Vietnam 6

Ninh Binh

Mom and Dad just left after their three and a half mon . . . I mean, week visit. They exhausted us and I have found myself unable to tap out anything witty. Therefore, I’m including a previously unpublished write up of my visit to Ninh Binh from last fall. Photos will be attached on the blog (here).

While my wife spent a week last fall in the Middle Kingdom, I traveled with my friend Gordon to Ninh Binh. While Ninh Binh is not Beijing, it was an interesting trip.

Ninh Binh is located about 100 km south of Hanoi on national highway 1A. The city itself doesn’t stand out, it’s a provincial capital of about 90,000, but it’s near a national park, some breathtaking limestone cliffs, and several historical sites. It was also in the midst of a flood.

That didn’t stop me and Gordon, the Embassy Regional Security Officer, from driving down Friday morning. After navigating through Hanoi traffic, we finally came to highway 1A, which for 30 blissful kilometers was a two-lane dual carriage way. We zoomed ahead into the wet clouds. Suddenly, our bliss was shattered. The highway, which, by the way, goes all the way to Ho Chi Minh City, shrank into a 2 lane road reminiscent of Ugandan thoroughfares. Only here, traffic was much heavier, with bus after bus cannon balling down the road, passing slower cars with horns blaring. It made for a somewhat stressful hour and a half.

We stayed at Ninh Binh’s best hotel, the two-star Tuy Anh. In actuality, we were very pleased with the hotel. Air conditioning, hot showers, sparklingly clean bathrooms, and not-particularly lumpy beds. A rooftop bar with cheap Tiger beers and a tidy restaurant with perfectly acceptable (and in the case of the whole steamed fish, pretty good) food exceeded our expectations. We spent some time practicing our Vietnamese talking to the owner, Toan Anh De, and his wife. He had just returned for a visit to the U.S. and couldn’t stop talking about it – he showed us a picture of himself in front of the Capitol that he planned to blow up and put next to the front desk in place of the current photo of him and the Deputy Prime Minister. He has studied U.S. hotels for his plans to build a new resort complex and talks about his wonderful trip to all his friends and fellow businessmen. Better public diplomacy than any Embassy officer can provide.

Our first day, we headed out through showers to the cathedral at Phat Diem, about 30 km south. Before the country’s split in 1954, the surrounding area was home to many Catholics, a large portion of which subsequently fled south. Over the past few years, the Catholic community seemingly has become re-energized and we saw many new or renovated churches on our way down. The cathedral was closed for a while but is again operational and attracts many Vietnamese and foreign tourists. Its architecture is a mixture of Asian and western, with Chinese-style stone carvings dotting the exterior. Inside, huge wooden piers hold up the roof, with a bright altar place shining out of the gloom. A Vietnamese tour group was in front when I walked in, so I didn’t get a close look, but it appeared that many of the Saints in the paintings were costumed in Vietnamese clothing.

The next day we headed to Tam Coc, described in tour books as Ha Long Bay on land. Indeed, the limestone karsts loomed up out of the rice paddies as we boarded a small rowboat to travel along the Ngo Dong river (with the rains, more like a bay) around the cliffs and through the grottos. The scenery is stunning; green, gray cliffs, occasionally topped by a temple or peopled by a few mountain goats rummaging for food on the nearly vertical slopes. I enjoyed chatting with our oarswoman and her husband who paddled using his feet. Perhaps my semi-proficiency helped us a bit. The guidebooks warn about the incessant attempts to hawk embroidery and soft drinks to tourists, but they quickly stopped and even waived away other boat vendors. More likely, it was because we were the first boat of the day in the water or possibly chance, but maybe 44 weeks of intensive study paid a small dividend.

Following the boat ride, we visited Thai Ti temple, which has a spectacular green mountainous backdrop. The wet weather kept most tourists away and we wandered into a local gathering with several elderly villagers playing musical accompaniment to what appeared to be a harvest ritual. I didn’t get the details as I wasn’t sure we were supposed to be there, but we took some discreet photos and left. My mediocre language skills didn’t help us at the next stop, Bich Dong pagoda, or at the remains of an ancient capital at Hoa Luu. Interesting historical sites marred by incessant hawkers, peddlers, and amateur guides. While they’re just trying to make a living, I can’t see that it enhances the experience. Our attempts to visit Cuc Phuong national park were thwarted by nature. The flood that devastated parts of the province blocked off all roads to the Park. You know it’s not a good sign when you turn a corner to see small motorboats carrying motorscooters for about a kilometer over what used to be the local road. At other points, we were threatened not by water, but by rice. With the rains finally over, villagers had begun to harvest the crop, which many then spread out on the side of the road to dry and sort, narrowing the pavement to a few feet at times.

We ventured out of the Thuy Anh one night for dinner and ended up at the Trau Vang or Golden Buffalo, a two story wooden structure hosting Vietnamese families eating hotpots and groups of friends enjoying beer and dinner. Noting the name of the restaurant, Gordon opted for stir-fried water buffalo. I thought I’d be a little more conservative and ordered Com Chay, what I thought was an offshoot of fried rice. The waitress brought a bowl filled with rice-cakes and ladled over a light, seemingly-mushroom filled stew. I like mushrooms and had a taste. Hmm, that didn’t taste like any mushroom I’d had before. I called the waitress over and asked what it was. “Heart.” Gulp. I forgot to ask of what animal, but probably pig or cow. Now, I agree that if you are going to kill an animal for food, you probably should use as much of it as possible, but I grew up an internal organ coward and still like to think that steak is a vegetable and the bones just very hard stems. After a few more weak attempts at the heart (though I am proud that I devoured quite a bit of the heart-flavored broth), I gave up and concentrated on my beer.