Monday, Februari 17, 2025

We slept reasonably well at the The Chi Boutique Hotel in Hanoi. It is not raining today, but it is cloudy. Today we leave this hotel and travel to the Mai Chau Ecolodge. But first breakfast, it is, just like yesterday, reasonable but again with too cold coffee, which by the way is not too bad in terms of taste.
We pack our suitcases, that is done quickly because we do not unpack much for two nights.

At nine o'clock we are at the reception, and the guide is already waiting. We have not used anything in the room but still have to wait a little while because they are checking whether we have forgotten anything.
The journey to Mai Chao first goes through Hanoi where it is busy, and there is a lot of construction. We drive on a six-lane road and we find the traffic quite chaotic.
After a while it becomes less busy, but the road also becomes narrower, and it is drizzling.
We go into the mountains and end up driving quite high, in the clouds, in thick fog. On the way we stop for a toilet visit and to enjoy the view, gray clouds. Here we are almost at the highest point of the mountain pass that we have to cross.
Once we go down again the visibility and the weather improve, we can now see how high we are, but the view is beautiful. Via a few small towns and increasingly narrower roads we arrive at our next sleeping place, the Mai Chau Ecolodge.

The first impression is good, beautiful surroundings, beautiful views and quiet. We can't get into the room yet, it's not ready for use yet, so we first have lunch (included in the trip). The guide will pick us up again at three o'clock. The lunch consists of 3 small starters (soup, spring roll and grilled pork), a main course (fish in sweet and sour sauce, fried vegetables and rice) and a dessert.
We can now get into the room, at the bottom of the hill on which the resort is located, in front of the room we look out over green rice fields. The room is spacious, some things are strange, such as a sink in the sleeping area and not in the bathroom, but who cares.

The guide is already waiting for us, we pick up the (free) bikes and make a long bike ride through the area. There are some slopes and with a normal bicycle Tom has difficulty breathing, so we walk those parts. The area is beautiful, a narrow valley between green mountains, newly planted rice everywhere, and mostly quiet and especially clean air.

Around five o'clock we are back at the resort where we have a drink at the outside bar. Then we rest for a while and go to eat around half past six. The dinner is structured in the same way as the lunch and is also included in the trip. During dinner we hear that tomorrow's dinner is also included in the trip.

In the evening there is a show with dance and music, local music and local dances, in front of the entrance of the reception. We sit down by the pool and after a while there are dances performed by 7 young women and 4 men. It looks nice, the people are doing their best, and for an evening in the countryside it is fine.

Written on: 2025-02-18

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