Chuc Mung Nam Moi from Yen Bai!

We weren’t quite ready to leave Sapa yet!

I had been wanting to join a cooking class for months and finally I found somebody to join me – Rachael from Scotland and I loved being back in the kitchen!

First time cooking my own meal in four months!

On our last day we got to celebrate the upcoming new year with all the staff and students of Sapa O’Chau…

A pig had to be killed for the celebrations!

 

Enjoying our last meal cooked by the students!

The New Year’s tree at Sapa O’Chau… The peach tree is still bare, but the pink blossoms will start blooming soon.

And then we were off on the train to Yen Bai with Dzung, our Vietnamese colleague from Sapa O’Chau, Li, a former student and Keith, another volunteer from England.

A little different than our last train ride! Hard seats with the locals, people sleeping everywhere, food being sold… and lots of laughs!

The next five days we got to spend with Dzung’s family who live out in the countryside by a town called Yen Bai which is unknown by tourists to say the least… There are no words to express how thankful we are for this experience… We were welcomed in such a warm and kind way and were able to have this unique experience of sharing their lives a little and celebrating the Vietnamese New Year with them…

Life is so much harder for these people than for us… Our own homes are filled with so much luxury (often very unnecessary…) and comfort… And these people who have so little, and work so much harder than we will ever have to, shared everything with us and gave so much…

The kitchen area

Sleeping area

Dzung’s parents have a farm and raise and grow most of their food themselves… Since they don’t like using a fridge, they eat mostly fresh meat and vegetables. In the days we were there a pig, some chicken, and a goose were killed and lots of fish caught 🙂  During the nights we often went to bed with  the sounds of animals putting us to sleep, and some mornings we were awakened early by the loud squeals of a pig or a chicken being tied up to be killed!

Butchering the pig

Us trying to help preparing the meals a little…

 

Everything is done on the floor

Barbecue Vietnam style

As the New Year’s Festival (which is called Tet here) is the highlight of the year for Vietnamese people, we had lots of big meals with a lot of meat and for lots of them we were joined by brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts or friends…

All of us preparing the traditional Banh Chung for New Year’s Eve.

Banh Chung is sticky rice with pork and lentils and it is an art of itself to make it…

The banana leave parcels are wrapped up carefully…

… And then boiled for about ten hours.

Tet doesn’t just last a day here, a lot of businesses close down completely for sometimes even two weeks! Everybody goes home to their families and even ancestral spirits are welcomed back into their homes. Altars, laden with offerings, are prepared to ensure good luck in the coming year.

The altar full of food for the dead relatives… Even bowls of rice and meat with chopsticks…

On New Year’s Eve a chicken is killed and cooked and put on the altar too… After midnight we all sat down to eat it together.

The events of the New Year’s Day are crucial as it is believed they effect the year ahead. People take extra care not to be rude or show anger. The first visitor of the year is chosen with extra care to ensure the year is filled with luck and we felt very honored that Dzung’s parents wanted Finley to take the first steps into their home this year when we came back from seeing the fireworks after midnight! On the first day of the new year it is the day to visit the family from the father’s side so many people came to their house to drink tea and give their greetings. It was amazing  to us how short the visits were, but Dzung told us that there are so many people to visit in the first three days of the new year that the visits have to be short!

After  lunch it was our time to make some visits! We visited so many cousins, uncles, aunts and grandparents… All welcoming us into their homes with green tea, homemade rice wine and candy…

Us eating dinner at Dzung’s brother’s place. He lives in a very simple house with damp  floors and rice bags and pig’s food that he sells right in his dining area…

One of the aunt’s basic home – bedroom, living and dining area just in one tiny space…

… And her kitchen outside.

It was incredible for us to see so many homes, some living in very basic conditions… But all of them willing to give so much, always smiling and so friendly to us… although all we could say in Vietnamese was “Chuc Mung Nam Moi” (Happy New Year)!

We enjoyed riding around on the motorbikes everyday and getting lots of looks from the locals as they don’t have any foreigners visiting their area ever… Everybody seemed to know quite fast that Dzung’s family had some visitors and it was interesting that we also had to go and register with our passports at the police station… The police men came to check on us a few times actually, asking about our jobs and filling out more forms… Or was it just to try more of the family’s homemade rice wine they are famous for? 🙂  One of our highlights was that we even got interviewed by the regional TV station when we were watching the New Year’s Eve performances and fireworks in town…

 

Thank you for these special memories, dear Dzung and your lovely family…

Chuc Mung Nam Moi!

 

January 27 – February 1st