Vietnam - parts of the north
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Hanoi streets in the old quarter are just crazy. Scooters are parked
along them blocking access for cars and pedestrians alike. The footpaths
are completely taken over by scooter and bike parking in many places,
and the pedestrians share the road with traffic that can be going in any
direction on either side of the road - if it suits a scooter rider to drive
against the flow of the traffic, then that is what happens.
In addition to the scooters, people take over any remaining footpath for whatever purpose they want. Down the way from our apartment someone was butchering meat on the footpath. Whole families dine alfresco there. Popular cafes have rows of people squatting on the footpath in front of the building. It isn’t just the footpath - the railway line has the same amazing attraction for scooter riders and for other activities, such as knife sharpeners.
We were using Hanoi as a base, staying in various rooms above a bistro in the old quarter. By the time we were there for the fourth time it felt like home, and the family welcomed us back as old friends. We also came to look on the chaotic streets with a sort-of familiar affection - you get very good at crossing the road; we decided it was a game of bluff, although it also helped to have pedestrian numbers on your side.
While we were in Hanoi we went to the water puppets - really charming theatre. We also familiarised ourselves with the streets around Hoan Kiem lake, which acts as a social and cultural hub for the district. Within a day we felt very comfortable with that part of Hanoi.
Our first side trip was to Cat Ba, an island in Ha Long bay.
Strangely enough you don’t go to Ha Long to get there; we took a bus
from Hanoi to Haiphong, then a ferry to Cat Ba and another bus that
dropped us off at our hotel. We didn’t stay in the main town (Cat Ba
City) but at a backpackers place called Woodstock Beach Camp.
We spent the first day just looking around locally, and the second day
catching a bus into Cat Ba City to look around there. We were glad we weren’t
staying there - it is an overdeveloped mess, and getting worse by the minute.
We had seen evidence of the typhoon on our bus trip to Haiphong, with trees snapped off all the way along the road, and in Cat Ba City there were buildings totally destroyed by the storm. There was also a market to visit, and a big choice of cafes and restaurants. One of the noticeable things in rural Vietnam is multi-story buildings with tiny footprints - just one room wide - we saw a number of these in Cat Ba.
Our third day on the island was a lot more active. We hired a driver to take us out to the National Park and to some of the caves. Just a little stroll around the National Park, we thought. The driver agreed to come back for us in two hours and we set off. There really is only one place to go for a short walk, so for an hour we climbed up steps, scrambled up rocks, and sweated water out as soon as we drank it. This took us to a lookout high up on one of the karsts. Mind you, the view from the top was great! We both felt the consequences of the climb in our aching legs for the next two days.
From the Park we went on to two different cave systems. The first was only developed fairly recently, and is essentially inactive, but it has extensive old stalactites and stalagmites. The driver dropped us at the entrance and drove around to meet us when we emerged at the other side of the hill. The second cave is known as hospital cave, and was used by the Vietnamese army to provide hospital care and general shelter for the military and civilians during the American war. There were three floors providing kitchens, hospital facilities with room for one hundred patients, and sleeping space for up to two thousand people. There are lots of these sorts of caves in Vietnam.
We went back to Hanoi for one night, then caught the train to Ninh Binh. I made a mistake and booked an apartment in Ninh Binh city - it was in area where there was none of the services required by tourists; no useful shops, very few restaurants, no coffee shops, no life. We should have been out in Tam Coc, which is the tourist centre for the area. The apartment was fine, and we appreciated the space it offered, but we had to walk for about half an hour to find somewhere to eat, and we had to take a taxi out to Tam Coc to find things to do. When we first went out to Tam Coc we saw everyone going out in small rowboats onto what looked like a small lake. At first we couldn't see the attration, even though the rowers used their feet to row, rather than their hands. It turned out that the big thing to do is to take a boat ride along the river through three caves, stopping off along the way to visit temples. Yes, the rowers mainly use their feet to row, but they swap over to their hands for the fine control needed to pull into the bank. So we, too, went on a two-hour boat trip on the river, stopping off at temples along the way.
For our second day in Ninh Binh we
booked on a day tour, taking us to Hoa Lu (the ancient capital), Trang
An, for another really good boat trip through caves, the Bai Dinh temple
complex, and Mua cave (where the hundreds of steps eventually defeated us, legs still feeling the effect from Cat Ba).
From Ninh Binh we took a minibus up to Mai Chau. This is the closest we came to rural Vietnam; there is a string of villages all along the valley, connected by paths barely one car’s width. We were staying up on the main road, and spent a morning walking to all the villages. There were weavers in a couple of the places, but our lack of a common language made it impossible to talk to them about what they do and what they use. However, Geoff wandered into a shop in one village and found a craft co-operative with a very chatty young man who spoke excellent English. Kaye showed him her loom and weaving on our web site and explained why she wanted to buy silk thread, not finished goods. In the end she was able to buy silk thread, and left with a promise that she would send him information about the sort of weaving that she does, and how her sort of looms work.
We had another night in Hanoi, then we left for a two-night cruise around Ha Long and Bai Tu Long. We were on a small boat with sixteen passengers. The first day was really odd for us - usually our fellow travellers speak some English, but we were with a group of Italians and French who didn’t converse with us at all, and were too self-contained for Kaye to venture into speaking French. We shared a table with two Italian men that we simply couldn’t speak to. We did have quite good conversations with the crew members!
We cruised around the bays, but also had
side trips off the boat - kayaking, visiting beaches, caves,
villages. We were the only people booked for two
nights, so we were sent off to another boat where six of us
“two-night” people from various boats were taken on a tour
of our own while the other passengers were returned to
shore. One of most amazing things about this boat cruise, no
matter which boat we were on, was that the food was fantastic, and that there was much too much of it. It was
the best food we had in Vietnam , but each meal consisted of about eight courses. When we re-joined our boat
with its new passengers we were seated at a table
by ourselves, and our evening meal was different
from that served to everyone else. It was superb,
but we didn’t touch the last three courses; there
was just so much of it! For the second day of
cruising we moved to different parts of the bays
and new side trips.
Back in Hanoi we had a full day to have one last wander through the streets. Back down to the lake that dominates the old quarter, and around the twisty little strets, all alike (and all filled with scooters). We went up to where the Christmas decorations are sold - an amazing profusion of lights, baubles, trees, tinsel and anything else you can think of. There were hundreds of metres of shops all lit up and desperate to make your Christmas festive.
We were to leave very early the next morning, having booked a taxi, but it didn’t turn
up. In the end Geoff saved the day. He went up to one of the more major streets and eventually spied a taxi with a
driver sleeping on the front seat, so he woke him up, gestured for him to follow, and raced back to where Kaye was
waiting, rather anxiously. We were almost the last people through onto the plane, but we made it!
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