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Published: February 27th 2007
Rice, Karst, Oh and Don't forget the Dead People
This shot captures it all, the majestic beauty of the karst and rice paddies, with the strange grave sites littering the crop fields. Think about that the next time you're mowing down on your Uncle Ben's!After returning to Hanoi from the Halong Bay tour, I couldn't stomach the thought of spending any more time in the city. So the very next day, I caught the local bus (complete with Vietnamese barfarama), to Ninh Binh. This was a cute little Vietnamese town that was very authentic and has yet to be over-run with tourists. While here I went to "Halong Bay on Land". I rode a bike through the dikes separating the rice paddies that were dotted with karst formations. It was quite lovely, and the celebrity status you get just from having white skin is hilarious. You literally can't pass anyone without them saying hello.
While in Ninh Binh, I also rented a scooter (on my rainiest day in Asia to-date), and rode the 50km out to Cuc Phuong National Park. Once getting out of the city, it was a beautiful ride, and the park was well worth the ride through the down-pour. At the park I visited a primate rehab centre, where they recover endangered monkeys that have been captured for sale on the black market in China. Some of the monkeys only number in the hundreds left in the wild. The centre can
A Close up of the Rice Paddies
Just in case you ever wanted to know what the rice paddies are like at the time of harvest, here you go. Don't ask me how they do it though, that's still a mystery. only release the monkeys back into the wild once the government has taken sufficient measures to prevent illegal monkey hunting. I also did a short 8km hike out to a 1000 year old tree (so the sign says anyway). It was impressive, but I've seen bigger on the coast - what can I say, I'm a bit of a tree snob!
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