We met two new friends from England and Ireland, Rob and Rachel and spent some fun times with them. Our first excursion was renting motos to ride to the karst hills of Tam Coc. After taking the motos from the hotel, Jon's wouldn't start -- having a moto, I knew exactly what this means: NO GAS. The woman tells us, "Don't worry, you can get to the gas station, it's not far" - now how's that for reassurance! So we head out, only to run out of gas 1 block from the hotel. Hmm... now what? Well, some lovely vietnamese man was there to rescue us. He is motioning to the exhaust, but we are not quite sure what that means. We somehow figure out that he is going to push Jon while he is on his moto with his foot on Jon's exhaust - and I am to sit on his scooter. Amazingly, it worked pretty well - we arrived at the gas station, he made sure we could fill up our tanks and headed off. We offered to buy him gas but he refused. NICE GUY #1.
The four of us then ride off to our first adventure: Tam Coc. This area has been described as "Halong Bay on the rice paddies" by a certain guide book. Since we didn't make it to Halong Bay because of the weather, this was going to be our perfect answer. Finding Tam Coc, however, ended up being the better part of the adventure. After the four of us (fairly intelligent people) couldn't figure out how to get there using the map that the hotel gave us we decided to stop for lunch.
Lunch was at a little restaurant run by a family (as most places are). There are a group of locals sitting outside, always a good clue as to the quality of the food. We walked into the place, filled with children-sized plastic chairs and tables and behind that, their living room - complete with carved wood chairs and... a tv. They scurry around to clean up and start to serve us soup noodles. The man of the place gives Jon and Rob a little "cheers" from his moonshine to welcome us into his restaurant/house. Moonshine is quite common here, they make this concoction from rice - some people call it Rice Wine, but really, moonshine is a better descriptor. Our lunch is followed by conversations about soccer players from England. The man states a players name and we all try to guess what he is saying - quite comical.
When we leave he shakes our hands and smiles - we have met yet another great host. NICE GUY #2.
Tam Coc is beautiful, we are rowed through the canals of the park surrounded by men and women shrimp fishing. The hills are limestone that have been eroded by the heavy monsoons - projecting up from the rice paddies like proud figures. Mountain goats could be spotted if you looked up high enough.
The next day, of course pulling "a Brenda" and getting as much in as possible, we head to Cuc Phuong the first national park of Vietnam. It is a huge park, 20 000 hectares in total. Part of their project is to save some endangered primates. This project is internationally sponspored and quite impressive in their attempts to release the primates.
We walked for 3.5 hr in the forest - basically a rain forest between mountains. It was a beautiful hike and provided a much needed workout. We saw some birds but mostly it was about the vegetation.
Once we arrived back in town, we had 5 hours to spend until our lovely sleeper bus would arrive. Our travel agent friend, Ms. Chung, led us to a local restaurant (again another hole in the wall type place) that served bbqed duck. She was adament that she would go there first and work out a deal for us - making sure that we didn't have to pay foreigner prices. NICE WOMAN #3.
Our dinner was where the fun began. We ordered our duck and beers. But no one except the foreigners drink beer at these places. Some army fellows give us a round of their moonshine, cheering us and shaking hands with full smiles on. They love to hear where we are from - we can't communicate with them any further, but they seemed happy nonetheless. They leave and we are thinking "How do we get that mooonshine anyway? "
Jon asks the young men behind us, after several hand gestures, sharades we find out that you simply ask for it. Ok, we do and PLOP a 15yr old girl brings it to our table. It isn't as bad as we imagined - or maybe it was the whole environment. Our night proceeds with lots of laughing as the four of us walk around the town and head to another place for more food. When in Vietnam you can eat forever, the food is fantastic and most dishes are under $2.
At 9:30 we embark our sleeper bus. A bit of confusion and the four of us step onto the bus. The bus is filled with sleeping tourists who boarded two hours ago in Hanoi. It looks like a bunch of sardines stacked in a moving vehicle. Shoes off, hop into our "bed" and away we go. We wave to our travel agent lady and wait to wake up in the next city.
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