Hoi! Hoi!Hoi!!

I saw this quote from Paul Theroux in one of the airline magazines on my way to Vietnam and it struck me as perfect for this particular trip. He said “Travelers don't know where they are going and tourists don't know where they have been.” That was so true last Sunday when our airport greeter (Tien) picked us up for a day tour to see one of the hill tribes. All we knew was that we were going about 3 hours outside of Hanoi, that we would eat a lunch somewhere and that we would have some sort of folk dancing performance.

We ended up in the village of Hoa Binh. The hill people are the Muong. It is tucked away in the hills as removed from the 21st Century as we are from the days of the Pilgrims at Plimoth Plantation. We were met by a young girl about 13 years old. We walked through the whole village past thatched roof houses built on stilts, small garden plots, water buffaloes (and their enormous droppings which apparently are quite prized because a huge fresh still steaming specimen had a stick stuck in it-don't ask me why), until we came to the very last house in the village. A lovely woman about 44 years old came out to greet us and welcome us into her home. After taking our shoes off we climbed some steep steps and stepped into one large room with cool wooden floors. We were invited to sit on some straw mats on the floor. Her husband and 76 year old mother-in-law were already seated and waiting for us. She poured some green tea from what looked like a toy teapot it was so tiny into very tiny cups. I hesitated a second knowing that the cups most likely had been last washed in impure water and then drank up. There's a reason I always travel with antibiotics and this might have been why. Tea was followed by a shot of banana wine that the hostess had made. Well, I thought, the alcohol might kill off any of the bad bacteria. After refreshments we had a tour of the house. They use sleeping mats on the floor to sleep. They eat while sitting on mats on the floor. We had to bend down to enter a smaller room where the cooking was done. There was an open fire and a kettle type pot in it. This is how she cooks every meal. After the tour she wanted us to buy some items she had on display. To be gracious we each purchased something but the quality was not that good. We said our good bys and headed for lunch-somewhere.

We were brought to an empty hotel that had a very large sort of function room. There were two other people (French) eating there. We were served a 10 course meal: Sticky rice cooked in sugar cane cylinders,vegetable soup, spring rolls, stew pork with potatoes and carrots, pork wrapped in grapefruit leaves, fried fish, cabbage with ginger and garlic, squid with veggies, white rice, and last but not least. oranges for dessert. Whew!

Wait, wait there's more! As we waddled to car towards the next stop we could never have imagined our adventure. We drove a short way and came to another empty hotel complex. We were brought upstairs to what looked like another function hall. There were about 40 chairs lined up waiting to seat an audience. But today we were it. Just the two of us, our guide and driver. In the center of the room was a ceramic jug. Inserted into its spongey top were 10 or so 3 foot bamboo straws. A fellow came out and introduced us the the folk custom called:Hoi,hoi,hoi!. This is shouted each time a sip is taken from the jug of rice wine. Well, since there were only two of us in the audience we had to take a lot of sips and do a lot of shouts of Hoi! Hoi! Hoi!! In between sips there were many folk dances, instruments played and costume changes. The show lasted, I think, about 45 minutes while we were still being invited to sip and Hoi! even after the show ended.

We had left our Hotel at 8:30am and returned around 5 pm. It was a great trip and worth every penny. Hoi!Hoi! Hoi!
Carolyn

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