Kim Bôi hot spring (2nd trip in 2014)

My nephew and niece at the meeting hall
My nephew and niece played chess while their mother
and my parents were dancing at the meeting hall.

Weekend 12 to 14 September 2014 - My father organized a 3-day trip for our family and his friends to Kim Bôi hot spring which is located in northwest Vietnam, 80km away from Hanoi. It is exactly 6 years since my first trip to this place and I was happy to go back and see how it has changed. Kim Bôi hot spring is a popular destination for north Vietnamese from September to December, when the weather is cooler. Its mineral water is suitable for drinking, bathing and useful in medical treatments. It’s not an open air stream. The mineral water is pumped into public or private pools and you choose the pool. A ticket for public pool is VND 50,000 (about US$ 2.5). There are private pools for 2 or 13 people and they are more expensive. A special feature in private pools is the water is pumped with strong pressure.

At a shop outside Kim Bôi hot spring
Honey and rice alcohol as well as forest
 products are sold outside the hot spring.

When the water hits your body, it feels like you are having a massage. The best time for swimming in public pool is the early hours of the day, around 6-8am, because the new water is pumped into the pool and there are few people there during that time.

Sunday is a very busy day as the public pool is often full of people.

One of the interesting places to visit in Kim Bôi is the local market, about 3km from the hot spring. There are many local products sold at the market, for example, mushrooms, dried bamboo, banana flowers, taro, rice wine, sticky rice cooked inside bamboo pipes etc. When I went to this market in September 2008, I saw buffaloes alongside the traffic and the town was quite small. Things look so different now with a lot of shops along the main street of the town. Some students played volleyball at the sport center opposite Kim Bôi post office.

On Saturday evening a musical show as cultural exchange event was organized. The local girls wearing traditional dresses of the Muong and Thai ethnic minority groups performed some tunes on gongs, dances and songs in their languages.