Vietnam Part 3

We caught the 9:31am train from Ninh Binh to Hanoi today. While waiting at the station, we picked up some usual snacks for the trip; squid puffs, peanut butter kitkat (in a country that doesn't seem to have peanut butter), and peanut brittle with rice cake base and sesame seeds. None of it was exceptionally tasty or awful. I booked 2nd class as 1st class was a sleeper car and didn't seem to be available for our 2.5 hour trip. I paid $15 for 2 tickets, and that included $7 in service fees for booking online. It wasn't as great a deal as I thought. It was a "soft seat" meaning it didn't have wooden benches. But that's about all it had going for it. The seats were all stuck in whatever reclined position we found them in. And it was quite dirty. At least it was only a 2.5 hour trip.

Back in Hanoi, we caught a taxi at the station. He put the meter on, but it was in some sort of tourist scam mode. Half way through a 7km ride, the meter was showing 14km. We were stuck in traffic a block from the hotel, so we just paid and walked the rest with our minimal luggage.

We went to the Golden Lotus Luxury hotel this time. Our room has the same decor as the other hotel, but it's half the size. Seriously, this room is smaller than our room on the cruise. But at least it has walls. That's a plus seeing as it's still rather cold here. It seems like less than a week ago I was bitching about how hot it was.

We bundled up our laundry and headed out to find somewhere to get it cleaned. We found a place next door that's a fraction of what the hotel wanted. This place was closed every time I went past last week. So we gave her the laundry, but we're crossing our fingers she's there tomorrow to pick it up.

We then went wandering again. This time, with no particular sights to get to, we started finding random alleys to explore and foods to try. We got pineapple from a street vendor, and a sort of Vietnamese empanadas with random meat and noodles which weren't very good, and a whole tiny egg which was.

We also found the sewing notion street. I picked up a couple of zippers to fix a pair of UG's bike pants back home for 30 cents. There was also one shop that carried bulk designer labels for sewing into your knock-off clothes.

We went back to the market. This time, we started on the first floor where I got dizzy from the smell of the dried goods section. Fish, mushrooms, spices, and who knows what else. I looked through the shoe section, but they were all tiny. I picked up a few yards of fabric. Nothing special, but at least I'm not going home empty handed.

Outside the market, we found a couple of shops selling Vietnamese motor bike helmets. UG wanted one as a souvenir, so we stopped to ask. He heard 300k dong, and I heard 30k dong. He walked away. I followed him and asked why he didn't get one. He replied that he wasn't willing to spend $20 on it. But I was pretty sure I heard 30k, which is less than $2. So he went back, and sure enough, he got a motorbike helmet for $2. Surely that's CSA approved?

On the way back to the hotel, we found the bakery district, and I bought some mini cakes. They looked better than they tasted.

We then walked back to the hotel for a few hours' rest. UG stepped out to get some food and came back with a chicken sub from another random street vendor. He found the backpacker street, with the biggest concentration of white faces of the whole trip; beds advertised for $5/night including beer and wifi; and laundry services for a third what we're paying (assuming we get our clothes back).

After our rest, we headed out to find Beer street. Apparently it doesn't get going until 9pm, and we're usually pumpkins by then, hence the rest. We got seats on little stools at one of the first establishments we came to. The beer wasn't as cheap as we'd expected. 35k dong for a beer, and 25k for coke. And 20k each for salad rolls. Cheap by Calgary prices, but not for Vietnam. The hotel minibar is 28k for a coke, and the corner stores charge 10-11k. But in total, $6 for a beer, a coke, and 2 salad rolls isn't too bad. The entire street is filled with bars with tables and mini stools spilling out into the street. About 10 minutes after we sat down, someone from each bar came out and collected up all the tables and stools and shoo'd everyone inside. Apparently the police come by every now and then and make them clear the street. About 20 minutes later, the street was filled again.

There were people selling helium filled balloons, although UG pointed out that not a single person was carrying a balloon. Later, we took a walk to the end of the street and saw a couple of people inhaling the gas from the balloons. So apparently they weren't helium filled?

On the way to Beer street, UG stopped to buy a long sleeve shirt, as it's too cold to be walking around in a t-shirt. We got our warmer clothes back now that we're back in Hanoi, but he sent his only long sleeve shirt to the laundry. They have these stores on every block called "Made in Vietnam" which supposedly sell factory outlet Under Armour and NorthFace gear. He had to get a 3XL as the counterfeiters apparently aren't aware of UA's sizing. 

Vietnam 2.2

It stormed all night, and we woke up this morning to the sound of a whole lot of creatures squawking, splashing, dropping nuts on our boardwalk. there was also some sort of Sunday morning lecture being broadcast at 6am echoing off the mountains. Due to the now quite cold weather, we had lovely showers this morning and were able to actually dry off and put clean clothes on. (UG's undies have dried out, but his shirts now smell like Halong Bay - a mild mixture of fish and diesel.)

I convinced UG we needed to visit Trang An ("not another boat tour!"), so we set out early this morning (9ish) to beat the crowds. The weather was cool, and it had just stopped raining, so I didn't have the sense of adventure to try cycling again, so we called a taxi for about $6.

Trang An on a Sunday seems to be a popular Sunday outing for Vietnamese families, judging by the crowds and the fancy attire. We chose the shorter tour, 2.5 hours, including 4 caves, 3 pagodas, and the set of the most recent King Kong movie. The other tour was 3 hours and included 9 caves. But as the other western tourists in our boat observed, "after 1 cave, you get the point." We were paired with a couple from Austria to make a group of 4, paddled by 1 Vietnamese woman. UG had read that this would be 2.5 hours in the boat being hounded to buy stuff. But apparently they've cracked down on this, as we didn't experience any of that. And UG actually enjoyed the trip. He commented how glad he was that he forced me into it, and highly recommended it to some other tourists going in as we were leaving.

Pink lotus in bloom

We were let off the boat a couple of times to explore, including at this pagoda. 

King Kong set.

"Aboriginal village" as part of the King Kong set.

 

Sculpture at the Trang An visitor centre.

Visitor centre building.

 

 There was a taxi waiting in the parking lot, so we caught a ride further north to the Hoa Lu ancient capital. We wandered around some old buildings, including an excavation of the original palace floor of the Dinh period. There were a lot more aggressive vendors here. UG found a set of stairs he had to climb. I got about a quarter of the way up and decided that I'd rather save my energy for Hong Mua, given that we had no idea how far this went and what was up there. So I sat down on a step and waited for UG to come back down. There was a small pagoda and a half decent view. I spent the time chatting with a woman wh o was convinced I needed to buy water since I couldn't make it any further. I *could* continue, I was just choosing not to. Another frequent and aggressive offer was a for a motorcycle taxi. Hop on the back of this dude's scooter, and he'll take us to Trang An! Sure the 2 of us AND a driver on a scooter sounds like a brilliant idea. Yet we got asked persistently.

After the ancient city, we caught another taxi (car) back to the resort. We dropped off our rain jackets as it had warmed up to cool-ish t-shirt weather, and the we started for Hong Mua. With sufficient breaks and water, I made it to the top without too much difficulty. Although I didn't get any photos of myself up there, as I'm sure the sweaty red face and humidity ravaged hair weren't going to make for a great photo. I did get a few photos looking down, though. The once side of the mountain had views of the Tam Coc boat tour.

Getting down was almost as hard as getting up. But again, we made it. And still had enough left to walk back to our hut. We had another home-cooked Vietnamese meal, this time papaya salad with peanuts, more coconut chicken, and a chicken vegetable dish. Heading to bed early to stay warm. Early morning departure tomorrow to Hanoi by train.

Vietnam Part 2.1

We're now in Ninh Binh, or just outside of it. We arrived around 4pm on Friday after a 4 hour drive. It was only 144 km, but it was basically through a small town the entire way.

This billboard on the side of the road. No idea what it's for, but it's especially creepy when you don't see that the man is wearing pants.

We're staying at Nguyen Shack. Online it looked like a quaint, unique, and inexpensive option online. The real Vietnam. With hammocks. In reality, it's a little more rustic than I anticipated. Maybe that's the real Vietnam? UG is cranky, but I'm not sure if that's the "resort", or his wet underwear that's causing that. Even I was a little worried about the 200m trek from the road where the car dropped us off to the actual "resort". But it'll do for a few nights.

We had a snack of a Vietnamese sub, and noodles and spring rolls when we arrived. We then checked into our room (hut) and spent some time in the hammocks. And UG fell asleep at 6pm, so we missed dinner. But the heat and long drive took it out of us. 

 Saturday morning, we made a slow start and by 11am, when we decided to borrow some bikes and check out the #1 local attraction, the Trang An Grottos, our host told us that it was peak time, and all the day trippers would be down from Hanoi. She recommended we drive south to Tam Coc (similar to Trang An) or Bich Dong pagoda. So we pedaled south through a couple of villages and along a small highway. It was so hot and humid, I couldn't wear my sunglasses. They just fogged up whenever I got them near my face.

After about 6km, we came across th entrance for Tam Coc. Tam Coc is a river boat tour between tall rock formations and through caves. We found the parking lot, and lots of boats, but no sign that said "Tam Coc". And one thing we've noticed is that this country is all about signs. Every small business has several signs advertising their services. And all professionally printed, nothing homemade. Even this obvious tourist attraction had about 20 signs, but all different Vietnamese words, and none of them said "Tam Coc".

So we kept pedalling. The road dead ended at a parking lot, with vendors selling souvenirs. I looked around one corner and saw a cool looking gate. So we parked our bikes, paying 20,0 00 dong each to the bike parking attendant. About $1.25 each. This turned out to be Bich Dong, a fancy Buddhist temple at the base of a mountain, and up the mountain, and in a cave in the mountain. 

Apparently Buddha likes Choco-Pie and Red Bull.

Almost every bag had owls on it.

After a drink to cool down, we started heading back towards our lodging. Not too far down the road, it started raining. As the rain got harder, we stopped for shelter under a tree. We happened to be across the street from a restaurant, and the owners called out, "come in, we have beer!" How could we refuse? We waited out the worst of the rain while having spring rolls, french fries (the menu said fried sweet potatoes), beer and coke. All for about $6. 

Once it stopped raining, we moved on. Back at the boat attraction, I finally saw the Tam Coc sign. But UG was really uninterested in another boat tour. So we got some photos of the boats and kept moving. 

World's largest earthworm.

We were going to climb Hong Mua, a mountain top pagoda right outside the entrance to our resort. But we stopped to drop our bikes off, and a storm was blowing in. It ended up getting really cold. We were regretting leaving our "leaving Calgary" clothes back in Hanoi. The wind was whipping through our bamboo hut. The staff was wearing parkas. But with the heavy blankets in our room (which we mocked the night before when it was in the high 20s with 150% humidity), we made it through the night relatively warm. It's amazing how the weather can change.

We had dinner back at our resort, mango salad,  coconut chicken, and chicken rolls around lemon grass.