Ninh binh - written in ho city, still mum's bday!
Trip Start
Sep 03, 2008
1
36
117
Trip End
??? ??, 2009
Ho Chi Minh City,
Vietnam
Friday, November 14, 2008
so this morning we had to be up bright and early AGAIN, this time to catch a bus, boat, bus down to ninh binh, to go see more limestone formations, but this time raising from the ground. as would be the norm! so we'd paid for another all in ticket, thinking it was going to be filled with only tourists, including those we met on the boat the day before, but again we were shoved onto what later appeared to be a local bus and made our bumpy way across cat ba island to a boat port. after waiting for half hour or so, not knowing what was going on, us and many, many vietnamese were shown onto the boat, our luggage being strapped onto the top as we found our seats, and off we went, at a speed of knots, back to ugly, ugly haiphong! during the very short boat trip, i tried to play hide and seek with a small vietnamese kid, but i think after a while they got scared because out came the tears and it was game over! back in haiphong, we were pushed onto another local bus - this time we felt even more like trapped sardines - and prayed that the journey in this tin can would only last for the time it took to get to the bus station and a replacement bus. at any rate, i hoped we could get off just for a ten minute breather because one couple's little girl was becoming great friends with me - showing off her painted nails and pretend hitting me around the face - and had started taking up pulling up my top to see my tummy?! god knows why? why do kids do anything? anyway, someone upstairs was obviously looking down on us because there was the bus station with a new bus for us! i say new, but the seats were still falling apart slightly and there was still very little room, and later it would again emerge into being the local bus! at the bus station, me and the little girl tried to read, and make sense of, a vietnamese kids book! i think it was about some kids trying to find a game that they could all play together and that they could all understand. in the end they played football! here was also where i bought a packet of 'choco-pie' - like a cake wagon wheel - with high expectations, only to find that they'd been out of date for several months! why don't these people rotate their stock?! anyway, a few hours later, we were finding ourselves squashed up together as more and more people were seated in the aisle, as well as nearly underneath the driver himself! finally, we arrived in ninh binh, where we were faced with yet more horrid touts, who wouldn't stop talking in our ears, despite the fact we hadn't even got off the bus or even picked up our bags! needless to say that most walked away without our business! the other day a female tout said to sean 'you people always say no!' so why bother hassling us tourists then? if your business is good enough, lonely planet will recognise that and we will follow! if you're crap, we won't! anyway, we walked on through ninh binh, which again was a disappointing eye sore, to our hotel called xuan hoa. on arrival we were told to go onto hotel no. 2. well, being hot and sweaty and tetchy, i really didn't want to hear those words for fear of another hotel scam, but it happened that xuan hoa, despite the ever expensive rooms, in relation to thailand and laos, was the nicest, friendliest hotel ever, giving us information on tours, motorbike hire, travel tickets, and never once did the owners try to push anything on anyone. anyway, that evening we went for a mooch around ninh binh, and discovered that people definitely do not come here for the town, that's for sure! only the scenery! while out and about, we went in search of an ATM only to find that the only one highlighted in the lonely planet was broken; the next, as advised to us by the first ATM's guards (?!), wouldn't accept mr sean b's card, though it was happy to say thank you to us for using the services provided; until finally we found an obscure one that would take the card, but would only give out small multiples and charge through the nose! by the way, i'm not a fan of overseas ATM charges! listen out natwest, i'll be in touch! anyway, back at the hotel, after seeing for ourselves that ninh binh, the town, has absolutely nothing for tourists, bar the hotels, we had to settle for dinner at the xuan hoa, along with all the rest of us poor stranded tourists, but even that was perfection. i have to say, you cannot fault this hotel on anything. we had a goat stirfry dish and a rabbit curry and both were lovely. later, we sat in the lobby / booking office / restaurant / social area to watch the football and try out the internet - only two computers, which were always occupied, and which has a bad connection anyway! apart from that, a bloody nice hotel in the midst of ugly!
monday 27 october
this morning we got up, had breakfast in the hotel, and so began sean's struggle to argue his case for why the hotel should allow us a manual bike, since he'd told them that he could only ride an automatic! i disappeared to our room to get ready, hoping he would return with a set of keys and not instructions for us to meet two bikers who could take us out in the back of theirs, but at a price! well, at least 45 minutes to an hour later, after i'd stood at the door ear-wigging after hearing shouting coming from the owner of the hotel, sean returns triumphant, saying he had to fight for it, which this included being given a lesson by the owners on gear changing and then having to prove to them that he could drive up and down the road; as well as being given instuctions by an aussie guy who'd been riding harley davidsons all his life! but at least we had a bike that we could bugger off on without any time or distance restraints put upon us by a couple of drivers! so we get ready, check out, leave our bags in the lobby with the rest, ready for that night's bus to hue, and after a cautious start, arrive at tam coc, where hundreds of cafe and restaurant owners shout at us to park up with them and they'll look after the bike. in the end we settle for an official looking stand by the river, before making our way to a 'port' where our tickets are checked and a frail looking woman, in a boat, nods to us to get in. we wonder how the hell she's going to get us from a to b, but she seems to be managing for a short while, while chatting away to us about where we come from and are we married and have we children? they all ask the same? people are exceedingly traditional here. anyway, i say she's doing ok, but give it five minutes and she's already handing sean a paddle! i joke about letting the men do some work for a change, before she hands me a paddle too! well it was ok for a while, but after you see other boats go by with more staff paddling and absolutely no tourists putting their back into their little jaunt around the limestone formations, and sat back enjoying the wind in their hair, you start to feel you've had a bum deal! but i suppose at least we saw a few others paddling! after the shock of having to do some work while we see the attraction, we do our best to take in tam coc and see that the scenery is absolutely amazing. and i know i keep referring to this film, but again it was like something out of jurassic park - all huge limestone hills, covered with trees and bushes - even several goat - hanging over us. during the journey from a to b and back again, we were approached by several vendor boats at cave number 3 all trying to get us to buy food and drink for our driver - though we'd read about how the driver then sells their unopen bottle of water back to the vendor for half price, and so, like heartless sons of bitches, were ready with one huge bottle of water, to which driver lady refused! beggars can't be choosers, but ok! haha and so we foil her plan! on our way back into the 'port', driver lady tried to get us to buy some souvenier tshirts, doilies and table clothes, but i've got my 'i've got no room in my bag' and 'i haven't got a table' remarks down to a tee so no sale today missy! god i'm a bitch! i didn't even want to give her a tip after she made us paddle too, but sean insisted. blah blah blah! i hate giving tips! in the end you don't know if you've had good or bad service, you just give to everyone! and what about exceptional service? we tourists really should try to establish a benchmark out here! god, brid and colm have it right - our new irish peeps! they'll give a tip for dinner because more work goes into making proper cooked meals, as opposed to a baguette and jam for breakfast, and therefore the cooks and waitresses etc have actually earned their tip. good work! anyway, after getting back our bike, we skirted our way around the tarpaulins of corn (?!) laid out in the sun to dry (?!), to make our way to the bich dong pagoda and travi temple - i only know the names because i wrote them down in my notepad that day and had a map infront of me! anyway, at the pagoda there were loads of french tourists not sticking to the 'polite dress' and man wearing a full blown work suit - like that's going to happen in this heat?! - sign, which made me feel a whole lot better about my skinny top attire! onwards to the temple and we were shown around the place by an old vietnamese guy, who knew all the facts and could give us all the dates, helped out a little by writing them down on his hand; and who thought vietnamese women were ugly and that i was beautiful! score! after that we just had to give him a donation for the temple! outside the temple, where yet another person had said they would happily guard our bike for a small fee, he too said he thought i was beautiful, before holding up two crossed fingers at sean as if to ask if we were married?! NO! back at the tam coc sight, we sat down for too much soup with a lady who seemed very happy for us to stop off for a while, before making our way back out to find 'the big tree', as our hotel owner had told us, where we would be able to get out to more pagodas and the ancient city of hoa lu. during this next ride out, we found ourselves stopping to meet up with the aussie harley davidson couple, who seemed to be having a ball - as they always are whenever we've bumped into them over the last few weeks - and were absolutely not as lost as we were! and so off they went to find the floating gardens while we rode on to find this pagoda. after a short stop-off here, we rode on FOREVER, through villages and building sights, and over half constructed roads, before stopping in the middle of nowhere and lost. so thank god for the couple of motorbike guides from our hotel suddenly appearing and offering to show us the way to hoa lu! we realised about ten minutes that we'd gone straight by it and that the map hadn't necessarily been the best, but that the hotel owners had been right when they said that there were absolutely no signs out there to point us in the right direction! at hoa lu, we were flagged down by a lady and her little girl who said we couldn't take our bike to the site and that, for a small fee, we could leave our bike with them. after a while, we got across to them that we had to take our bike with us and that we simply didn't have time to walk anywhere because the sun was soon to set. in the end she wasn't the best pleased with our answer, as we prepared to ride off to park up closer to THE vantage point for hoa lu, but her little girl was happy with the orange i gave her that the old temple guy had given me, so at least some of us were winners! in the 'complex' we parked up our bike, just where the uniformed guard told us to, and bought a ticket for some kind of citadel / temple that we weren't sure we really needed to see, but at least the walk around it got us away from postcard sellers maggie and co, who again were fascinated with us, called me beautiful - i was having a very good day - and asked if we were married! afterwards, we took the hundreds of stairs up to the vantage point for hoa lu and looked down at an area of land covered in more jurassic park style limestone formations, ruined only slightly by the recent building of these ugly high-rise homes, hotels and shops that the vietnamese love so much! nevertheless the view was amazing! on our way down back to maggie and co, a small boy ran up to me asking if he could have my bottle, to which i asked if that's all he wanted or if he was going to charge me for him taking it away to recycle, to which i accidentally dropped the bottle, at which point he picked it up and ran away! who knows why he wanted my bottle and how much he wanted it, but he got it in the end! after escaping maggie, we rode back through darkness and the chaos of the riders of ninh binh, back to the hotel, where our hotel owner looked THE most happy ever to see us, and where we took a shower, packed up the last of our belongings, and waited with the rest for the next bus to hue! hurray!
and so, tomorrow, or soon enough, i will get to hue and midway through our travels in vietnam! x
