Not too far away from the capital Hanoi, there is an amazing place with majestic scenery that visitors can come to relax and discover after trips around famous attractions in the capital. Lac village in Mai Chau valley of Hoa Binh province is a worthy place for travelers to go to enjoy the nature and explore the daily life of local people.
Mai Chau is a beautiful valley that makes a lot of tourists astounded. Not only does it charm tourists with the rustic beauty of the mountains, the shyness of women, but also it is attractive by the warm heart of the people here.
Mai Chau is about 140km from Hanoi and about 60km from Hoa Binh City to the northwest. To go to Lac village, visitors will go through a 12km long Cun slope. It is called a slope but the road is winding and very dangerous; sometimes tourists can be mistaken that the car themselves are going into a sea of clouds. Up to the top of the slope, the first time passing tourists often stop here to get sightseeing. Continue to Thung Nhuoi Pass, from high pass, guests can see the valley, fascinating Mai Chau district comes out under sight, a valley in the green of the fields, the houses of a lovely town. Mai Chau is known as the capital of the Thai people. Going deeper, Lac village appears amongst the vast green color of the young rice fields. This is the most famous tourist attraction, typical for the land and people of Mai Chau.
Having existed for over 700 years, residents of the Lac village are mostly black Thais living life afterlife. Previously, the people only relied and depended on rice farming and weaving. Later, the hidden beauty of the Lac has gradually been explored. And also from that time, all people in the village do tourism and the name – Lac village is one of the key areas for tourism in Mai Chau. More broadly, for many people, this place is considered a "bright spot" in the Vietnam tourist map.
Although they have worked for many years of travel services, the rush of money, rice and clothes virtually do not lose the honesty and plain of ethnic people in this mountain region. They still their traditions from their lifestyle to the architecture of the houses. All stilt houses in Lac village are tall, spacious and clean, keeping the ancient architectural style. Welcoming behavior is also attractive to many visitors. Traveling around the village, tourists will not see any action of inviting with the insistence of sellers. Items such as scarves, Thai skirt, lovely wallets, bows, crossbows, flute, gongs, buffalo horns are displayed to sell in the lobby of the houses. Visitors can come to try or take pictures without fear of being noticed or complained, even guests do not buy the owners would not upset.
Visit Lac Village, visitors can not miss the specialties of this place. You will be invited by the hosts to sit on the flower mats placed in the middle of the house. Then the host will invite guests to drink wine, eat rice with barbecue, in addition to a variety of ethnic dishes that anyone ever once tasted will not forget such as the grilled wrapping chicken, steamed stream fish, steamed sticky rice and so on.
This will be more interesting if guests stay at the Lac village overnight. At night, visitors will be immersed in the space of Thais with dances, loving lyrics and romantic melody passionating human heart or jump until sweating with the indigenous people over long bamboo sticks. Whenever the end of a melody, both owners and guests gather together at an angle to enjoy the sweetness of wine brewed from the forest leaves. In the flickering firelight, the girls’ cheeks are like more rose-colored not because they are drunk by alcohol but due to the love of people and the passionate eyes of strangers.
Sleeping at stilt houses in an isolated village, located among the wind, mist and cliffs will be a memorable experience. Somewhere in the night, visitors can hear the whispers of those who recently was strange but suddenly became familiar. That is well enough to make Lac village - Mai Chau valley attract visitors from many places during four seasons.
