12th - 15th November 2011
Well, here I am again, trying to work up the desire to write about recent travel trials and traumas by drinking beer. I've only just started my second, and having an enormous burger for lunch is not helping the alcohol absorption process. This is not my usual value for money experience.
I'm sitting in a little café/restaurant in Hanoi listening to Katie Melua playing on the restaurant speakers and trying to summon the good feeling that I had in Ninh Binh which was a beautiful place. Having secured ourselves our usual cheap room, we ate, I wrote about the last places we visited and after organising a scooter for the following day, we slept.
Up bright and early, we had omelettes for breakfast and then hit the road planning to take the scenic route to Tam Coc, Djalma wearing some knock-off Ray Bans we found in the fuel compartment under the seat in our little scooter. We ended up being directed by several locals to Highway 1, a busy road linking the North to the South and not the route for a pleasant drive through the countryside. We made it off the road in one piece and fortunately for us, the rest of the way was rather quiet. We followed to the little jetty where set priced row boats were crowded against the concrete shore, bought ourselves a couple of “sightseeing” tickets and a boat ticket, got in with two friendly ladies who took us round the Ngo Dong River.
This part of the world is spectacularly beautiful, limestone karsts punctuate flat fields, which in the rainy season would have been that brilliant green unique to rice paddies, they were more of a green/brown having been recently harvested, but beautiful nonetheless. Of our two lady paddlers, the older one sat at the back of the boat, rowing with her feet and the younger one sat next to Djalma and steered with a small paddle, I, as chief photographer, was in the front of the boat and took pictures of everything we saw.
We didn't arrive as early as we had wanted but this worked in our favour because the sun had had some time to burn off the morning mist shrouding the mini mountains. We followed the small line of boats down the river and passing in-between mountains, by snail fishermen and through caves, it was all idyllic and because all the boats were of the rowing variety, peaceful too.
We reached the end of the line after passing through one last cave, a small army of sellers, hawking cold soft drinks and snacks paddled up and began the hard sell. We'd read about this before hand and had brought plenty of water which we shared with our lady rowers as well as some crackers. We were out of there pretty quickly and returned the same way. After a few minutes the young girl hauled out some embroidered fabric souvenirs (the small village, Van Lan, on the river is famous for its embroidery), just like everyone else was doing on the return trip, but soon put them away again after we explained that we had big backpacks already and couldn't carry any more. She was rather graceful about it considering most of them make the bulk of their income that way and the rest of the trip back was rather peaceful.
Right before the end, Djalma finally got his go at the oars, he certainly looked the part but we didn't manage anythign but circles, the older lady found it hilarious.
We tipped them a dollar each, which doesn't sound much but we don't usually tip unless people are particularly nice and considering most people make that in a day I guess it wasn't too bad. We had an okay meal at a restaurant before getting back on the scooter and taking the scenic route (via small road/paths in-between the paddy fields) to Bich Dong Pagoda.
Parking our scooter we made our way up the steps, Djalma made sure he was properly covered because as a sign advised on entry to the site 'only for respectable guests'. There were about three small buildings on different levels, a large pagoda at the bottom, where people were praying, one in the middle carved into the rock which was really cool and a small building at the top where people left lots of incense sticks.
Behind this last building/temple the limestone meandered further up, Djalma set off to explore and after a little while I followed – it gets rather boring being left behind all the time and plenty of the rocks were shiny from previous adventurers so it wasn't all that dangerous. It didn't take that long, despite being steep in some places and after a little coaxing, Djalma got me to this place.
I wedged my feet into the rocks and enjoyed the spectacular view, however we weren't quite at the top. This time I did stay put while Djalma continued the last few metres, as from his little video, the views were 360° and even more magnificent. After more picture taking and and a little rest we headed back down and got back on the scooter for a little more exploring.
We followed more of the path/roads that run in-between the rice paddies, scaring off ducks and egrets.
It was incredible (and having now been to Halong Bay I think that this place is infinitely more beautiful) everywhere was so quiet and peaceful, I got off the scooter to take some pictures of buffalo which I was about 200x more scared off as soon as I got off our noisy scooter, they're only cool when someone with a stick is a holding a rope attached to their nose, otherwise they're just huge beasts that could flatten you in an instant.
I chased ore ducks into the water and photographed Djalma kissing a cow, it was a very exciting day. We pulled up at another Pagoda and had a wander through the small grounds before having a wee rest.
We drove back to another karst where we parked up and bought a couple of entry tickets before attempting the big steps to the top, I have no idea what the name is – it's not mentioned in the Lonely Planet which I am re-reading as I type – but the dragon or Naga (water dragon thing) is clearly visible running along the top of the mountain from several hundred metres away on the ground.
We made it up the steps, our bums and thighs getting an excellent workout, not to mention our cardiovascular systems, and were rewarded by some more phenomenal views and a couple of teenagers listening to romantic music and snogging. I felt pretty bad about breaking up their little kiss-fest but there were photos to be taken and a little saliva swapping wasn't going to stand between those pictures and myself for very long.
After the young couple had disappeared off to find somewhere a little more private we sat and watched the sun disappear behind a cloud of dust behind the mountains. Before it got too dark we climbed back down and made our way back to town.
That evening, we had dinner at our guest house, fiver beers between us and we spoke to our families at home.
The next day we were up nice and early again and after an omelette and a baguette for breakfast we got back on the same scooter and were out on the road just after 7.30. We got lost and were directed to Highway 1 to get to Cuc Phoung National Park. Highway 1, is as important as it sounds, it spans the country from North to South and is full of cars and trucks and well as a gazillion scooters. It's the truckers that gave us a fright though, one coming our way on the opposite lane, overtook someone who wasn't driving 200kmp/h and left us about 6 inches on our side of the road. Yes it's an important road but in lots of places it isn't that big and with no proper road markings either (not that they would be used for anything other than decoration) we were off it as soon as we were able and fortunately for us the rest of the way was through some peaceful and beautiful Viet countryside. We stopped to take some photos of ladies weeding enormous gardens and taking buffalo for walks, we even saw an enormous pig in a box strapped to the back of a scooter but I was too slow to get a photo.
We pulled up at the entrance of the National Park and got our entry tickets, we only wanted to have wander round and see a 1000 year old tree and maybe if time have a look at the monkey sanctuary. Cuc Phoung National Park is significant because it was Vietnam's first National Park, established in 1962 by Uncle Ho Chi Minh himself, its about 25km and 11km wide and is 100% wonderful. From the ticket hut it's a 20km drive along a small road amid a sea of green trees, to get to the beginning of most trails. At the end is an open building where people can rest and have a drink, we met a Czech couple who gave us some tips about getting home a much nicer way. After a quick toilet stop we set off to see the 1000 year old tree.
The park was quiet and the route fairly well paved in most places, it was all up and down though – some more excellent exercise for the buns. It was just beautiful although there were these large spiders all over the ground, they weren't frightening just creepy, the kind that might appear in a Harry Potter film, a big fat purple body with ridiculously long spindly legs (I didn't look close enough to see if there were any fangs but I was happy that I'd worn trainers and not flip flops). We bounded up steps and we bounded down steps and after an hour or so we reached the ancient tree. Honestly, I was expecting it to be bigger and perhaps, a little more impressive? It looked like a zillion other trees we'd seen elsewhere.
Oh I almost forgot, the grasshoppers, there were lots of little green grasshoppers everywhere, we started following a trail to another ancient tree but we didn't find anything except lots of bamboo, banana tree and grasshoppers – not bad runners up really.
We finished the loop and then, possibly the most exciting part of the day, I drove us back to the Primate Rescue Centre. I made it to third gear and only stalled about 17 times, it was brilliant. We didn't fall off, get run off the road by oncoming or overtaking minivans and I even managed a few hill starts – the times when I stalled. I even got fairly good at gear changing, only up though - I couldn't change down through the gears. I also shouted a lot, beeped my horn even when there weren't any corners (sorry timid wildlife!) and used my eyes as insect catchers.
We managed to join a little tour that was just starting around the centre and followed the little group around all the different cages, trying to get photos of all the different monkeys – I was too preoccupied with getting decent shots that I missed much of what the guide said, I can only tell you that gibbons have very long arms and no tails.
After the primates we were escorted round a turtle sanctuary which was pretty cool although a turtle pulling its head back into its shell looks a lot like a certain part of a gentleman's region, take a look and see for yourself.
Primates and turtles viewed we got back on our scooter and following the Czech couples advice took a truly beautiful route home, had it not been so late in the day we would have stopped more often to take photos, but it was getting dark so we settled for some sunset photos and pictures of a group of curious but insanely shy children who ran away when we took a photo of them.
I took over the camera and showed them the pictures and they all screamed and fell about when they saw them. When we were putting out helmets back on they had worked up enough courage to shout the things that they knew in English, 1, 2, 3, 4... (that was it) and hello! It was utterly charming, we waved goodbye and arrived home cloaked in dust but in one piece and happy to have avoided Highway 1.
We met the Czech couple for dinner that evening and went to a local restaurant to try the local speciality – goat. It was particularly well butchered – everything was cut up and thrown in the pan, a lot of it gristle. Fried sweetcorn was a bit hit though and I filled up on that with pan fried greens and garlic.
We had a lie in until 7.30, it was heaven I tell you! I spent an hour just deleting photos – more than 500 from the previous two days. We used the internet, packed and left getting a soft seat train to Hanoi. I'm writing this almost two weeks after it happened and I honestly cannot remember what the train was like – it can't have been that comfortable. We arrived in Hanoi after a few hours and got a bus to a smaller station with only one track to wait for the next train to Haiphong. While waiting at the station I tried to go to the loo but apparently a western wee is twice as much as a Viet wee, I got in such a strop that I snatched my money from the thieving hag who was trying to overcharge me and my wee and then sat and waited for two hours until the train came (once then train arrived I had to wait a further half an hour because you can't wee while the train is in the city). Really rather hating Vietnam by this point and sniffling a bit, Djalma took pity on me and went out twice to find some chocolate, the stuff he brought back was brown, but I'm not sure it had any cocoa in it. He did point out that it said 50% but it didn't say what was 50%... who knows? Another 4-5 hour train ride, through some stunning fields and mountains and we arrived in Haiphong after 9pm. I was miserable and tired and the cheap hotel recommended in the guide had been turned into a car park. Bloody marvellous. We ended up in a nice hotel in a nice room which we got at a rather good price mainly by begging and not going anywhere else. After dumping our bags we went straight out to a swanky Thai restaurant and had a prawn red curry with rice and some sautéed vegetables. Expensive but beautiful.
The next morning we walked through town to get to the fast ferry, we stopped off at a small place for breakfast and then got out tickets. We sat down to wait and met Claude from Luxembourg (does anyone know what you call someone from Luxembourg? Luxembourgian??) We got the boat together, he and Djalma were at the front chatting while I sat on a small plastic chair and read, the wind knocking the empty chairs next to me on the floor.
After an hour we arrived at Cat Ba Island the largest island in Halong Bay and took a room on the 6th floor looking out over the bay.
