While most travelers visit the southern regions of Vietnam, Hanoi and to the south, this trip took me and my fellow travelers to the north where we mingled with the many tribes of the Ming culture. Each family group we met were almost entirely self sufficient - growing their own acres of rice, raising their ducks and pigs, a small garden of seasonal vegetables, using bamboo pipes to harness and store the every present flowing fresh water streams, and managing their fleet of water buffalo tractors.