After our cyclo ride in Hanoi, we took a four hour coach ride east, into the mountains. Our destination was Mai Chau, a small village that has taken the opportunity to offer overnight stays to tourists as a way of supplementing their income, something only possible since the government introduced its reforms about twenty years ago.
The people from the village originally came from Thailand and still speak Thai as their main language, although they also speak Vietnamese. It is a farming community, the main crop being rice. Until 1986, the government had a policy of “no poor, no rich” and so the food was divided out equally. What you might call true communism. Of course, since you got the same amount of rice whether you worked or not, productivity dropped dramatically. There was widespread hunger and Vietnam had to import a lot of rice just to prevent starvation. Eventually the government realised that people need incentives and so they allocated farm land on a per person basis. Now the farmers are allowed to keep whatever they produce, selling any surplus. Productivity has increased enormously and Vietnam is now an exporter of rice. To make things as fair as possible, the rice paddies were divided into small plots and then allocated so that a family would get a mix of plots, some near the village, some further away.
In addition to rice, most families farm fish, mostly carp, in small ponds right next to their houses. They also grow some corn and a few vegetables as well as keeping a few pigs, chicken and the occasional cow. Each family also keeps a buffalo, essential to rice production. Each season, buffalo are used to plough the paddy, when it is time to prepare for planting. Buffalo manure added extensively to enrich the soil, as there is no system of crop rotation.
Rice production must be the most labour-intensive form of farming known to man. The paddies first have to be prepared in carefully laid plots, separated by narrow pathways. The levels have to be carefully adjusted so that each paddy is exactly level and water can be run in so that it can be flooded by just the right amount.
Seedlings are first grown in a small area and then, when they are a few inches high, transplanted by hand to the main paddy, in perfectly straight lines. The straight lines are to facilitate weeding, which must be one of the most back-breaking jobs you can imagine. It is done entirely by hand, mostly by women. Generally, the weeds can’t be seen and so the farmer runs a hand through the mud round each plant, pulling out the weeds individually. This is slow, laborious and back-breaking work. When our guide did his stint on the farm, his feet became infected (they work barefoot), he couldn’t steer the buffalo and couldn’t sow in straight lines. He got very poor marks!
After about three months, the rice grows to a metre high, turns brown and is then ready for harvesting. This is also done by hand, using a small sickle. The rice is dried on the flat roofs of the houses and in the yard and then threshed, by hand. The last stage is to remove the husks from the rice grains and this is the only stage where mechanisation is used. The village has grouped together and bought a machine that removes the husks and, if they can afford to rent it, the farmers take their rice to the machine for de-husking. If not, they have to do it by hand. The rice stalks are used for thatching and, together with the husks, as food for the animals.
In the north, the Vietnamese manage two crops a year, whereas in the warmer Mekong delta, in the south, they get three crops.
Although looking after the rice is very labour-intensive, it seems that the people still have time spare for other activities. The women do a lot of weaving and the men often go to Hanoi for piece-time work.
The Thai houses are built on stilts, with the living accommodation upstairs and the animals underneath. For those houses that now take in visitors, the area under the house is now used as a dining area, rather than for the animals, who are kept away from the house.
The houses are built with a hardwood frame and bamboo floors, which are very springy, but much stronger than they appear. We all slept on the floor, in the one room, under mosquito nets and on thin mats. Our only privacy was provided by thin cotton sheets hung from the ceiling, dividing the large room into a number of separate areas.
After an excellent dinner, we all went upstairs where we were entertained by a display of singing and dancing by some of the villagers, eight girls and four men. They are not professionals, but nevertheless put on a very good show. We also had to join in and the fact that we all jumped up and down without crashing through the floor proved that the split bamboo construction was very strong.
Sweet rice wine was provided, drunk from a communal pot, through bamboo straws. We were also invited to a wedding party that was going on that night, but this turned out to be just a Karaoke session, something which is very popular here and, I think, throughout Asia.
The toilet facilities were primitive, to say the least, but we all managed to do without showers. Getting downstairs for the toilet in the middle of the night was a bit of problem, but we all survived without incident.
After breakfast, we had chance for a long walk round the valley in which the village was located. This gave us chance to learn more about the farming methods and the community, in general. We were surprised to see traps set to catch kingfishers, which otherwise steal the fish.
As everywhere, the people were charming and I found it to be a very worthwhile visit, despite the rather primitive accommodation.
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