Living for 6 weeks in a village in Central Vietnam

After traveling around south east Asia for a few months, we were longing to stay a bit longer at one place. We found a nice villa in central Vietnam in a small village called Ninh Phung where we stayed for six weeks. Before we arrived there, our host described the place to be a quiet home offering an immersive village experience. We were curious and excited to spend some time in a village with locals and live a village life.

We arrived late in the evening to a nearby town called Ninh Hoa where we were picked up by our host and our future neighbour on their scooters. It was an interesting ride on small scooters with Kathi and Nora on one and Sam on the other scooter with our backpacks on our backs. We arrived at the villa around 7:30pm when it was already dark. We were greeted by our future neighbours and they were curious to meet us and know who we were. Unfortunately none of them spoke english and only our host spoke english but he lived 50km away. We knew by then that it was going to be an interesting experience communicating with them and getting to know them.

The house was a nice villa but it was not used by the host. So they were giving it up on Airbnb for guests. It had a very big living/dining/kitchen area combined with a separate bedroom and kitchen. There was a large front yard with lawn and local flower and berry plants. Along the length of the house, there were banana trees, a small pond, and flower trees. The backyard was an open area where they used to collect trash and let the water from their kitchen and bathroom flow into. We had two neighbours we regularly interacted with. One family was in front of our house where a couple lived with their mother(-in-law) and another family with a curious neighbour who lived with his wife and son. We interacted with them mostly using our phone using Google Translate. And most of the times what they wrote was possibly in a Vietnamese slang, so Google translated it to something funny. So our interactions with them were mostly hand gestures and sometimes guesses based on Google Translate.

The first morning we woke up, we wanted to spend some calm time in our front yard only to realise that our neighbours showed up within a minute of us opening the door to talk with us. Our neighbours had a hole in the artificial wall (plastic sheets) in front of their house to keep an eye on the house as nobody lived there at other times. But it also helped them to keep an eye on us to know when we were outside the house during our stay. Their curiosity was mostly about Nora. They never missed an opportunity to come and interact with Nora and teach her a few Vietnamese words. Nora also enjoyed their company, started speaking a few Vietnamese words. Nora was sometimes even looking forward to meeting them and talking with them. It was not just the first day, but every time we came outside and opened the gate, our neighbours, and also the people visiting our neighbours came in and sat down in our garden to try and speak with us and most of the times it ended with them simply speaking with each other in Vietnamese :) As none of them spoke english, we missed the opportunity to connect with them and the conversations were mostly about where we were from, what our names were, and what we cooked today etc.

A few interesting thing we observed during our time here -- almost no one walked on the streets even if it was just a 10 minute walk, neither younger kids, adults, nor elder people. Almost everyone had a scooter and very few people rode bicycles. They were surprised that we always walked to the nearby market that was about 20 minutes walk. We observed this trend everywhere in Vietnam, we were not sure when this shift happened in Vietnam where people stopped walking on the streets. The other thing that surprised us was that our neighbours didn't seem to cook their meals and mostly bought cooked meals from the market. We were curious to know what people ate at home on a daily basis in the villages but we could not find that out while were stayed here. However, we had the incredible opportunity to share a special event of paying respects to our host's deceased elders, during which we tasted delicious festive dishes with our host, his family & friends, and our neighbours. It was a humbling experience. You can read about it on our blog post here.

This village was not much different from any other village in other parts of the world. People were very curious about who we were, what our religion was, how we met, how old we were, how many siblings we have, what we eat, and a lot of other personal details. Along with that, they also had unwanted suggestions/advice on what we should feed Nora and what we should make her wear. In some instances it was a blessing that we could not speak Vietnamese as our hand gestures and Google translation took our communication only so far. We had an interesting neighbouring man who was so curious about what we were doing that he tried to walk into the compound whenever the gate was open and made rounds around the house looking through the windows and sometimes bumping his face into the glass windows, all out of his intense curiosity :)

We frequently visited the local market and the ladies at the market were happy to see Nora and us. Nora always got free food from the ladies and we were also looking forward to seeing their smiling and inviting faces.

Animals were tamed to be pet animals by many households in Vietnam, and it was no different with our neighbours. Our neighbours had birds in cages, a pet monkey which was always tied to a tree, and some roosters that were raised to participate in cockfights. It was painful for us to see the way those animals were treated and we tried our best to avoid Nora witness the incidents where those animals were treated badly. Having the image of Indian villages, we expected some of our neighbours to have cows or buffalos where we could get fresh milk. No one owned cows in this village nor did we see cows anywhere else in the village. Dairy consumption was very low in Vietnam and it was produced mostly by big companies to export to nearby countries. There were a group of five or seven chicken from our neighbours which visited us almost everyday. They spend most of their day in our front yard picking worms and making the lawn nutritious (by pooping). A few neighbouring dogs also visited our front yard to poop. We cleaned our front yard regularly as Nora was walking and picking up everything that looked interesting to her. A dog stole Kathi's shoe and chew off a piece of it. We searched the streets and found the dog chewing on the shoe. We got the shoe back damaged but usable. We had a few cats pass by our front yard once in a while and bang on the door. In spite of all the mess and chaos, we loved having animals around as it helped Nora see how each of these animals lived and interacted with each other.

We had very calm and peaceful six weeks at this place. We grew vegetables in our backyard from seeds, we made our own vinegar, experimented with local dishes, made some Indian snacks from scratch, and tried out making many other things that we did not get a chance to do during our travels for the past few months. We had a small pond in the house, and we bought some fish from the local market and made it their home. They were happy to live off of the algae and the food we gave them everyday.

People in this village lived a very calm life and did simple things to take care of themselves. We formed nice bonds with our neighbours. We still contact them and video chat with them once in a while, mostly with hand gestures. They show their happy faces and interact with Nora and show us how the plants we started were growing :)

Our neighbours

Our coconut lady at the market

Lady at the market who sold sweets and vegetables

Our fruits lady at the market who gave free fruits to Nora every time we visited her

Our vegetable lady

Our tofu and egg lady

Rice and grains lady

Fruit garden at a neighbours house

A lady's house in our neighbourhood where she made bamboo chairs

Our neighbour's chicken eating worms in our front yard. Across the gate is the hole our neighbours kept a watch for Nora to come out so they could interact & play with her :)