Alfred&

Mai Chau

Enjoy a village homestay in Mai Chau and spend your days cycling through Vietnam’s signature fields of swaying rice. Set in Hoa Binh, three hours from frenetic Hanoi, Mai Chau will transport you back to Vietnam’s rural roots. Here, you’ll wake to rooster calls and the smell of wood smoke in a bamboo stilt house belonging to the area’s unqiue, Thai minority villages. Be immersed in fertile, green paddies bisected by irrigation streams, where farmers toil in conical hats and buffalos plough the fields against a backdrop of hulking mountains.

Besides the Saturday morning market, there’s not much to do in Mai Chau – that’s the whole point. Watch farm life unfold as women weave silk brocade handicrafts on ancient looms and children play beside napping dogs under the shade of stilt houses. Hike or cycle along paddy paths, passing Vietnamese tourists posing with paper umbrellas. By night, there are Thai dance shows and feasts of sticky rice in bamboo shoots, accompanied by potent rice wine and a smog-free, starry sky.

For a peaceful Mai Chau holiday, talk to our Vietnam experts, who can connect you with local host families so you can experience an authentic taste of Vietnamese country life.