Happy Space is the home of a family of five: husband Bill, wife Susan, 9 year old son, and Grandma and Grandpa/Susan's parents. We are so pumped to have a kitchen and be able to make our own breakfast every day. Grandma is always with us making sure we're cooking everything correctly and up to her standards so it's a well supervised kitchen. Susan runs a coffee/tea stand outside their front door so we met some neighbors just watching life go by in the alleyway. Bill is a zenmaster who teaches mediation along with so many other "Happy" businesses: Happy Talk (speaking engagements), Happy Bank, Happy Happy Happy everything. He led me in meditation our first night and invited us on a Happy Trip for the first full moon of the Lunar New Year. We really had no idea what we said yes to, all we knew was that there was mediation happening on a mountain top and we would see the sunrise and sunset, but it sounded like something we wouldn't have access to do on our own and Bill is so nice. We asked about free time and if I would be able to eat the food and that was pretty much all we cared about. So we packed randomly, not really knowing what we were packing for and got excited for our Happy Trip. 

Next we show up at a furniture store/woodshop/hotel and we're told we're in room #10 but it's the middle of the afternoon and we don't see where the mountain is... "Rest, leave later." Ok got it. Our drivers who seemed to know the people at the farm also seem to know these furniture/hotel people so we sit with them and try to learn about their farm through some translations. The Vietnamese feel food has great power and you need to eat a balance of those powers. We were told how the pomelo will keep cancer away by a man chain smoking cigarettes with a picture of lung cancer on the pack. We ask if we're sleeping here and should we bring the blankets to the mountain, everyone in the group starts grabbing up their blankets and supplies from the room, so we take that to mean: no, we're not sleeping here, and blankets are a great idea! Ok back in the vans.

Drive through edge of a little town and when the road gets too steep, we pull over and ask the house next to us if we can park there... Um ok, I guess we're walking from here. Where are we?! Then Dad comes rolling DOWN the hill on a motorbike and joins our group. Where in the world did he come from? He was just at the farm! I have no idea what's going on. But it's clear that the next step is to carry everything that was packed in the vans, up the hill to who knows where, so that's just what we do. This would have been a great time to change from flip flops to sneakers but we weren't smart enough for that. Ryan of course is the mule with all of our stuff, a box of water and a bag of mangoes. I'm carrying couch/meditation cushions that Bill brought for the group from his home and trying to keep it together because I cannot stop giggling at the ridiculous day we're having. And we're off hiking along a path into the rubber tree fields!
We made a wrong turn of course and had to double-back but we then came to this adorable little farmhouse at the edge of the rubber trees. They had chickens and pigs and a dog that wanted nothing to do with Ryan. And we all went inside, dropped our stuff and relaxed walking around the trees. Dad was there again running things and the dog only had love for him so this has to be his home. We're thinking this is where we're camping and the mountaintop has to be a close hike from here. Nope. We picked everything back up again and kept on hiking.
It became pretty steep from there and upon taking a break, Bill catches his breath and puffs out, "Happy Stop." I almost rolled down the hill laughing.
The forest clears to a huge rock and we are indeed on a beautiful mountain top with amazing views all around. Just stunned. We put our stuff down to run to the far side of the mountain, the tallest peak and enjoy sunset there with our driver who's the youngest of the farm family. Bill is loving it and asks us to "Capture" him pretending to meditate in the beautiful setting. The full moon is already up!
We hiked back to the main rock after sunset and found half of our group halfway between those points, with some random mountain guy, with a bunch of the groups's stuff piled on the ground and speaking quickly and pointing all around. We're pretty sure that these ladies were not interested in carrying this stuff back to camp, so we just picked it up and walked back, no idea what actually happened there. We set up our hammock, made ourselves a little camping spot and played some Bob Marley for the group while everyone else got to cooking. We had an amazing dinner of grilled pork, sweet corn, kimchi, chocolate cherries and Dad showed up again with a pot of rice. Bill led the group in meditation under the full moon and we headed to bed with the sweet sounds of Vietnamese karaoke in the distance.

Bill woke us up for sunrise and roasted cashews. We packed up, headed back to the little farmhouse in the rubber trees, took a break, headed to the vans parked in the random person's driveway, and were brought into town to a delicious bowl of noodles for breakfast. Then to what we think is a coffee shop but is actually the home of the farm family where they serve us coffee. Same same. Here we learned that all of these people taking us around the farm are just some of the 13 children in this family, and "Dad" is really "Brother #??." We piled back into the van thinking we're headed home but we're end up at a waterfall! Ryan and I both jump out and run up the rocks, until Ryan gets yelled at for going too far without a ticket... And our driver has to deal with two security guards looking for a payout. Next stop, back at the furniture/hotel spot which is great because we're in need of showers. We all sit around in the beautiful table and chairs they make there at the shop and then get up and sit on the floor for lunch. Thinking we're leaving now, Bill says we have two stops to make but we'll leave for HCMC by 1pm. First, we go back to the coffee shop/family's house and pick up the mother of these 13 kids and bring her with us. Second stop is at a small chopstick making shop. But then there's more stops... herbal medicine doctor where we eat steamed sweet potatoes and watermelon, and our driver takes a nap, and then a shrine to the first herbal medicine doctor and we eat more of that sweet corn. All of the discussion is in Vietnamese so Ryan and I are out of the loop. Even our driver and Mom of 13 were over it. We were crazy tired and when we actually got back home at 7:30pm, we ate street food and crashed. What a crazy couple of days!