Our tour guide, Mr. Ha Nguyen, introduces a homestay experience in Mai Hich village, a village in Mai Chau valley. One of the most popular excursions from Hanoi is an overnight tour to Mai Chau: Outdoor fun in Mai Chau. It is our daily small group tour that features biking, hiking, staying with local people, and discovering the Thai hill tribe's rich culture. Mai Chau is also an excellent destination for family holidays. We can also offer customized tours that meet your requirement. Our guides know the area by heart and have many connections with villagers who will share their lifestyle with you.

A day of March. A cold front, given a legendary name - 'BÂN' - by the Vietnamese lowlanders, arrived in Northern Vietnam after having done a long distance from Siberia to Vietnam. It turned many lands, including the city of Hanoi, into a new world like an ice-box. A lot of people felt "cold"! Not geographically distant, a place, although inescapably affected soon, seemed to be better. Mai Hich! And we were heading to it.

After an exciting journey with magnificent scenery that amazed any of us, a group of discoverers from England and Vietnam arrived at Mai Hich, an off the beaten path village in Mai Chau, late in the afternoon. Welcoming us at the gate to the village was a White Thai farmer from one of the families populating here. The path to his home, a house on wooden stilts in which we stayed overnight, ran across some rice paddies and greens gardens over a suspension bridge. Upon arriving, he showed us a small tank of water, politely asking us to clean our feet. We found this so special, for it was all about giving his wife enough time to make some preparations.

After a while, we were cheerfully invited upstairs, into our' living space' that soon made an impression on us: a front wooden staircase with nine steps; the main door nicely decorated with a few fishtails; an odd number of windows with artistically carved rails; a thick wild grass roof; a clean, shiny large bamboo floor; delicately and exquisitely embroidered pillows, blankets, and cushions; a tidy small kitchen. It looked so local.

His wife, a White Thai woman in traditional attire, who had been sitting on the edge of a neatly arranged mat, greeted us with a wide smile. She then showed us some beautiful square pieces of cushions as our seats for some hot dark pink tea. We enjoyed it with our taste buds, feeling a warm, bitter but sweet flavor getting down our throat.

The long ride had imposed some negative impact on our body, so we took the time to get freshened with a shower in a bamboo paved bathroom. Warm water played its magic! When we were getting busy with the make-up of our body, we sensed the sounds and smells of wood, metal, water, oil, meat, fish coming out from the kitchen. 'What will be, will be' was then our dinner.

It was not a big meal, but delicious. It features some grilled fish, stir-fried chicken with pickled bamboo shoots, some sticky steamed rice stuffed in bamboo pipes, some boiled morning glory, some fried pork, and a bucket of homemade rice wine mixed with medicinal herbs. It was exceptional, for we had it with the family. We ate, poured, drank, chatted, laughed…, feeling a comfortable life.

Late into the night, the wife took out a plate with a duck egg in it. It was as if she was going to give us food again, but the husband told us that it was the way to ask people to go to sleep. How delicate! We did so, covering our body with a cotton blanket, a wild grass stuffed cushion. A night of sound sleep was coming. The cold front had caught up, but it did not matter, for we were feeling warm!

A traditional house on stilts in Mai Hich village that is now converted to a homestay.

Mai Hich village, a less visited village in Mai Chau. This beautiful village is a destination on Handspan's Mai Chau homestay tour. This is also where we practise responsible travel by showing our guests an authenticity of Thai culture while supporting and diversifying the local's regular income. 

View of the rice fields from Minh Tho homestay in Mai Hich.

Ha is helping to slide a banana trunk. This is pig's food. 

One of the guests is playing card with the host's daughter while waiting for dinner.