The Hills Are Alive. . .

A part of our orientation for the Fulbright Program entailed a bonding trip to Mai Chau, a mountainous region located in Hoa Binh province, about 135 km from Hanoi.  It is home to the black and white Thai who are related to the Thai who settled in Thailand.  In speaking with our guide, I discovered that basic numbers and animals were the same as in Thailand! 

At the Mai Chau Lodge, where we stayed.

 

The wooden houses on stilts with wooden tiled roofs looked a lot like the old style in Northern Thailand.  The Mai Chau area was definitely the prettiest place I have been to in Vietnam.

 

We also took a trip through a Flower Hmong village nearby--very picturesque because of the lovely and colorful outfits of the flower Hmong women!  While Misoula has a fairly large settlement of Hmong refugees from Laos, they are not of the Flower Hmong group.

 

 

Flower Hmong ladies having their hair straightended in the village beauty salon.

This is in the living room of one of the houses.  Note the use of beer bottles around the bottom of the house walls to help let in light.

Cooking over an open fire.

Corn storage above the kitchen.

A basket backpack for gathering corn.

Eating a hardboiled egg for breakfast.

 

Hmong family shopping for new shoes.

The outdoor sewing room.

Good protection from skin cancer!