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Published: July 31st 2012
Tam Coc
The day before I went to Tam Doc, I hung around in Hanoi. I visited the Ho Chi Minh mausoleum only to discover that it was closed. I should have arrived in the morning. As it turned out there was still plenty to see. The guards who are everywhere in this area, are all dressed in a white dress uniform with white gloves and hat and look very handsome. They monitor the demarcation zone around the mausoleum to ensure people do not come too close to the area.
For 25,000dong I was able to visit the stilt house at the back of the palace that Ho Chi Minh lived in for quite a few years and I think not long before he died. It is a simple stilt house with an office and a bed. It seems Ho Chi Minh was a man of minimal needs. There is even a museum totally devoted to Ho Chi Minh outlining his history in particular to the Community parties in Europe and China that he helped to form. The entry requirements are hilarious so I am posting the photo of them for you to read.
I got some nice
photos from in the large museum building where there were displays that represented eras and events during the life of Ho Chi Minh and his people. One lady who had a young child, was holding the child up to a picture of Ho Chi Minh saying to him, “Uncle! Uncle!” That really sums up the feelings that people have and had for Ho Chi Minh. He is on all their money too and there are many examples of his presence in the city. For those that are not aware of this, Ho Chi Minh wanted to be cremated but instead he was embalmed for the world to see and is on display five mornings a week for 2 hours where people can only file passed him. In November of each year he is taken to Russia where they touch him up and return him to Vietnam.
I got dropped off by the taxi in the lake area and made my way back to the hotel about 5km away. The area is flat and easy walking as long as you do not mind negotiating the traffic by walking on roads and pavements, if you are lucky, as many motorbikes are
parked here.
Yesterday I headed off to Tam Coc by mini-bus leaving the hotel in the Old Quarter at 8.00am. We had to pick up another 11 people and this took about an hour at least, before we headed out of Hanoi on the motorway towards the town of Ninh Binh and the historical site of Hoa Lu which is about 7km from Tam Coc. Back in the 9
th century Hoa Lu was the capital city of Vietnam for the very short time of 40 odd years. Here there are some restored buildings that were built for the king. One has the usual dragons on the roof and this is a sure sign that the citadel was built for a king. Not far from this is another citadel that does not have any dragons on it, but it seems the king died while young and the queen who had a young child married the kings general or someone similar and although he helped to rule he was not considered a new king.
Tam Coc is very like Halong Bay except that it is on land. The “little mountains,” that rise up majestically, are made of limestone just like
the ones at Halong Bay except that these ones are surrounded by a sea of rice fields. The small boat trip through the caves that connect some of these outcrops is scenic and the boats travel down a shallow river full of weed and very small fish. The rowers mostly use their feet to row the boat and often have an extra helper to paddle too.
The trip was lovely until the extra person on the boat starts to sell you items from the boat and as we are a captive audience it is hard to concentrate on the beauty around you while you are being harassed. Once you get back to the shore you are harassed yet again to tip your boatman. Somehow very few of us thought it was very fair and although I did tip my rower a few dollars I appear to have been one of the few. It is hard to know how much of what we pay is given to the rowers.
After this we were given bikes to go on a bike ride on our own for 40 minutes. It was a bit of a have with the bikes needing a
bit of maintenance, but as there were no hills, it was an okay bike ride but definitely not worth the $5.00 we were expected to pay to hire them. At least the weather was lovely with the sun out for the first time in days.
The lunch we had was a buffet and was okay too and this happened before we went on the boat trip.
By now it was time to head back to Hanoi and as we got closer to Hanoi it had begun to rain. In fact it had rained heavily closer to Hanoi as there was considerable flooding around us the closer we got.
It took ages to get back to the hotel as it was rush hour. At one stage there was a stand- off with us and a bus with neither of them willing to back up which of course was nigh on impossible anyway. Both decided to try to back up a little bit and with careful negotiation they managed to slip past each other having a miniscule amount of room to do so whilst motorbikes and people continued to move through any gaps that opened up.
On the
trip to Tam Coc I sat with a teacher from Honk Kong who teaches Mandarin to students from Year 7 to 10 I think she said. Her name was Lily and we really enjoyed each other’s company and will try to stay in touch. There were couples from Belgium and England as well as the group from Hong Kong. The couple from England had been travelling for about 6 months and had had a stint in New Zealand and were singing its praises saying how friendly they NZ people were. I thanked her later for her kind words about NZ. At that point she had not realised that that was where I was from. LOL
Today I headed off to find the elusive Shopping mall. It was a long way from the hotel in fact about seven kilometres away in the French Quarter. On the way I found another Fannies ice-cream place so on the way back I called in for a lunch of ice-cream. Yum!
On the way back, I also thought I would start the clean -up process, such as a waxing before heading home. Well what a disaster! They were useless and there were four
girls working on my legs. They just did not have the facilities and at one stage I had my legs in the air as they worked on the back of my legs. LOL.
Even funnier they wanted me to wash my legs so they took me to this shower out the back and around the corner and in the room was also a toilet. So I am half stripped off washing the cream off my legs and giving myself the quick once over and the next thing the girl with me decided to have a pee. Well, I never!!! Jen you would not have been within cooie of this place and Gin it reminded me of the very first time I had a wax in Blenheim with you. I decided I would not stop the process even though they totally botched the wax and I felt I came away with just tufts of hair removed and some of my tanned skin too. It was just abysmal. Thank goodness hair and skin grow back and at I will need to have a shave now after all to even the hair out. Too much information eh!! LOL! At least they did
a reasonable job of the pedicure and I gave the haircut there a miss.
I waited until I was back at the hotel for the haircut and of course forgot to take into account that they were only going to respond to my actions and not what I said….so like the legs, the hair on my head will grow. Oh dear! What a disastrous day!
Oh by the way I finally found the shopping mall, but it was not that inviting and only had a bit of a walk around it before heading back. Really there is very little quality shopping here in Hanoi. The markets sell a whole heap of rubbish that is equivalent to what you can get in The Warehouse. Yes Mostly products made in China but some of it seems to be genuinely made in Vietnam.
The shop assistants are not always wanting to serve Westerners either and are almost rude. They make it clear they do not sell clothing to fit, “big” people and are not that helpful if you ask for something. Many of them have little or no English either.
Well this is to be my last public entry
as I am only one day away from heading home. Tomorrow I will be packing my bags and preparing to leave Hanoi, so I have little planned for the day. I might take a long walk again as it is good to have the exercise and it is not too hot here at the moment.
I leave for the airport on Thursday morning for a morning flight to Bangkok and a 6 hour stopover. My flight is TG491 and arrives in AK at 11.00am on Friday. Hopefully, I will be home at Ongare Point by around 2pm and it will be great to be home for a chance to have a catch up sleep. By the time I get home I will have been travelling for at least 21 hours and there is a 5 hour time difference so not much sleep either. I must see if I can find the last of the sleeping pills. LOL.
Thank you to all of my friends who have read every word and are still reading now. You are all amazing!! I hope I have not bored you too much but instead given you a desire to travel yourself. I totally
recommend Asia as a place to travel. I would predict that in 10 years’ time the culture shock will not be there as the speed at which Asia is entering the 21
st century is very evident. So if you can travel soon then do it now!!!!!
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Jennie
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Safe travel