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Published: March 15th 2016
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We were prisoners in our room. We couldn’t unlock the door. There was no phone in the room to call for help. The system here is upon entering the room, you put the key tag in a slot above the light switch. This turns on the electricity. When you remove the tag, it cuts the current, so we were struggling with the lock in the dark. I remembered that I had a crank generated flashlight in my pack. It did not work like a magic wand to open the door but at least we could see what we were dealing with.
It finally released and we went back across the street for breakfast. More of the same soup and vegetables. Back on the road again for another long drive. We were supposed to go check out some waterfall but the city we stopped in for gas had no electricity so we had to wait. In the meantime, we walked around the market and the central square.
The guide bought some sesame covered dough balls made from rice and then fried. Very good. Crispy on the outside and chewy in the middle. I don’t know if there was a filling
or not. As we were waiting we saw a couple of men trying to get a cow which was lying in the middle of the road to get up. There was a rope through its nostrils. He had pulled so hard that the cow’s nose was ripped and bleeding. The other man was pulling the tail towards the front of the body. A crowd had gathered. Everyone thought this was quite funny.
Finally, the cow got up and with small mincing steps, moved forward for about ten metres before painfully lying down again. If the man just bought the cow, he got ripped off. If he was taking it to market to sell, I doubt he would find a buyer. Karma at work in either case for this animal abuse. In either case, this cow was someone’s supper.
Due to the delay, we didn’t have enough time to go to the waterfall and get to our evening’s lodging before dark. Given the state of the roads in this part of the country, I didn’t blame the driver for wanting to head back. We retraced our tracks for the most part, going back through the Ecopark. It was nice
to see it from the other perspective, notwithstanding all the switchbacks.
We did stop at a look-out that gave a nice view of the fairy breasts. We had to climb up about two hundred steep steps to get to the viewing platform. I became more of a tourist attraction than the view, posing with Asian tourists, men and women both embracing me with equal vigour.
Our lodging for the night was at an ecology resort called the Truong Xuan Resort in Ha Giang. A nice quiet spot outside of town. We had a cabin overlooking the river. A nice change from the night before. The guide offered to take us into the city centre. He said that it was all new as the Chinese had destroyed everything in the invasion of 1979. We declined, having spent enough time in the car. I walked around the resort instead. There were ponds filled with huge carp, caged ostriches and other exotic birds. There was also a spa with herbal baths and massages.
There were four other European couples staying at the resort, including one from Quebec, each accompanied by their own guide. We were all served the
same meal, Vietnamese in nature but prepared for the western palate.
I had run out of batteries again and had not found in any of the stalls we came across. They are not common here as most people use the rechargeable ones. So, time to use the tablet camera. I had studied up on how it works but now fumble through inexperience. I lost out on many good shots.
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