Ninh Binh, Phat Diem & Khanh Ngac Churches, plus Tam Coc

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18/2/10 - checked out of the Bao Khanh hotel and were collected by our driver at 7am. This time we had no trouble finding Mike and Hang’s place. We deposited the baggage we did not need for the next few days and were soon on the road to Ninh Binh. This city is about 90km south of Hanoi, with the area being famous for things such as its rice fields, the Tam Coc caves, the Phat Diem cathedral and Cuc Phuong National Park.

Phat Diem Cathedral

The area around Ninh Binh has a strong Catholic influence, with the area dotted with many churches built by various missionaries. The area now has about 30 priests and 65 different parishes. The most famous of the churches in the area is the Phat Diem Cathedral. It is an amazing mixture of Christian and Asian imagery. For example, a statue of Mary nursing the baby Jesus depicts her with a western face wearing an Ao Dai, the traditional Vietnamese dress. This mixture of western and Vietnamese imagery continues all throughout the design and detail of the Cathedral. The cathedral was built 1875 and 1899.

Wandering through the cathedral and it's grounds we met some interesting people. Outside we were approached by a vietnamese women who worked as an English teacher in Hanoi and was visiting her grandfather who lived in the town. She was happy to get a chance to use her English with native speakers. This type of meeting repeats itself many times during our visit to Vietnam - the opening lines being “Where are you from?” and then if you are patient you will be engaged in a conversation where you can swap information about general life at home compared to Vietnam. We always try to take the time for these conversations as they are a great way to get an insight into daily life here.

Inside the cathedral I was approached by a young man who is studying to be a priest, he opened the conversation in his best English with “I try my English with you; please question me so we can become friends”. He was able to tell us a lot of information about the church, plus details of his studies and hopes for the future. He also explained a lot of the imagery in the church which was an interesting mix of Christian and Confucianism. He explained that to make the locals feel comfortable in the church it had been designed with familiar images for them so they did not feel so alienated by Christianity - progressive thinking for the times.

We browsed through the very kitsch gift shops around the cathedral. There were lots of family groups visiting and it was good to see them enjoying themselves. The local tourists were attracted to some of the amusement stalls on the outside walls of the cathedral that were running small lotteries and games of chance similar to darts.

Khanh Ngac Church

We also stopped at Khanh Ngac Church; it was locked when we first entered the grounds. As we wandered to the back of the garden an older gentleman asked us in French if we wanted to take a look inside. He unlocked the church for us and gave us some basic history of the building, also in French.

The beret is still popular headwear for older gentlemen, and like this one at the church, many of them speak extremely good French. They do have a bit of trouble understanding my responses in my Franglais plus Aussie accent, but we get by.

We had lunch at an eatery that specializes in mountain goat meat. The goat meat (De Nui) is very tasty stuff together with some nice dipping sauce. This area is famous for its goat meat so it is a must to try while visiting. It is also accompanied by a crusty rice cake made from the crust left at the bottom of the big crockery rice cookers (Com Chay).

Tam Coc

This place is billed at the tour desk of the Bao Khanh Hotel as “Halong by land”. It consists of a pleasant boat trip up a river via three caves to Ba Chua Thuong Ngan Temple. Hang mentioned that the temple is devoted to fertility and also good luck in business. A local gentleman told us “please pray for anything as you wish” so we did - peace and happiness for all.

Hang explained to us later that on entering any temple you pray five times and introduce yourself to the saint of the temple, explaining who you are and your date of birth. Then you make a personal prayer then pray three times at the end. I think that is the basics of it.

Our trip up the river was in a boat run by a mother and daughter team, Lam who was 35 and her daughter who is 15. Lam spoke French and her daughter was not so bad with English so they made a good team. They gave us some Vietnamese words for snail, goat, duck, etc. as they rowed us along the river. On the way back down river they took the opportunity to sell us some items such as embroidered table clothes (which the area is famous for). The price we negotiated in French was reasonable and the quality was ok so why not. We have no problem with folks like this taking advantage of a captive audience to try and sell to, after all boat rowing is not exactly the easiest of professions. If we like the product no problem, but if not we simply say no. In this case we got a nice table cloth plus napkins and were happy.

Back in Ninh Binh we found rooms for 300,000VND (less than A$20) in a comfortable 2 star hotel. They had special rooms for our driver which were just a bit smaller than ours.

Driving habits

During the course of the day we found our young driver had some interesting driving habits. He kept tapping his foot on and off the gas pedal, making the car jerk back and forth all the time. He did this all day long, so when we got to some bumpy roads it was a bit of a relief because you could not feel it but on the smoother roads it was driving me crazy. He also continually looked across at whoever was in the passenger seat, meaning he kept taking his eyes of the road all the time. Add to that the fact he loved to labour the engine in the gears to the point it was always just about to stall … that aside he was relatively safe.

Hiring a car and driver is reasonably affordable and a lot safer than driving yourself. It also takes the hassle out of finding your way around.

More mountain goat

We dined at the mountain goat restaurant again. It was very crowded, always a good sign. The goat meat had a strong taste and was easy to enjoy with a beer. Some streets in Ninh Binh were nicely lit up for Tet, so we took a stroll around town after dinner. It was still cool and looked like it could rain any moment. Off the main street Ninh Binh was a nice enough town. The backstreets looked reasonably clean and some nice shops were open rather late selling various items including many flat screen TVs. Oh, and wedding dress shops were everywhere too, filled with many ostentatious dresses … the second dresses were very lavish satin numbers (brides in Vietnam get many photos taken in their wedding dresses and then change in public into a second dress for more photos, some of them can look like stars from some poorly made American day time drama show).

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Photos

around Phat Diem Cathedral
kitsch souvenir shops

around Phat Diem Cathedral
kitsch souvenir shops