular readers (always wanted to say that) will know that I have already been to Hanoi so I should still vaguely remember where the hostel was and managed to get there with only one slight mess up in directions. Hanoi Backpackers, cheap and chaotic, has become known for its tours and so most people seem to be staying there just for those. consequently the people in my room changed every night and no-one seemed to stick around for more than a day or two. I however was there for 5 days as I was based in Hanoi and just did one night or day trips out of the city. 

My first trip was to Mai Chau valley where I stayed in a "home stay" which turned out to be a dormitory style room on top of a local families house. they cooked for us and took us out on tours, and we all chipped in with the chores so all in all it worked pretty well. The first day was a bicycle tour around the farms and local villages in the area. Again it was a painfully hot day and I was constantly adding suncream desperate not to burn more than I had managed on the bike in Sapa. the family and the hostel have a stock of mix matched bikes that they lent us for the tour, mine was a bright pink think that had no breaks, instead you had to pedal backwards to slow down. we cycled for about 2 hours in a huge circle and by the end of it I still wasn't used to the breaks. 

The evening was spent having terrifying motor bike lessons (in Vietnamese) and eating the evening meal. Our lessons were basically a introduction to the bike and a drive down a straight bit of road and back again. As this was my first time on a motorbike driving for myself I was a little nervous and all over the place. I went to bed repeating what to do in my head not feeling very confident at all. 
There was literally nothing for about half a mile so we were attacked by every bug and ended up in the mosquito nets upstairs still drinking and talking in the dark. 

The second day consisted of a 40km motorbike ride to a lake and a well needed refreshing swim. we had to take the ride pretty slowly as we were all still getting used to the bikes and changing gears. I had taken to practising going up and down gears on the flat main roads, until I got told off of course. We went past a waterfall and stopped for a break and some pictures before carrying on to the lake. 
We all piled into a very small fishing boat that had been hired for the hot and tired foreigners to take a swim and did just that. The water was beautifully warm if an odd colour and we spent nearly half an hour just clinging to the side of the boat and chilling out. 

Sadly this was the end of our mini adventure in Mai Chau as we had to get back to the room, grab our stuff and pile back into a bus heading for Hanoi. The bus journey back was not at all relaxing as the driver seemed to be in a very bad mood and a hurry. We zipped around the side of mountains and flew down teh main highways all the tiem with huim shouting out of the window at the poor people he had just forsed off the road. Needless to say we were all very glad to get back and out of his bus!