Ninh Binh

For our final week in Vietnam we headed to Ninh Binh which is often referred to as the “Halong Bay of the Land” because of its impressive limestone karsts jutting out between wetlands and rivers.

The most popular way to explore this landscape is by rowboat which also takes you through some very impressive cave and tunnel systems and to some beautifully preserved ancient temples built right into the karsts. For an eagles eye view over the surrounds we slowly climbed the 500 steps up to the Hang Mua viewpoint.

The little town of Tam Coc just adjacent to Ninh Binh serves as the base for these adventures. Whilst its main street is lined with tourist-friendly restaurants and shops (but no footpaths), its side streets still retain a very peaceful vibe. There are a handful of tranquil cafes overlooking the Tam Coc river where you can see the tourists being rowed out to an excursion by the locals only using their feet to row, which is rather impressive to watch.

On a day when Hadleigh was busy working I decided to go on a photography tour to the so-called “Incense village.” I got up early and was driven to a small village close to Hanoi that specializes in the production of incense sticks. The families set out the colourful incense sticks in bundles in their yard to dry in the sun and it creates some beautifully vibrant scenes.

Of course, they have long caught on to the fact that tourists like to come and take photos and have in an entrepreneurial spirit created some patterns and formations to form a backdrop for the Insta crowd. But once you get over this “production” part, there were still plenty of authentic village life scenes going on around you that kept me snapping photos until I ran out of battery.

Looking for a bit of an adventure we set out on a self-guided discovery tour of the surrounding countryside with our motorcycles but soon found ourselves driving through a rather unattractive part of the country dominated by the sweatshops of Vietnam`s fabric industry which creates massive amounts of pollution. While big trucks kept rattling past us we were breathing in all the fumes and quickly started to sympathize with the locals who are often seen wearing face masks on their bikes. But we were also told that the masks serves as sun protection as well, the Vietnamese women in particular being very careful to keep their skin as white and unblemished as possible, often wearing full length coats, masks and even gloves whilst out in the sunlight.

We ended up staying overnight in a small run-down hotel with cockroaches scuttling across the floor in the middle of nowhere. We were hoping of catching some photogenic scenes of local fishermen reeling in their nets early in the morning but alas, no such luck. After trudging 1000m out through the mud to the shoreline there was not a single fisherman in sight. But we did see a rather beautiful sunrise.

We also had some funny interactions with the local villagers with whom we had no luck speaking to in English, and also didn’t seem to understand out attempts at miming very well. The only word we picked out was when on several occasions people would point to us and say “Russky” and smile. We later had somebody explain to us that in the rural parts of northern Vietnam everybody would assume that any white-skinned person they see would be Russian. This due to the fact that Russia was up until recently their communist “big brother” who would save them in the fight against capitalism.

We observed that a lot of the men here in the north still wear their army helmets from the locally named American War and we met a few war veterans as well. Whether they wear the helmets out of conviction or simply because they make for good sun protection (which they don’t) remains unclear. There seems to be no apparent animosity towards the American tourists nowadays and despite their still officially communist political system the Vietnamese have embraced the economic opportunities of capitalism with the enthusiasm of pigs to mud.

With this our time in Vietnam has come to and end. The crazy motorbike traffic, the egg- and coconut coffees, the beautiful Vietnamese ladies wearing nón lá (conical hats) as they work the rice fields, the savoury roasted pork dishes and umami enhanced broths, the water buffalos wandering across the road, the smiles and waves of the children and so much more. Now on to our next adventure…India.