Visit Mai Chau during your trip to Vietnam

Having stilt house with authentic palm leaf roofs, bamboo-slat floors and large, patterned windows, line in both sides of the mountainous road, Mai Chau has created it own common sight. The beauty of Mai Chau is a vision in every season, which is a lush in spring, a bright green in Autumn, and turn golden right before the rice harvest. 

1. Location of Mai Chau 
Mai Chau and its surroundings areas are located in Hoa Binh province, about 150 kilometers to the west of Hanoi, situated only 150 meters above sea level. With approximately 50,000 inhabitants, including ethnic minority groups – the White Thai, Hmong, Zao, Muong, Tay, and Hoa, Mai Chau attracts many visitors each year. 

2. Mai Chau as an unmissable destination during your trip to Vietnam – Rice paddies and ethnic culture 
Situated in an idyllic and serene valley, hemmed in by peaceful hills, the Mai Chau area is a world aside from the hustle of Hanoi. Besides the small ethnic town, Mai Chau is hardly appealing to tourists without the patchwork of rice fields rolls out, together with the tiny Thai villages where visitors doss down for the night in traditional stilt houses and wake up to a rural soundtrack defined by beautiful birdsong and gurgling irrigation streams. 

The majority of villagers in Mai Chau are White Thai, distantly related to tribes in Thailand, Laos and China. Even though most of them no longer wear traditional dress, the Thai women are masterful weavers making a lot of traditional-style textiles. Locals do not employ strong-arm sales tactics here, thus a polite bargaining is the norm. 

Owing to a small number of popularity, some find the Mai Chau tour group experience abit sanitized. If you’re in need of of hard-core exploration during your trip in Vietnam, Mai Chau may not be the best choice, but for biking, trekking tour and relaxation, calm Mai Chau fits the bill nicely. 

3. How to get to Mai Chau
Before planning your trip to Mai Chau, take note of the following considerations regarding your transportation. 
♦ The most popular direct route to Mai Chau begins at My Dinh Bus Station in Hanoi, where buses to Mai Chau depart four times a day for the four - hour trek west to the valley.
♦ A less direct route stops at Hoa Binh station start from which you can take another bus to Mai Chau. 

4. Best time to Mai Chau 
Besides the transportation, checking in advance the weather as well as the suitable timing is extremely important for any tourists want to have a great trip during their visit to Vietnam. The fact that Mai Chau is located in the north of Vietnam has created some interesting temperature extremes which is dry, cold winters from January to February with a temperature range of 60-62°F (15.5-16.5°C), and wet, hot summers from June to September with a temperature range of 80.6-84.2°F (27-29°C). Therefore, best times to visit Mai Chau fall between the spring months from the latter half of February to the end of May brings pleasantly warm weather, with the flowers all a-blossom during this time. The autumn months from October to November bring a tolerable chill, but still allow for pleasant hiking throughout the valley.

   >>> Read about the weather in Vietnam, and the Best time to visit Vietnam according to the weather in Vietnam  

5. What to do during your visit to Mai Chau 
♦ Visit the local market 
In this ethnic market where the local organize during the day, you will see basic and strange everything from the skinned frog that still breathing or dog meat, to extremely colorful fruits and vegetables. 

♦ Take a bike ride through the rice fields 
With only $1 or $2 you can rent a bicycles and ride through the beautiful rice fields and the outskirt of ethnic villages. 

♦ Climb to 1,000 Steps Cave  
It’s exactly the way it’s named. 1,000 steps up lead you to a large cave with a beautiful view. 
To ensure the safety, you may need to start in the early morning, before the hit of the day escalate. And take note that its quite dangerous to have a winter climb since Mai Chau will turn cold and is mistily covered by folk.  

♦ Drink rice wine 
Mai Chau is pretty famous for it’s rice wine in which the big pots of it are put on the floor and a bunch of long straws stuck into the pot. Guests could come up and sip it as they wished. 

♦ Admire the craftsmanship of the locals 
Besides taking photo and admiring the interesting atmosphere of local market in Mai Chau, visitors have various choices for the souvenir. With a small amount of money they can bring home many little craft products.  

♦ Partake in family-style meals 
Vietnamese meals are served differently in comparison with US or Western style. If you go to Mai Chau with a group, then you will probably be eating all your home-cooked, super local meals together. Embrace it. Enjoy it. And laugh at each other using chopsticks if you haven’t already mastered the art.

♦ Taking part in the traditional dances – “Mua Sap” 
The post-dinner entertainment included traditional dancing by a few of the locals in in traditional costumes. The live music, the fan dances, and capping it all off with sips of rice wine made for an amusing evening. 

Besides the above activities, The Pu Luong Nature Reserve, located nearby Mai Chau is worth a visit since it is a newly protected area known as home to endangered species such as langurs, leopards, civets and bears…