Hidden Waters

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Vietnam is truly a beautiful place. I may make fun of it sometimes for being a bit too dirty and I may make jokes about how they can fit 10 people on a motorbike, but there really are not many places in the world where you can see such beautiful mountains and waters together at the same time. While traveling to Hanoi this time around, my great-uncle took my family and their friends (total of 15 people) on a mini guided tour of one of the most interesting places that I have been to; Trang An - The lake of a thousand caves. The lake of a thousand caves probably isn't its correct name, but I couldn't find a translation anywhere on the Chinese Google so i'm going to name it myself for the time being.

The lake of a thousand caves doesn't really have a thousand caves. There are probably an upwards of 20-30 at the VERY most. It's a deep maze of water tunnel networks that the militia used to hide in and store supplies while fighting wars with both China and the United States. Torn by war and destruction, this scenic area is now transformed into a popular tourist attraction that is trying to gain recognition as an international tourist hot spot. If successful in its bid, they will receive grant money to preserve the area. Although the place is magnificent, it is still very far away from acheiving international recognition. It lacks proper security, knowledgeable tour guides, and the employees are working hard with insufficient pay. The boaters that transport tourists around make 100,000 Vietnamese Dong per 3 hours (Equivalent to 29.75 Chinese Yuan or 4.80 US Dollars on the 4/11/2013 market). To make matters worse, they only make that money after they've completed a boating run. On this particular attraction, there are a total of over 2,000 boats lined up waiting to serve tourists. During a good season where tourists are plenty, they complete one run every 2-3 days. When it's out of season, they complete one run every 2 weeks, officially making it the lowest paying job that i've heard of ever, even worse than Chinese factory workers making products for Walmart. For a boat to start, all 5 of the seats on the boat must be filled. That means the people that run the place take 4/5 of the money that is being payed by each tourist as admission.

As an international tourist attraction, safety of patrons is the key factor that it must fill. The most basic safety device for any water based rides is a life vest worn by every patron on the attraction. When it was our turn to get ushered on to a boat, all of the life jackets were already handed out to earlier groups. Caring more about making money than the safety of patrons, we were hurried on to the nearest boat and was told to take off before we were able to safely sit down on a woven mat placed over a bamboo contraption that resembled a chair. The boats were so small and wobbly that I don't think that they were constructed to transport passengers. The balancing of the boat was so bad for the 6 people (5 passengers and 1 rower) that a slightly uneven distribution of weight or any movement from anyone felt like it could turn the boat over and around.

Now, lets not have all of those miniscule details scare you away from this magnificent scenic attraction. Although the area is poorly managed and safety isn't exactly a prime concern, it doesn't take away the fact that the area holds history and that it offers a one-of-a-kind experience to anyone that visits it. The captain of your vessel rows you for three hours through beautiful marsh land surrounded by southern Asia's iconic stone mountains and navigates you through a total of nine water caves. Each of these caves tell a story of the war-torn Vietnam and how they pulled thick and thin through endless decades of peril and destruction. You can see platforms that were clearly carved into the natural rock that people used to sleep on while hiding from enemy bombardment. Huge storage places are displayed with fake goods to show what rations and equipment that were held inside.

As you slowly trot through the waterways and network of caves, you slowly tune out of sounds of chatter and opening shutters that the people around you are producing. You look around the area, turning your head slowly in a 360 degrees angle, looking at the birds flying and the ducks diving underwater to catch a meal and you start to wonder how such a beautiful place could ever be the center of countless battles between nations that are looking to expand their influence on the world. If you close your eyes, you can almost see planes flying by dropping bombs on unknown targets hoping to catch a few hidden guerilla camps, blowing them from the face of the earth. The sounds of your boat rowing through the tranquil waters let you imagine people stealthily sneaking themselves and their supplies through the caves to help their brothers who were fighting on the front lines. You wish you could think of happy thoughts to compliment such magnificent scenery but the only things you can think of are war and destruction. Rowing silently through the barely-lit caves, you can picture families sharing what little food they have with each other so that they don't starve. Babies are crying because it's dark and adults are crying because they're scared. They're scared about what has happened to their village and family members and fear for the future of their children. Families stay hidden for months and children are even born in these caves, signaling life and a chance that everything might be better tomorrow. But when will tomorrow come? Within these caves, it is so quiet that you hear the echo of your own thoughts. You can only begin to imagine what is happening to the population that is tired of the war being fought on their soil until you start to sense light under your closed eyes. As you slowly open your eyes, you see the opening of the cave and start to hear the sound of birds chirping again, accompanied by the slow warm breeze of the countryside winds, your senses come back to you and the thoughts of war and sadness start to quickly fade away.

When you travel through this place, your senses are truly blown away. You disregard all of the safety issues and the fact that you have to pay 2000 Vietnam Dong (9 cents USD) to relieve your bladder to remind yourself what an amazing sight you have just witnessed. This place, left unchanged through years of war is now presented to you in its completely natural form for a price that wouldn't even buy you two slices of cheese pizza in the city of New York.

The best places in the world to visit are places that have yet to become a popular tourist attraction. Although I wish the best for this place and hope that it would ultimately change and receive international recognition, I am also thankful that I had the chance to see this place un-modified to foreign tastes. I hope that as more people find out about this place, they will only change the work conditions and safety issues of the area and not modify the scenery by constructing artificial structures to accompany the scenery. People need to see nature and history as is and this is one of the few places in Vietnam that are still left unchanged in the wake of tourism.

Edit April 14th, 2013:

Going through the pictures, I found an interesting photo where about half way into the tour, the boat peddlers start to switch to their feet to row. This concept was so intriguing to me for some reason because it's such a good way to multi-task which makes me wonder why this is THE FIRST time I have ever seen this happen. It frees your hand to so many activities like eating a meal or taking a phone call while still on your merry course not wasting any time at all. If they were bad at it it would of been worth a picture but not a mention. But with their feet, they were rowing the boat as fast and efficient as they would of been if they were using their hands. Mind blowing...

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