Mai Chau Tour Guide

In addition to his language skills and regional knowledge was his understanding of travel expectations and limitations. Despite the mixed interests of travel companions, he seamlessly tailored activities to meet the widely disparate desires of those involved, pushing some towards more adventurous activities while amusing the rest with more relaxing forms of entertainment.

The adventurous biked through the villages, up and down steep dirt paths, across rickety bridges and along narrow paddy walkways and were taken on a climb and crawl through the private cave with offers to swim the underground river.

All parties went walking through nearby villages, past schools, shops and gardens and were offered tea at a local home at a nice, leisurely pace. Such an intuitive understanding of the different ways people travel and amuse themselves was an unexpected bonus given how mediocre most guide experiences tend to be.

More importantly, even if we didn’t stay in a stilt house, we met a local after all, and what we found surprised us. We met a man with a deep knowledge of and appreciation for his home and the people in it, who happens to get his news from the BBC and consistently learns four new English vocabulary words per day, who speaks fondly of his wife and her career as a math teacher and who can make you feel, even after one day, that you’ve made a friend in Mai Chau.

This, I think, is the warmth and hospitality with which the region is so famously associated and it is nice to know it can be found even in a more up-market arena.

Unfortunately, with all it has to recommend it, the lodge is still new, and travellers should prepare for some bumps along the road. Part of this could be because the lodge, much to their credit, hired only local residents. Unfortunately, that means staff work experience is primarily limited to the opening date in September.

For example, on arrival we met with some confusion: the receptionist seemed unsure of who we were despite the fact that there are only seventeen rooms. She took and never returned our itinerary. There were reportedly plumbing problems. No one ever explained what we were supposed to do or when (a problem compounded by the missing itinerary and made more irksome considering rooms alone are not much cheaper than the package). Finally there was no traditional dancing as promised on the original itinerary.

In the end, these are very small things, and given how gracious the service was, particularly the management, I have no doubts that had we complained, something would have been done.

So backpackers beware. A new breed of tourist is descending on Mai Chau. And with honeymoon, yoga and expat promotions, the lodge is finding increasingly alluring ways to welcome them in. — VNS