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Published: February 13th 2007
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Today we arrived in Hanoi, Vietnam's capital and our home for the next week or so as the country enters pre-Tet rush. Instead of Xmas pines it is Kumquat trees, being transported - as with everything else - on the back of perilously balanced motorbikes.
It will be a relief to stay in one place after a lot of movement by our standards, as we've made our way up the country.
After our week of clothes shopping and cake eating in Hoi An we bused up to Hue. We stayed for three days- long enough to fall in love with it, fall out of love... and then kind of hate it. Things started well when on our first afternoon there we stumbled on the royal precinct of the ancient citidel, a place of walls, bridges, moats and temples.
We did some great touristy things near Hue. Firstly, a day long boat tour chugging down the perfume river ($2! Bargain!), and secondly a bus tour of the "DMZ" which took in sights relating to the Vietnam War.
It was fun of the claustraphobic kind visiting the Vin Moc Tunnels walking up to 23m below the ground where 80
families lived during frequent U.S. bombing sessions. However, the one memory of the tour that I'll never forget was on the bus itself. In the morning the bus filled up so a man who worked on the tour (doing what I don't know) had to sit next to me on the aisle. I was having my usual struggle coming to terms with the Vietnamese concept of personal space (or lack thereof) when I had the surprise of seeing he had two thumbs on his hand! In fact, he had two thumbs on his other hand too! Twelve digits in total, and all with perfectly formed nails. When the excellent tour guide turned the subject to Agent Orange it finally occurred to me that I was witnessing yet another legacy of the American War.
What was tough in Hue was the many of the locals' relentless attempts to catch our tourist dollar. Shouting, clapping, begging, man-handling, stalking. We are used to children shouting out a greeting to us from Laos, but in Hue "Hello!" was often followed by "One Dollar!" or "Money!"
Perhaps partly due to the fact that Sarah and I are used to our sparsely populated island
in the Pacific, being around this many people can put us in a siege mentality. A character building oppurtunity for us in the face of the touting, shouting, littering, public urinating, loud hoiking and spitting. The Vietnamese have an amazing patience in the face of things like loud noise and insane traffic, and for them it is very important to remain pleasant and calm and definately not get angry!
Our next stop up the main highway, Ninh Binh, was an excellent example of the extremes in Vietnam. What was once a "sleepy village" (quoth Lonely Planet) has rapidly become a ferocious highway junction town of sprawling grey concrete. Seemingly every bus or truck was obliged to show off their remarkably loud horns as they speed through. What Ninh Binh does have going for it, is that it is close some very beautiful countryside.
We rented bicycles and braved Highway 1A to leave that fine metropolis, and came to Tam Coc: a peaceful river weaving through rice paddies and limestone mountains and passing through water caves. Less peaceful was being abused by an old man for refusing to pay a fee for locals guarding our bikes - we had
a lock! He had a voice like rusty chainsaw and had a remarkable aptitude in English swear words whilst miming throwing our bikes into the river!
We hired a boat and rider. The riders are almost exclusively women, some well over 60 years old. This allows the men to focus on more important things- sitting in groups of 4 or 6 smoking wearing leather jackets and business suits.
Of course, it isn't such hard work rowing a boat when your arms are tired swapping over and rowing with your legs! Uncouth maybe, but effective.
When we had paddled through the last cave, there were three women waiting for us, each on a boat laden with (expensive) goods. The situation played out word for word as described in Lonely Planet. The women will firmy encourage you to buy a coke for your boat rider (who will later sell it back at half-price). Then she will open up a compartment of embroidery and try to force that on you. A cute little suit for the baby? Fortunately our rider spoke good French and we don't, so it was more fun for her to accost the French Couple on another
Hue
Few of the many tourist boats plying the Perfume River boat, for much the journey back.
Still near Ninh Binh was the even more laid back Cuc Phuong National Park. After weeks surrounded by masses of people what we needed was to "check out" completely and go into hermit-mode. We rented mountain bikes and rode 20km to the centre of the park and stayed 2 nights in a cute woodsy room in a pillar house. With a paltry number of other tourists there it was easy to find the precious peace and quiet to read a book or play 500 - until one of the local workers turned on his Lada's car stereo. A rap version of that Carpenters song: "Every Sha la la la, every wo - o - o- o." Once heard, never forgotten.
I went for a walk on one of the trails to a thousand year old tree, through banana trees and thick rainforest. Sarah pulled out just as we were starting the trail when we read a sign warning to look out for King Cobras. We had heard from a guide the day before that he had seen a metre long one the day before, so Sarah was out. All I ended up
seeing was a squirell. I never get sick of them!
But the piece of Cuc Phuong couldn't last, and today we've entered Hanoi - 3 million people, most of them are on motorbikes. We were warned of its incredibly high road death statistics, but it was still shocking when we were driving into the town on a bus and passed a young man sprawled along the highway dying or dead. No ambulance was there, and no one was stopping to help, including our bus. I hope we don't have to see anything like that again.
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photos
really, the photos with yr blogs are so good!