Ăn quả nhớ kẻ trồng cây.
When eating the fruit, remember the one who planted the tree. (Vietnamese proverb)
“That’s the Vietnam we came to see,“ says Giuseppe at one of the late morning moment, standing in the middle of green tea slopes, breathing in kind welcoming encouters, Thai people’s colourful aesthetics and incredibly beautiful terraced landscapes.
Today we made a giant stride.
For many it started with a “thermal shock”. How else could I call the change of breakfast from Italian style sweet brioche, jam and coffee to the Vietnamese traditional Phó soup with beef or chicken and strong spices? Not all are ready for such a challenge, but I’m happy to see the majority giving themselves to the cultural experience.
And thereupon we zoom in. No more rushing through the culture! Time to be slow and deep inside.
We are given the bikes that seem straight from the old Italian movie “Ladri de biciclette“ (Bicycle Thieves) and the journey starts… Journey to the core of Vietnam. Not an ethnographic museum, not a show in traditional costumes to present to tourists some ancient local dances, long dead, but the journey to a planet called Everyday Life.
Suddenly all life cycles of a rice plant are in front of our eyes and surround us: the seedling puddles, the planted rice, the harvesting. “All this takes around 4 months,” explains David. We see the machines preparing the soil, we see men, but mainly women spraying pesticides, we see half of the villagers harvesting. And then our guide David steps out to reveal us where is hidden the “baby rice” before being ripe. inside the stem! I volunteer to try, as if swallowing it made me one of theirs. And that’s what I want(!)to become part of this ever kind and caring nation, even for just my time here. It’s slightly sweet and tender.
The smell of the day? The cinnamon perfume. From that day on it’ll surround my memory.
I breathe in, I breathe in, I breathe in… I don’t get enough. Three women sitting among cinnamon sticks and rolls, separating them into different piles. The bark becomes the spice, the leaves give oil and the wood is turned into plywood. “Nothing is lost!” affirms David. A piece of cinnamon travels directly from this pile to my mouth and then stomach. Any other cinnamon I’ve tried in my life, loses meaning after that palette of sensory spa, straight from the field.
Nghia Lo cycling tour gives way to another Thai ethnic village - Nam Cuom - where we lose the track of time. Today the village lost one of its father to a stone mining accident, the funeral is in its peak, but even then its inhabitants welcome us with warmth and smiles. A group of boys accompany us for an hour and some of us take a moment to play foot with them, Thai women welcome our bunch of strangers in the house of a 95 years old lady, offering us green peach fruits with salt. Each person met on the street, on the fields, at their home gate, seems to consider us part of their human family. Each of them seems beautiful to us. We can’t get enough of immortalizing their faces and kindness in our memories and photos.
Sure ! We are beautiful ;-) | Mr Linh's Adventures
“You are all beautiful! You have so white skin!” returns one shy Thai woman us the compliment.
The worlds sweetest water melon, tasty and abundant Vietnamese lunch and a peaceful coffee break that gives us time to digest brings us to our last discovery walk through the local life of Tu Le village. We learn to differenciate H’mong people by their clothing, We start to understand why we see almost only women and children, we live through a daily life cycle of a village, we see, how those communities could be completely self-sufficient only 20 years ago. We are like Alices in Wonderland.
And then one moment, walking behind the group, I hear Enrico, a rather reserved and reflective group member, give voice to his thought:
“All this here is a lot of work.”
And his eyes indicate that he’s talking about all those beautiful rice, corn, green tea and cinnamon fields we’ve been admiring for the whole day like people in an art museum.
Indeed. All these beautiful landscapes around, everything we’ve been taking on photos, it’s nothing else than everyday hard work and sweat of thousands of people.
A pre-sunset view from the Khau Pha Pass to some of the most beautiful rice terraces in Vietnam make us forget the aching backs and dirty sweaty shirts of those hardworking Thai and H’mong.
This evening we are greeted at the H’mong homestay with the most beautiful view and the most pecular Happy Water recipient (a water buffalo horn) in the region and we bite again the sweetest watermelon in the world, coming from plants that someone has been cultivating, so we could be happy.