Hue

The twelve-hour overnight train ride was less boring than you might imagine. Plus, I was asleep most of the time. I mainly just looked out of the window and read. When we got there, I noticed the difference between Ninh Binh and Hue. When we got a taxi the driver inquired how long we were staying in Hue, and when we responded two weeks he responded with worry: “Two weeks?! Two days is enough.” Then I noticed a familiar smell, the smell of raw sewage.

The air had other better smells however. The food in Hue was a lot like Ha Noi, but there was one major difference, there was a lot less of it. There sure were a lot of of cafes though. There were cafes EVERYWHERE. That would be awesome, except for the fact that the coffee was terrible. We ate a wide variety of food, everything from beef noodle soup, to barbecued duck, to French cuisine.

We were staying in an Air BnB inside The Citatel, a square walled city in which lies the old Imperial City, and the emperor's home. Surprisingly enough, there weren't any hotels, or much tourism, except for the actual walled city, which charged admission. The house where we were staying was a large house in a small alley/street away from the main road. We had a lake view, but the people used the lake like a dumpster. Our hosts were a couple, the man was named Duc, and his wife was called Quin. There were also their children and Duc's father, Min. We had to move rooms several times because other guests had double booked the rooms. We aren't sure how two people rent the same room, it could have been bad planning or they had already rented it, I don't really know. But we didn't spend too much time at home anyway.

One of the things we did was visit The Imperial City. The Imperial City was the protected town/palace where the emperor and his associates lived. The emperor's associates included his parents, children, wife, mandarins (scribes), and others. The Imperial City was built in 1804 was a functioning city until the Americans bombed it in the '60s, and over half of it was destroyed. However, it had been attacked by the French in the '40s. The city was composed of 3 sections. The Citadel, The Imperial City, and the Forbidden city. The Citadel was the outermost section, and was just a city with walls around it. The Imperial City was about 1/2, or 1/3 of the overall size, and it was just for the emperor's associates, and important visitors. It was a small elite town inside the Citadel. The Forbidden city was a even smaller palace within the Imperial city, and it was the home of the emperor, his concubines, and eunuchs.

Another thing we did was explore the local market. We saw so many vegetables and fruits we had never seen before. There were things that looked like mutated nances (a small yellow fruit from

Honduras), mixes of gourds and cucumbers. Anyway, we explored several areas of the market, including the basket area, the clothes area, and more.

One day we went on a boat ride. We were originally going to go to 8 different shrines, but we decided just to go to two, and spend more time on them. The first was an active monastery. It had a tall building out front with several large bells. It had several small living buildings and a worship hall and a meditation hall. The second was the tomb of emperor Minh Mang, also known as emperor Phuc Kiew. Phuc Kiew, pronounced 'f**k you' (or at least we think it is), created several reforms to the government which limited and changed the salaries of the mandarins, and initiated the construction of roads among other things. We ate lunch on the boat, and went home.

The day following the boat ride we went to the nearest beach to Hue, Thuan An beach. We ate lunch (clams and fish), and went for a walk. We were planning on swimming, but we saw a huge group of people, divided in two, a search party, and a praying area. Someone had drowned. We walked up the beach and saw the remains of a flood, several concrete buildings were half buried in sand and were being eaten by the earth. Most of them were fish storage tanks, and not houses.

Backstreet Academy is a program who's plan is to connect normal people with crafts people and have them give a lesson in their crafts. We did two, Cooking, and Conical Hat making (not comical hats, conical hats). Conical hats are the cone-like sunhats seen in so many Asian cultures. The process for making them is as follows:

1: Get, cut, and iron bamboo leaves.

2: Connect the bamboo to the cone frame with wire. Even out.

3: Add hat frame and sew.

4: Add second layer and sew.

5: Add hat rim and sew.

6: Waterproof and lacquer.

We did not do all this. It would have taken days. Our teacher made several hats and stopped at different times to show us the stages. We then tried out a little of each stage.

The other thing we did a workshop on was home cooking. Home cooking in Vietnam uses an amazing amount of MSG. Our teacher was shoveling MSG into everything. It did taste good though. We rolled beef rolls for frying, cut eggplant for frying and balled fish balls for soup. We also used a fancy looking rice steamer that looked like a space ship. We didn't do much except the final steps in the process of cooking. She had already cooked almost everything. But it was fun.

Talking of crafts, we also visited a basket workshop and a fan workshop. The basket workshop had a large number of people stationed under a large roof weaving, lacquering, and painting bamboo baskets. There were also people using plastic to make waterproof outside woven furniture. The fan workshop however only had two men and a lot of technology. A machine that sands, a machine that splits bamboo, and a machine that stiffens. They just did the manual connecting. We got a basket and free fans!

An hour out of Hue there is a national park called Bach Ma. It was one of the parks that was defoliated by agent orange. And it is also possible that agent orange killed the trees because none of the trees looked older than 50 years. Bach Ma mountain lies 1250 meters from sea level, and was a popular retreat for French rich people and royalty. It was also a hiding spot for the Vietcong during the 60's. At the summit there is a shrine called the summit tower, and a massive gong that we rang. A bit lower down however there are countless small pools and waterfalls with surprisingly cool water. We hiked for a while along a river, and stopped for lunch and swimming. There was a lot of rock climbing involved in the hike. Luckily there were cables to hold on to. At the end of the river it plummets several thousand feet into, something. I couldn't see because Camille would not let me get too close to the edge. But other people would get really close, to the point of sitting on the edge and dangling their feet over the edge. We then hiked back, and drove back to Hue.

Camille booked a session at Alba spa hot springs retreat. There were various activities. A canopy zipline, a small zipline, a ropes course, hot springs, and massage. I chose massage and hot springs just like Camille, Susan, and Jim. The massage was awesome. I felt like I had been born again. The hot springs were great, but just a little too hot. After we were done we went on a walk. On the walk I looked at the ropes courses and decided I wanted to do it. So we had lunch and I went to do the ropes course and the small zipline. The ropes course was exhilarating. At first I was scared. But after I got used to the height I started having fun. So much that even half way through I started dancing to the music played on the high speakers. I had a lot of fun at Alba, and also everywhere else. So I am exited for when I write about the next part of the travels.

Ninh Binh

 Ninh Binh is a small town a few hours south of Ha Noi. Ninh Binh is a rice farming town among massive cartoonesque limestone mountains. The town itself isn't too big. There aren't many attractions in Ninh Binh, but in-between the mountains there are countless small caves and rivers. Even though the mountains look really good for rock climbing, there doesn't appear to be much climbing in Ninh Binh. We stayed in an 'ecolodge' near a cave attraction called the Mua caves. But more than that, the attraction of that area was a shrine atop a mountain and some serious stairs leading up to it.

The shrine wasn't very grand. It consisted of a roof and a small statue. At the summit (a few feet up) was a long statue of a dragon, hence the name of the pagoda: lying dragon top. We hiked up the stairs twice, once to see the top, and the second time to follow some mountain goats out of curiosity.

We rented bicycles to ride through the rice paddies (no, not directly, there were paths). We encountered a group of small children along the path who blocked our way. It was a hilarious encounter because one boy reached his hand into the churro bag I had in the front basket of my bicycle and when he realized it was empty he ate the crumbs and threw the bag on the ground. His friends laughed at his boldness. We also saw a duck farm with so many baby ducks that when they moved they looked like a flowing river. They were also scared of the goats that lived on the mountain and when the goats came down from the mountain the yellow ducklings would waddle down to the river as fast as they could. We also came across two boys in the rice paddies who appeared to be catching fish, while trampling a lot of rice in the process. We also saw that the fish appeared to be coming out of an open pipe between the field and a water reserve pond. We did not know weather the fish had been let out purposefully or if it had been an accident. The mystery remains. We rode quite a lot, and when we decided to turn back my bike chain got unhooked. Now, my bike had a chain protector, so it was really hard to get it back on. We eventually resorted to hitting it with rocks.

On our way back we passed by a pulperia, we stopped to get more chips, and this strange man walked up near Jim, Susan noticed him, but Jim appeared not to. He was wearing strange traditional clothes, and cloth foot wear. He had a long white beard. Susan and I have come to the conclusion that he was the ghost of Ho Chi Minh, who was an Important revolutionary, and he rose to power after the last emperor of Viet Nam.

On out last day we decided to go on a boat tour of the river caves. We drove a seemingly long way, only to realize it was actually a really short way, and the taxi driver, who was using a meter, was trying to earn a bit more cash. We arrived at Trang An. After figuring out how the tickets worked, we got on a boat with a German woman called Dana. We were conducted though stunningly low ceiling caverns. We drove through an amazing display of mountains and caves. We stopped at a temple which was an important military center during the 12^th century, during the attack by the Mongols. It was smart because the horses the Mongols had could not trespass the rivers or mountains.

When we left the were driven into town and went to the train station. At 9 we walked onto the overnight train. We accommodated our selves into or sleeper car. And went to sleep as the train was leaving the station.