Getting out of Hanoi pt. III

More adventuring out of Hanoi this weekend. My Sunday class was cancelled, meaning a generous whole two days off, which had to be taken advantage of. On Saturday we got a bus down to a town called Ninh Binh about three hours away from Hanoi. Ninh Binh is actually hella ugly, so we got a 20-minute taxi straight to the smaller village and our main goal, Tam Coc. Tam Coc translates as Eight Caves. I assume there are eight caves there, although I only saw evidence of three. There's a river running past, and these limestone karsts sticking out of the water. You can hire a little canoe to go down the river and back, which goes through three caves, and takes about 1.5 hours. The lady rows down the river using her feet, impressive skills.


The first night we got there just before dark, so post-roast-goat dinner (local speciality) we went for a walk by the river, past some of the karsts and some little houses. Then we walked through the town, but it was tiny and almost completely dead, so we ended up watching the Arsenal-Spurs match on what appeared to be the only TV in the town. I think that's still cultural, just a different culture.


The next morning we got up super-early to get a boat ride. We managed to avoid the other tourists, and the people who go to sell hawk bananas and embroided tea towels to the tourists; the only people on the river were a few women in the traditional Vietnamese hats scooping out weeds with a net, and some men in the water who might have been fishing. It was totally blissed out and quiet and relaxing and awesome, the perfect antidote to Hanoi and its relentless motorbike horns.

After the boat ride we had (goat for) breakfast, and then tried to find some motorbikes to rent. This was no easy task, but thanks to my superior Vietnamese communication skills (...) we eventually hired three little banged-up mopeds for way more than they were worth. We drove around for a couple of hours, around the karsts and little unmade roads, past goats and puppies and buffalo. It was more like driving bikes in Pai in Thailand, where your main fear is the quality of the dirt track and whether you will get charged by a buffalo, rather than fear of the jumped-up teenage boys speeding to impress their girlfriends that you get in Hanoi.

After a couple of hours we ran out of things to see, and my friend's bike broke down, so we called it a day. Our bus home wasn't for a couple of hours, so we ended up sitting around chatting for a few hours, and I read some of my book. It was good to do nothing much for a while, as I feel like I am constantly busy at the moment. My book has been on the go since April and progress is slow. In all honesty, the last week or so has been pretty crappy, and a weekend away doing nothing was much needed.

me in the middle

Saturday was National Teacher's Day. Three of my classes got cancelled, and I got loads of presents, awesome. My haul: five bunches of flowers, a large box of yoghurt, two scarves, a 'Prada' handbag (now deceased), two bottles of wine, two boxes of chocolate and, slightly oddly, a box of glass tumblers.