A wonderful tour to Moc chau
Big thanks to my dear friends (Quang xồm, Ghẻ, Cám, Gà mẹ, Thúy, Nhâm, Thuần, “Đại ca – nhà Quang”) for the best journey I’ve ever joined.
Chapter 1: Towards Moc chau
A long vacation was coming up, so we were all eager to join a tour to Moc chau in Son la province where one of my friend’s house is in. The trip was planned for 3 days, a sufficient time for us to take in some sites there. Moc chau is the plateau in the northwestern Vietnam above an altitude of 1000m, so the weather is really cool that we could experience diverse seasons through out a day, there was chill at the dawn, brisk at the noon, for instance. Getting ready for the departure from the really beginning of March, even our holiday was at the end of April and beginning of May which are the time for our national celebrations, we, therefore, had lots of time to get into proper condition and be well-prepared, and make a good itinerary before the promising journey. We decided to use motorbikes to get there, for the distance of around 200km, it was a difficult decision for us due to the fact that the road was quite long and bumpy, whereas there were only two boys in team, so some girls would take charge of riding scooters during the time of this journey.
Setting time for departing at 7 am on April 28th, 9 people and 4 motorbikes got to the rendezvous, but just some of us arrived on time, as normally. We also had some problems by lacking of vehicles by an unexpected situation, leading to some small arguments among us, finally we got into a solution by choosing the one more which we did not think that we could use it for this long trip because of its bad shape and quality, so far so good, however it was also a risky decision.
Heading to the west of Vietnam from Hanoi, how eager we were at that time. We swung by a communal house named Xuan Mai at Ha tay province (old), 20km away from starting-point to take breakfast in order to “charge” our stomach fully, put our mind and bodies in optimization. Keeping moving on the high way No 6, everything seemed good until my scooter and one another right ahead in our team got an accident by hitting two cars in order. It was not serious for both, after dressing the wounds we continued moving on the windy road under the hot and dust atmosphere. After reaching Hoa binh province we could enjoy the gentle and nice weather, then got into strong impression by the low key ecological tourism sites there, one of them are immense golf fields spreading out for miles along the road. We took one hour to have beef noodle at lunch and take a break there in a small restaurant, meanwhile we had a good deal of talk on the places, sites we would go and how marvelous the sceneries would be before hitting the promising place.
Chapter 2: Moc chau – promising place
When reaching Moc chau, the place we were all looking for, by the time, the imposing view there had impressed us pretty much: the rolling and windy green hills, magnificent mountains, diary farms and so on.
Hitting my friend’s house (Quang) at 2.45 pm, after 9 hours – long, we all got beat but joyful and happy enough to rush into finding ripe plums and peaches in the garden in front of his small white concrete and one stage house, of course we had many warm, friendly greetings to his mother beforeward. There were the first time all of us had chance to touch the plum and peach trees which, previously, we have not ever touched but just seen them on TV. We, therefore, had lots of fun and joy when discovering the garden and enjoying sweet tastes of fresh fruits here. For the first afternoon, we spent almost time staying at home, chilling out, preparing foods for dinner and supper as the night approaching. Possibly, the girls who were charged of cooking, experiencing the first time doing the cooking by stove with fire-wood, fortunately, we had great meals more than expected. At night, we burned dry woods to make a small fire at the front court yard then together sat around it, sang, joked and enjoyed ourselves till we all got tired and went to bed except Quang and Thuy, meanwhile Quang’s friends drooped by then played card around fire place until the late mid-night. The weather at night was so cool, after “breaking out” from the crowded city hence we were all enjoyable and glad to be here, time flies, the dawn was approaching…
Getting up in the early morning, listening to the sounds of birds from the garden and trees around the house, I wandered through the garden to find some ripe plums, but I got no luck J, yet taking some deep breaths made me feel really pleasurable. We decided to taste a special food here named Nậm pịa, I honestly have not known the ingredients of this, even, it was pretty delicious and unusual. After finishing our breakfast, following the destination we made at the night before, we started going to the diary farm possessed by Quang’s uncle to take photos and observe cows there. So, his uncle easily allowed us visiting the diary cattle cage where we took some photos with these cattle, but they seemed a little timid when being touched, especially the calves. Besides, the scenery of immense green grass field which planted to feed those cattle honestly was splendid and wonderful under sparkling sunlight in the beautiful sunrise.
We were moving on the next destination, named Ôn village (bản Ôn) on the meandering and bumpy roads, how ever when passing by the green tea plantation hills we all got the strong feeling as seeing this breathtaking views, and speechless in a little while before shouting out in happiness. How wonderful it was at that moment, happily, we dipped in cool fresh air stream and fragrancy coming from tea plants. Afterwards, we finally reached Ôn village, because of the narrow terrain of this place we found difficulty going though the paths and passing the mossy knolls. At the both sides of the paths, there were abundant wild absinthe growing verdantly and green corn fields which planted by the ethic minority groups in Moc chau, white Thai, H’ Mong, for instance. Despite of how rugged, far-flung this place was, we still felt full of energy and joyful to reach the plunging caves. The cave was dusky and deep, a little hesitant when firstly entering the cave, that was our initial feeling, but astonished when stepping inside and contemplating the marvelous beauty of this one. It was quite dangerous due to its obstacles and some extremely deep holes spreading out not in order on the ground, additionally the stairways connecting between its downsides and upsides, making the journey of exploring cave perilous, but more excited.
That was lunchtime right after we finished discovering the first cave. Coming back home for lunch and preparing for next destination, two girls in our group, Thuy and Chi still were keen on taking some new photos at the tea plantation hills, hearted-shape place in particular, when going past there. By the time, the weather was extremely hot, so some of us got exhausted. After lunch, we took a long nap until haft past three, then got in hurry to go to the last site in our itinerary – Nà Kiến village. In this village, the inhabitants are all H’ Mong ethic minority people, black H’ Mong in detail. There is a bluff on the path accessing this village, it scared us off and made difficulty moving for riders, especially female riders, Dung, Chi had to get off then wheeled scooters hardly towards the slope top. Regardless of dangers and hardships we, finally, overcame this slope then heading to the inner village. The more peacefulness the village brought the more calm and happiness we felt. In the village, there were some kids keeping buffaloes looked innocent and loveable on their faces. We wanted to approach them to talk some things and take some photos with them even we have not known their language. This was late afternoon time, the sun was coming down, on the way back home we enjoyed the sunset together in the gentle landscape of immense grass fields under weak sunlight coming from the horizon.
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