19th of november:

in the morning my host took me on a walk around the village with the occasional stop to drink tea at the home of some friends. It was an idillyc town with lots of rice paddies and banana trees. The last stop was at a fisherman's place, there is this river flowing through the town and the people fish there in a special way. They have a car battery in an improvised backpack and then they have to pins connected to it and they electrocute the fish. Saying that the fish doesn't suffer as much as in the traditional way. Pretty impressive to see. (they use rubber boots to keep themselves from being electrocuted).

After breakfast and loading my backpack with some fruits for on the way I headed back to where I came from but first I wanted to visit a mountain village. The problem was that there aren't any on the map so I turned in some sandy roads along the street. Most of them just stopped at one house until I got lucky. A motorbike with some traditionally dressed people passed me. I tried to follow them and it didn't take long before they went in another dusty path. The path went through the river (no bridge), the motorbike had to be manually pushed through so I did the same with my bike. I got off, took the bike on my shoulder and went across. The motorbike was long gone now but there was only one path which went straight up the mountain so I went. Then got tired, but kept going. 2 more motorbikes with traditionally dressed people passed me. They saw that I was getting really tired and they waited behind every corner to see if I was still following and then giggled when they saw me come round the corner. This gave me enough energy to reach the top of the first mountain. I expected to see a village in the valley but there was nothing. The road went a bit down and then up the next mountain. The motorbikes left me while climbing the second mountain. It was really steep, good thing that I didn't do this with my trailer. On the top of the second mountain I got an even better view than I could have dreamt of. It was amazing, straight out of a movie. 

About 15 wooden houses with smoke coming out the chimney laid scattered on the mountain flanks, surrounded with fields. When I came closer I saw kids running around with the pigs and chicken. it didn't take long before someone asked me in, the house was build on pillars, below there was a dog, some chicken, a few pigs and hay. In the house there was a part that could be used as a kitchen, an empty space which becomes the bed in the evening and a storage area for dried meat, beans,... My phrasebook came in handy and the camera was a great toy for the people. More and more villagers came to the house to have drinks with me and a chicken got slaughtered. While the wife was preparing the lunch, I followed the man on a trip through his fields, stunning views!

When we got back lunch was ready, it's touching how these people while not having much still share everything with you. 

We went for a tour through town after the dinner, it was very interesting, but they were shy and ran away from me. 

It was a great experience but when I came back at the main street and wanted to eat some of the fruit they gave me, I couldn't find my pocket knife. I'm pretty sure they took it since all pockets were closed and I left my bag at there house before taking the tour through town. Before that it was still in there. This experienced ruined my day... They said no when I wanted to pay them but then they take my swiss army knife, hmmm....

Soon I will add more stories about china, I left vietnam as soon as I got back to Hanoi...