Mai Chau: Sunday

I woke up many times on Sunday morning. My first alarm clock occurred at 4:00 am and it was a rooster cock-a-doodle-doing directly underneath our house on stilts. I went back to bed and then awoke a second time to my watch alarm at 5:00. Will, Meggie, Irish, and I were going to go exploring before the sun rose over the village. I heard the soft patter of rain on the straw roof, however, and went back to bed. No one explores in the rain, and especially not when you have only brought one change of clothes for the weekend trip. Half an hour later I woke up again and it was still raining so I gave up on the exploring plans and then slept until 6:45. I got up, packed, and headed out with my camera into the foggy morning. By 7:30 I was back at the home stay, talked with some friends, and had a delicious and simple breakfast of a fried egg, a banana, some bread, and hot tea with milk. I ate quickly and then went back out to take more pictures around the village, which I did for half an hour. At 8:30 I returned to our group and we left half an hour later on foot to hike up to this cave and then visit the Mai Chau cho, or market.

When we finally reached the base of this mountain with a cave at the top, we spent from 9-10:00 walking up 1,185 stairs. I reached the cave and it was ok. It was filled with trash, stalactites, and stalagmites. I rested for about ten minutes, explored some, and then started to feel lightheaded because of the high altitude. I basically sprinted back down the stairs in 15 minutes in order to eliminate my weird floating sensation. On the way down, I caught up to this group of Vietnamese students and spoke with one guy in Vietnamese. I waited for the rest of the group at the bottom of the mountain and we then headed down the street to the market. They were all surprised that we knew some Vietnamese (since we're Caucasian) and I made friends and took lots of pictures.

I was ready to leave the market by 11:00 and walked with Jill, Jackie, and Tica back through the small town. On the way, we saw a young woman defeathering a dead chicken and stopped to speak to her about the process. She had cut its jugular and then dipped it into a bin of cold water before the hot water. This makes the feathers loose, she explained. Good to know. We continued on our way and I got a skirt when we got back to the village.

At 11:45 I again had lunch with the rest of the group at our home stay. The food was still good and we had pork, rice, greens, beef, and Coke. After eating, I walked around the village one last time with Cathy and Tica. We left the village on our vans at 1:00 pm and I slept until 2:45, right before we stopped for a bathroom and drink break. Some of our group got involved in ping pong games and so we stayed there until 3:45. We got back on the vans and I wrote in my journal for class and listened to music until we arrived back at the dorm at 5:00 pm.

I went back to my room, unpacked, had some cumquats, took a gloriously warm shower, and uploaded all of my photos from the weekend. At 6:00, almost all of the 12 women in our group held their second WWE, or Weekly Women's Event. We dressed up (I wore my new traditional skirt) and finally got taxis to what we thought was a Mexican restaurant. When we arrived, we found that it was really an Asian food place that had won an award for its Chile wine. We definitely had a good laugh before walking around the corner to this really nice French restaurant. I had a Coke, spaghetti with beef tomato sauce, and a hot coffee for dessert. The food reminded me so much of home. We paid at about 10:00 and most of the group went back to the dorm, except I took a taxi with Meggie and Brittany. We headed to Dragonfly for Ladies' Night and it was almost empty there. I got my usual Coke and then we got talking to this nice guy from the states. It turns out that he graduated from Trinity College in Hartford, CT just last year. His name's Eric and he lives in Back Khoa like we do. After we all talked to him at the bar he offered to buy us some tobacco hookah stuff and we moved upstairs to sit and talk. He's alright. I sat there while they smoked tobacco through the contraption and then we all took a taxi together back to Bach Khoa at 1:00 am. The stupid gate guard wouldn't wake up, get out of his mosquito netting, and unlock the gate so we climbed over. I was cleaned up and fast asleep by 1:15 am.