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Published: August 6th 2008
At last, an uneventful bus journey!...and we were in Ninh Binh, a small town, with nothing to do, but a great base to visit the surrounding area.
We hired a scooter for a couple of days and set about exploring! Our first stop was "TamCoc", described as Halong Bay in the rice paddies, and they weren't wrong......only this place, in our humble opinions, was much nicer! We hired a boat and were rowed through the paddie fields, in between huge limestone hills, covered in lush vegetation and through several low caves. We got there early and so it seemed like we had the whole countryside to ourselves, really serene!
Dan - Arhhhhh yes the 'Scooter' Nic was on at me because she wanted to learn how to ride a bike so with a little apprehension I shifted back and let her take control, started off brilliant like a natural (she had remembered all the little bits she had picked up on the bikes in India). Unfortunatly it began to rain and one thing led to another and we almost ended up down a bank and in a paddy field. Dont worry she's got good balance and managed to just
keep us from going over the egde.
The woman who was rowing our boat had the cheek to first ask us to help row tried to sell us things the whole way and then.........Had the cheek to say "Missy, missy now you give me tip".
Fortunatly we had a good bunch of fellow travellers at our guest house who had already started on the beers, so when we returned from a hard days ride we thought it rude not to join them!
Nic - It was really nice to sit and have a chat with new people....and also a winge about all the rubbish events that we've come across since being in Vietnam....We concluded that it's a great country, really difficult and tiring, but will give us more things to remember in the future!
Our second day on the bike took us to "Cuc Phuong" (which Ho Chi Minh himself took time out of the war to name as a national park) It was a long old, butt numbing ride on such a small machine but we eventually made it and were surrounded by jungular scenery. Unfortunately we only had time to do a 7km Trek
Bich Dong Temple...
...Stop laughing at the name!before returning, but even that showed us a nice chunk of the wilderness (along with a "thousand year old tree and "the cave of prehistoric man"!!)
Dan - Word of warning for fellow travellers who are going to this jungle.......1. Wear plenty of insect repellant (Nic got eaten alive and now looks like she has chicken pox!!)........2. WATCH OUT FOR THE SPIDERS....!!!!!!!....Oh my god these things are massive (see our bug watch section!!!).
As Nic said, and mum as what you said in your message.....Yes it is very tiring here being constantly on guard from rip offs and scams, many other travellers we've met have had worse experiences!! Maybe if we were going along with the tourist trail tour thing and not being worried about the amount they rip people off then it would be easier.........BUT thats not our style so we will continue to battle on.!!!!! No retreat No surrender!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nic - So our first night bus in Vietnam (sitting of course, as that's cheaper than a bed!) took us to Hue, half way down on the Coast.....
xxx
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Nessy noodles
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Yuk
errr those spiders look gross! Rather you than me! Dan your hair is cracking me up. You look proper mellow. Nic, you look chilled too. Hope you are both well. All is well here. x