Imagine, 6am, soft morning sun glinting through your window. Chickens clucking, pigs grunting, birds and your sleeping partner shifting on the thin bamboo bed, preparing for a day of harvesting rice...Josh and I were lucky to experience a small part of Vietnamese village life.Josh has only been here for 3 weeks but he already knows half of Hanoi..the Vietnamese half too! It was one of these connections that got us living on a farm in the middle of the countryside.
They have a small farm about 30 kms outside of Haiphong, a port city near Halong Bay. We managed to meet their entire extended family and were invited to a wedding (I was surprised it wasn't Josh's.) Even so poor, they were so generous, we gave them two huge flopping fish caught straight from the breeding ponds and food, but found it impossible to pay for anything!
After a difficult goodbye, we headed south..my rough idea was to go in a diamond shape, from Hanoi - Haiphong - Ninh Binh - Kim Boi Waterfalls - Hanoi. We didn't bring guides, or look at a map..so it didn't exactly turn out that way.
Giggling like loons we picked random buses from a station board or jumped on without knowing the destination. One took us to a town on the edge of the sea, we spent the afternoon whizzing around rolling hillsides in styyyyle..on a tandem bicycle!!
The part I enjoyed most was scootering from Ninh Binh to and through Cuc Phuong National Park. It's about 100 kms from Hanoi. And the landscape around Ninh Binh is delicious!
Huge, green monoliths jut out of the mountainous region...carved with rivers, lakes and scattered with peaceful temples. From the town it's 2 hours by bike to Cuc Phuong. We took it easy, explored streams, hung out with endangered monkeys and hundreds of brilliantly colored butterflies. Although it's a 'paved' national park, the happiness of the trees and animals would rival any Australia rainforest!
Ninh Binh was also nice, for a city. Happy dogs roaming the streets. It's my new measure of the kindness of a city's people, when stray dogs are friendly and well fed. Hanoi has a lot to answer for, considering they eat their strays..practical, but not too friendly.
Neither of us brought a camera..so until I can work out how to get the few I took off my phone...
...you'll have to imagine, a brother and sister on scooters, grinning wildly from ear to ear as the wind whistles past. Luscious rainforest all around, rice paddies, towering limestone karsts in the distance and long white winding paths ahead..
