I love motorbikes

(a detailed blog post make my mum happy)

Last weekend, I went on an excursion to Ninh Binh with my friend Hop. I have been to Ninh Binh once before, but this time was a bit better because I was with a Vietnamese person who knew what he was doing. For example, last time we got on an empty bus at the bus station, and then waited about 2 hours for it to fill up before it left. This time, we took a running jump onto a bus that had already left, were pulled up by the arm by the bus conductor, and I got to sit on the gear stick box next to the driver because the bus was so rammed (WELL FUN).

Hop came to my house at about 7.45am (bleurgh) and we ate sticky rice (xôi) he'd bought from a street vendor. Sticky rice is my second favourite Vietnamese food; hotpot (lẩu) is number one. Then a motorbike to the bus station, and the fun novelty-seated bus ride to Ninh Binh city, where Hop rented a banged-up Honda Dream and we set off into the countryside. (Twice this day I had to get off and walk up a hill because the bike couldn't handle my obesity.)

We drove to Cuc Phuong park, which was a bum-numbing drive from Ninh Binh city but awesome once we got there. So much greenery, so many birds, barely any people, NO motorbike horns, and we went around driving the motorbike on little winding paths through it all. These two photos are from a cave where they found 7,500 year old relics from prehistoric Vietnamese men. I'm not sure what relics they found, but I imagine it was rice wine shot glasses and rubber flip flops.

mot...hai...ba...

this old man on the left was awesome, he sung loudly all the way up the ~200 steps into the cave, then when we were in the cave i got scared because it was pitch-, pitch-black, so he led me out by the hand with his cigarette lighter, walking like a crab the entire time. then he asked me how old i was, and whether i had any children yet - standard vietnamese small talk.

After lunch, we left the motorbike and went for a walk through the jungle to see an 'Old Tree' (the original Vietnamese definitely made it sound more exciting, I think something was lost in translation). It was pretty big and old, but trees don't excite me much. The walk was really good though, we had to scramble up some slippery rocks and walk up some rivers.

really big tree, or really small man?

In the evening, we drove back to Ninh Binh city to get dinner. Ninh Binh local specialities are thịt dê and cơm cháy (not going to tell you what they are in order to make you click on the links and turn my blog into an interactive learning experience). Cơm cháy is more up my alley, tastes even better freshly cooked unlike the packeted stuff in Hanoi, but added to the ridiculous percentage of my food intake that is made up of rice in its various forms. I reckon about 90% of my meals contain steamed rice, sticky rice, rice noodles, rice crackers, rice pancakes, burned rice, rice porridge or rice wine. I like rice. With dinner, we drank Ninh Binh Kim Son whisky (made from fermented sticky rice); then when the restaurant shut, we went to a bar which was full of old people but randomly had really raunchy dancing, pictured below. It was very odd. We sat in the corner, watched football on TV, and, er, drank some rice wine.

intense

The next day we went to some massive pagoda thing, in fact it was more like 5 different massive pagodas on different stages up a hill. Unfortunately it was some special religious day and so there were SO MANY VIETNAMESE PEOPLE. It was also too sunny. And there were pneumatic drills. It might've been nice if we'd gone on a different day, or if I hadn't got into a grump and wholly taken against it.

a lot of people and a lot of gold

Then Hop wanted to go on some boats but by that stage I was decidedly against anything that involved other people, so we ate some more cơm cháy and watched some Buddhists, and then went back to Ninh Binh to get the bus home. I went the whole two days speaking only Vietnamese (!) as Hop doesn't speak English, but frequently this meant that either we weren't talking at all, or were talking at complete cross-purposes. It's fine until he asks me a question or tells a joke...then just saying "ừ" won't do anymore, and I have to either blag or admit I haven't been paying attention.

at boat place, after i had sugar and stopped being grumpy

Now some photos from work on Monday, it was Thanh Hung's birthday :) which basically just meant their Vietnamese teacher gave them loads and loads of junk food.

Nam, so so cute

Anh Tu, also cute

MC Khai Van and Hoang Nguyen...i actually need to stop getting so attached to my students but they don't make it easy