love from all around the world.
Time to do the hard job of catching up my journal!
So after my first very adventurous day around Ninh Binh I was planning on going to the nearby national park, but I hadn't slept well at all the night before. I was being kept awake until 4 a.m. by biting mosquitoes and an overactive mind. So when my driver came and knocked on my door at 8:30 to leave for Cuc Phuong, I asked if we could do another trip around town instead. An 8k hike in the unbearable heat on 4 hours sleep sounded a little unappealing. So instead I joined two girls from Holland on a tour to the river village- Kenh Gah, a drive past Van Long, and then a mystery bonus surprise trip to a building site of 5 enormous pagodas. Not quite sure why our drivers decided to take us to a building site, but the rest of the day was wondeful. It was another idyllic morning of motorbiking through tiny Vietnamese villages, full of smiling children in school uniforms and hats, yelling out "HELLO!" and dissolving into hopeless giggles.
The boat trip around the river village was a particularly amusing experience. We paid 40,000 dong each (yes, that's right-- the Vietnamese money is called dong. this is a source of constant amusement) -- which is about $2.50. So not exactly expensive, but 120,000 dong all up is A LOT of money in Vietnam. And despite that fact, our riverboat wallah just didn't seem particularly interested in working that day. She rowed us out on the still-as-glass river past tiny river-front homes where village children played and the women washed clothing in the water, at a very slow, sleepy pace. Then she would row even slower- using her feet (a local custom, apparently. Very interesting and clever!) as she chomped noisily and messily on her sugarcane stalk. After a quick stop on solid ground where she walked us through the village to a little tienda and tried to get us to buy snacks, we were promptly marched straight back to the boat. Then she rowed lazily over to another dock where a friend was enjoying the sun and they sat gossiping away for the rest of our boat trip, along with half of the village who came to stare at us. In our two hour river trip I would be surprised if we ventured more than a half a mile from the starting point. But never mind--it was still a lovely day out and good for a lot of laughs.
The following day I met a travel buddy while using the internet- Anthony from Jersey (Britain.) We started chatting about Ninh Binh and then he invited me out for dog. Yes, that's right-- DOG! Thit cho. They serve it here and love it apparently! Sondra's motorbike driver told her- "I don't like chicken. I like dog!" So Anthony and I were determined to find some dog and try it. I think we met and started chatting at 11 in the morning and we just kept right on talking the whole day through and until the early morning-- discussing everything about life and the meaning of it until we finally said goodnight at 3 a.m. after having successfully put the world to right for the day. And we didn't actually end up eating dog for dinner (thank goodness! I was only acting brave enough to eat it!) because the restaurant we chose for dinner was too fancy to serve dog, apparently. Anthony and I decided that dog is the poor man's beef, haha! So instead we tried lemon grilled goat and baked deer. Not bad, I must say!
Earlier in the day we wandered all about the town and then the market- which like any Vietnamese market was filled with endless unexpected delights and horrors. I'll spare the dog lovers the gruesome details!
I had purchased an 8 p.m. bus ticket for the 10 hour journey from Ninh Binh to H'ue for the following evening and Anthony was going to join me for some National Park trekking for the day until my bus left. But after another night of very little sleep and realizing it was going to cost $40 to get to the park and take 4 hours of travel, we decided to hire bicycles and go on another Ninh Binh adventure.
I wanted to show Anthony Mua so we biked the 10 ks out there and then hiked up to the top and sat with Buddha for a few hours, enjoying the spectacular view. A few Vietnamese teenagers came up and Anthony whipped out his phrasebook and chatted away with them, much to their delight. I was amazed! And very humbled, I must say. I hadn't learned to say anything beyond Xin Chao (hello) and I hadn't even bothered to try to learn more. Anthony really inspired me to extend myself out of the inertia of laziness and fear and actually make an effort to communicate with the locals in their own language. And later that very day I had a brilliant opportunity! After finally leaving Mua, Anthony and I bicycled through the ever-charming countryside into a few of the idyllic rural villages, past lush green rice paddies and water buffalo and women in peaked hats, bent at the hip in calf deep water. We became famous in seconds among the children and adults alike and our jaws ached from smiling so much. We biked for miles until finally deciding to rest at a little house that advertised cold drinks. Our host was a young girl of 20 who spoke the little English she knew PERFECTLY. She sat us down in her home and gave us Vietnamese tea and we spent hours with her just laughing so much, helping each other with our respective languages. She was so eager to teach us the words for everything she could point to and we obediently repeated after her again and again. My brain was completely fried by the end of our stay! I am sorry to say I can't recall many of the words I learned... its so hard to retain a new language when you can't even PRONOUNCE the words! But I'm completely keen to keep practicing and learning while I'm here! So I really have Anthony to thank for that.
Well I know this is VERY long already and the keyboard I'm typing on is horrible so I'm going to end this for the day. I'm in H'ue now.. this is my second day here and tomrrow I'm taking a 12 hour day trip to the war zone. So I will write about my time here and at the DMZ (demilitarized zone) next time I post!
So after my first very adventurous day around Ninh Binh I was planning on going to the nearby national park, but I hadn't slept well at all the night before. I was being kept awake until 4 a.m. by biting mosquitoes and an overactive mind. So when my driver came and knocked on my door at 8:30 to leave for Cuc Phuong, I asked if we could do another trip around town instead. An 8k hike in the unbearable heat on 4 hours sleep sounded a little unappealing. So instead I joined two girls from Holland on a tour to the river village- Kenh Gah, a drive past Van Long, and then a mystery bonus surprise trip to a building site of 5 enormous pagodas. Not quite sure why our drivers decided to take us to a building site, but the rest of the day was wondeful. It was another idyllic morning of motorbiking through tiny Vietnamese villages, full of smiling children in school uniforms and hats, yelling out "HELLO!" and dissolving into hopeless giggles.
The boat trip around the river village was a particularly amusing experience. We paid 40,000 dong each (yes, that's right-- the Vietnamese money is called dong. this is a source of constant amusement) -- which is about $2.50. So not exactly expensive, but 120,000 dong all up is A LOT of money in Vietnam. And despite that fact, our riverboat wallah just didn't seem particularly interested in working that day. She rowed us out on the still-as-glass river past tiny river-front homes where village children played and the women washed clothing in the water, at a very slow, sleepy pace. Then she would row even slower- using her feet (a local custom, apparently. Very interesting and clever!) as she chomped noisily and messily on her sugarcane stalk. After a quick stop on solid ground where she walked us through the village to a little tienda and tried to get us to buy snacks, we were promptly marched straight back to the boat. Then she rowed lazily over to another dock where a friend was enjoying the sun and they sat gossiping away for the rest of our boat trip, along with half of the village who came to stare at us. In our two hour river trip I would be surprised if we ventured more than a half a mile from the starting point. But never mind--it was still a lovely day out and good for a lot of laughs.
The following day I met a travel buddy while using the internet- Anthony from Jersey (Britain.) We started chatting about Ninh Binh and then he invited me out for dog. Yes, that's right-- DOG! Thit cho. They serve it here and love it apparently! Sondra's motorbike driver told her- "I don't like chicken. I like dog!" So Anthony and I were determined to find some dog and try it. I think we met and started chatting at 11 in the morning and we just kept right on talking the whole day through and until the early morning-- discussing everything about life and the meaning of it until we finally said goodnight at 3 a.m. after having successfully put the world to right for the day. And we didn't actually end up eating dog for dinner (thank goodness! I was only acting brave enough to eat it!) because the restaurant we chose for dinner was too fancy to serve dog, apparently. Anthony and I decided that dog is the poor man's beef, haha! So instead we tried lemon grilled goat and baked deer. Not bad, I must say!
Earlier in the day we wandered all about the town and then the market- which like any Vietnamese market was filled with endless unexpected delights and horrors. I'll spare the dog lovers the gruesome details!
I had purchased an 8 p.m. bus ticket for the 10 hour journey from Ninh Binh to H'ue for the following evening and Anthony was going to join me for some National Park trekking for the day until my bus left. But after another night of very little sleep and realizing it was going to cost $40 to get to the park and take 4 hours of travel, we decided to hire bicycles and go on another Ninh Binh adventure.
I wanted to show Anthony Mua so we biked the 10 ks out there and then hiked up to the top and sat with Buddha for a few hours, enjoying the spectacular view. A few Vietnamese teenagers came up and Anthony whipped out his phrasebook and chatted away with them, much to their delight. I was amazed! And very humbled, I must say. I hadn't learned to say anything beyond Xin Chao (hello) and I hadn't even bothered to try to learn more. Anthony really inspired me to extend myself out of the inertia of laziness and fear and actually make an effort to communicate with the locals in their own language. And later that very day I had a brilliant opportunity! After finally leaving Mua, Anthony and I bicycled through the ever-charming countryside into a few of the idyllic rural villages, past lush green rice paddies and water buffalo and women in peaked hats, bent at the hip in calf deep water. We became famous in seconds among the children and adults alike and our jaws ached from smiling so much. We biked for miles until finally deciding to rest at a little house that advertised cold drinks. Our host was a young girl of 20 who spoke the little English she knew PERFECTLY. She sat us down in her home and gave us Vietnamese tea and we spent hours with her just laughing so much, helping each other with our respective languages. She was so eager to teach us the words for everything she could point to and we obediently repeated after her again and again. My brain was completely fried by the end of our stay! I am sorry to say I can't recall many of the words I learned... its so hard to retain a new language when you can't even PRONOUNCE the words! But I'm completely keen to keep practicing and learning while I'm here! So I really have Anthony to thank for that.
Well I know this is VERY long already and the keyboard I'm typing on is horrible so I'm going to end this for the day. I'm in H'ue now.. this is my second day here and tomrrow I'm taking a 12 hour day trip to the war zone. So I will write about my time here and at the DMZ (demilitarized zone) next time I post!