Mai Chau

Thursday, March 12th

The plan for today was to drive about an hour up into the hills and visit a Hmong village. Our guide has an ethnic Thai background, but the Hmong, found throughout the north of Thailand, Laos and Cambodia have their roots in China (many centuries ago).

Unfortunately, while it wasn't (yet) raining in Mai Chau (elevation 150m above sea level), it got cloudier and started to drizzle as we climbed to above 1000m. Poor visibility meant we couldn't see the spectacular hills around the village.

This tree was eerie in the mist, and I guide didn't know the English name.

Hmong houses are different from ethnic Thai houses in that they aren't build above ground (see yesterday's blog).

We had seen most things for sale beside roads, but until now, not much meat - perhaps the cooler weather up here made it possible. There's no dog in this butcher, though we did see some on the road from Hanoi.

Near the village hospital there were posters warning against drug use and AIDS. The stone sign says "look after your forests".

Tea is a popular local crop.

Which we soon sampled in Mr De's house - another mate of our guide, presumably, but a nice hospitable mate.

Mr De had a poster of Australia on the wall - a gift from some other Australians who once visited his house. We learned from the poster that Australia is home to the Toucan, apparently.

Mr De had a very nice, and welcome Happy Room - but this wasn't it. We think one of his adult sons lived here instead.

Back at the lodge, we had lunch and then crossed the road to visit the local limestone caves. This is the view of the lodge back from the cave entrance.

There are four main chambers to the cave complex which extends some 500m into the mountain side. The first is by far the largest, and even has a concrete floor, installed some seven years earlier. During the war, the cave was used by the North Vietnamese army to store weapons.

While the caves have the usual array of stalactites and stalagmites, it's fair to say that they haven't been as well looked after as your Jenolan or Wombeyan caves.

We went quite a long way into the complex to reach the forth chamber. By this time it was getting quite warm, a little claustrophobic, and a little muddy (and therefore slippery under foot!). Fortunately, we had the caves to ourselves until we left.