"A short and a long day"

...was how my friend Tan described our countryside roadtrip yesterday, a chance to see Vietnam that-is-not-Hanoi just one more time before I leave on thursday. I was looking around for things to fill my last week, and having pretty much exhausted my 'Hanoi bucket list' I decided to go to Hoa Binh, just for the hell of it.
We must have covered around 400km in total, much of it through backroads and dirt tracks, passing tiny rural villages that still constitutes the majority of Vietnam's landscape. I'd all but forgotten about this in the rapidly 'ascending dragon' that is Hanoi's development.
We dropped in on Tan's relatives, before meeting friends of friends, who took us to their tiny Muong village of Son Quyet. I was completely overwhelmed by a) the peacefulness and simplicity of life there, and b) the open-ness and friendliness with which they welcomed us. We had a fantastic lunch and then wandered around the village, including dropping by at the local school (*row of three classrooms). I'd forgotten just how much of an oddity a foreigner can be, but sure enough before long I had a pied-piper procession of children as I walked through the village.

Later in the afternoon we had tea in the family house of Cham, who is an English teacher in nearby Hoa Binh city. From seemingly nowhere, a singing game was started and we were encouraged to share songs. It would have worked great if I could think of a single appropriate English song on the spot....I sang 'Yesterday' and messed up the words.
I was rewarded for my efforts with this though...Cham's mother singing a traditional Muong song which was so beautiful it gave me goosebumps. You'll have to 'Ahenny' to see it but its worth it

How lucky am I?

On the way back to Hanoi, we stopped at the site of a giant statue of Uncle Ho, who simlutaneously presides over Vietnam's first hydro-electric dam, and an awesome nightscape of Hoa Binh city.
The whole day was just amazing and I left Son Quyet with a promise to all my new friends to go back and visit. Ooops.

SarahHeadsEast xx