In my last days in Hanoi I took a trip out to a place called Ha Long Bay. These rock formations and floating villages in the water seemed like a popular destination as there were advertisements for it everywhere in town. The boat was a tad shabby but it was great to get out of the city and see natural wonders, which incidentally made for some great photos.
Perhaps it was this brief taste of nature or my burning lungs or my ringing ears or just my desire to have a slightly slower pace but off we went on the overnight train to Hoi An. Situated right smack in the middle of the country it was supposed to be a low key beach town with a nice old city as well. I'm sure that's the case in season. When we'd arrived the water was too rough to swim in and for the most part it was overcast.
The views coming in however, were amazing. Lush green jungles on one side and steep cliff sides descending into dramatic ocean views on the other side. One can almost imagine himself as a U.S. soldier touring the jungles, fighting strange insects, sweating through socks, looking for landmines... maybe not. Regardless, the views absolutely justified the train ride.
The town itself was quite small and apparently the area is under development as we passed a large number of resorts being built on the coastline. As it turned out, Hoi An is a popular destination for clothing. We came face to face with many shops and touts offering us custom made suits and dresses.
Due to the incliment weather and the tight schedule my companions were keeping, we actually set about booking a flight OUT of town as soon as we'd arrived. Feeling satisfied, we went to dinner in the old town. The charming and quiet nature of the place, situated on a canal, made us wish we didn't have to leave so soon.
A quick note, in Vietnam they have this beer which has no preservatives. It is very cheap, quite light and usually served out of a giant metal vat. At 4,000 Dong (roughly 27 cents) a cup it's easy to have many servings, however, by the second cup it can be quite effective.
As mentioned earlier, we were to spend only one night in the town. However, not wanting to make a complete waste of the journey, we'd decided to visit some ruins the next day. The place, called My Son was only about two hours of travel from Hoi An. After discussing some tourist options we got the idea to rent some scooters and head out there ourselves.
Perhaps the better title for this post should be, "The Beginning of an Addiction." You see, it had been a long running desire of mine to try a scooter. Sure I'd been curious of motorcycles for ages but all of those gears!? I simply had no idea how to operate one. A scooter (motorbike) seemed like the best solution and what better place to try one than the empty streets of this small town, right?
Constant rain and the ever looming fear of insane Vietnamese riders from the North made us a bit weary, but we decided to bite the bullet and go for it anyway.
The next morning we awoke around 5:00 am. To do the trip as planned, we had to be back in time to catch our taxi to the airport. Out in the pitch black morning, we were disappointed to find cats and dogs coming from the sky. Upset, I went back to sleep. Some hours later, I'd woken up to find the rain had stopped, the skies were still gray, but better off. We'd calculated that we probably had just enough time to ride out, stay for 30 minutes and come straight back.
Sure it was a crazy feat and perhaps not everyone in the group felt like risking it, but when that temptation of a scooter ride through the jungle hits you, you just have to go. Off we went. After a few kilometers of bumpy roads and stopping for directions we were out onto the main road that would take us to My Son.
Finally, we were off into the real Vietnam. No touts, not hotels, no souvenir shops. Just rice paddies, lots and lots of rice paddies.
Random animals toiling in the fields. Just about every kid we'd passed waved hello to us, perhaps they weren't used to the foreign people not being on giant buses roaring past. Oh, there were those too! We learned to avoid them.
After about an hour, we'd started to notice the clouds getting grayer and the air getting heavier. Next we started feeling the little droplets followed by much larger droppings, before we knew it we were in a tropical rain storm. Being only about 20km from our destination we thought it prudent to pull over and take cover at some building we found off the side of the road.
The property didn't appear to be occupied and there was a nice porch for us to stand under to wait for the rain to pass. Surrounding us were rice fields and small houses where families lived. Naturally, we thought this to be a great photo-op.
Some 15 minutes later a local guy started walking towards us. We couldn't tell by his expression just what he wanted but we'd assumed we were on some private property and he was coming to investigate what trouble we were up to. Weren't we wrong.
In his limited English he explained to us that he and his family live just across the road and that they'd wanted us to come by and have tea with them! Surprised, we headed on over in the rain. Apparently, this created a lot of excitement for his whole family. He promptly introduced us to his father, who makes rock sculptures, his wife, his brother and kids.
We were sat down and quickly given hot tea as he tried to make conversation. With the use of hand gestures and limited English we were able to discuss things as varied as his favorite brand of cigarettes, fashionable validity of torn jeans and finally as to why I was without a woman, clearly a crime at my age in this country.
As the skies cleared we were sent on our way with warm smiles, handshakes and the almighty exchange of MSN screen names so popular in the countryside. Mounting our beasts we rode on.
We'd reached our destination and realized a few key facts:
1)The cost to get in was 60,000 Dong each.
2) It would take roughly two hours to traverse the whole site.
3) We had to be back in 2.5 hours.
Back on the bikes we went for the race back! This ride was far quicker and we took some liberties with pictures in motion as well as of the countryside. We weren't in the least disappointed by the fact that we never made it in to see some old ruins. We got to meet some living people and see some great countryside.
In the end we caught the cab and the flight with some time to spare. And of course, as usual we came to see that the pleasure is always in the journey, not the destination.
More foto @
public.fotki.com/Dimakay/travel/halong-bay
public.fotki.com/Dimakay/travel/hoi-an--jungles
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