So our next destination was Ninh Binh, not to be confused with Australian Hippy Drug town "Nim Bin". We've had to clear this up a few times already. We arrived at 11:00pm and were pleasantly surprised to find 3 men with motorbikes standing by the side of the road, one holding a sign that said "Cindy Mowes". What a welcome! Maybe this country wasn't so bad.
We hopped on the back of the bikes and were ushered off to our hotel, and what a hotel it was! For $8 a night, this was one of the nicest places I had ever stayed. Things seemed like they were looking up.....or were they?
The next day we headed to Tam Coc, famous for its picturesque rivers winding between rice paddies, tall limestone rock formations and, you got it, more caves. Turns out there's a lot in this country. The first thing we noticed after we'd set out on our bikes was the abundance of rice paddies everywhere we looked! Riding down the dirt road, watching the rice pickers working, it felt like we were in a different era. As I was riding along dreaming, I looked up to face a Vietnamese man standing on the side of the road. He had a rock in his hand and pretended to whip it at me, then started laughing. Way to ruin the mood. Not that funny when I nearly swerved into traffic.
Once we arrived at Tam Coc, we hired a local woman to paddle us down the river in her boat. We were surprised to find out how gorgeous it really was. As we we paddled through the caves I had this overwhelming feeling of being on the Pirates of the Carribean ride at Disney World. It was very cool. The woman paddling our boat was getting tired so she made Ian pick up a paddle and help her. Sucker. We could not have been enjoying ourselves more, when suddenly she stopped the boat in the middle of no where and pulled out a box of her embroidery, which she then tried to pressure us into buying. All the serenity of our surroundings instantly disappeared. After refusing her over and over.....and over again she begrudgingly paddled us back, but not before demanding a tip from us first. Ha! Feeling slightly irked, we jumped back on our bikes and headed to the next location. As we rode, this time I had one man ride by on his motorbike and pretend to kick me over as he passed, then within minutes another man on a motorbike headed straight toward me in his own game of chicken and barely missed me as he swerved at the last second. What is WRONG with these people?!?! It sounds ridiculous, but its like being in a country full of bullies who get so much pleasure out of picking on tourists. One after another..... We had never felt so unwelcome in our lives.
At the next site we had children following us everywhere demanding, not asking, for money. "YOU GIVE ME MONEY!" Finally we started demanding money from them, which really confused them. As we rode back, all we heard was "Boom Boom!" (Money) and the only place we stopped to buy something, instead of being happy we gave them our business, they became rude when we refused to buy more. What a shame that such an incredibly beautiful country has so many nasty people. Even when we went to the market, bartering, which had been normal in every other place we'd been was taken almost as an insult. If we weren't willing to pay whatever they wanted we were shooed away and ignored. Then we'd watch a local buy the same thing for a quarter of the price. Are you also getting the feeling like it was one incident after another? Besides rude people, the market also provided the most disgusting thing we've seen since being here. I nearly screamed out loud when I passed a table piled with boiled dog heads, the rest of the decapitated body next to them being dismembered and sold off piece by piece. It was something out of a horror movie.
The next day was a bit of a relief as we rented motorbikes and headed out of town to a national park. The landscape on the way may have been the most beautiful I have ever seen in my life. The sun coming up behind the silhouettes of the rice pickers bent over in the paddies. Cows wandering through ancient looking graveyards in the mist, while the sun rays streamed through the heavy clouds. So beautiful, it was hard to breathe. I would have taken a million pictures if I hadn't been on a motorbike. That's the problem with being a photographer and a tourist. Its impossible to be good at both! We went to a monkey conservation park where we saw rare species of monkeys - black, brown, grey, red, blond, they were all amazing. The rest of the day we spent on another hike through the jungle, then back to the hotel to board yet another bus.
What can I say about Ninh Binh? Mixed reviews. Definitely worth going for the scenery, but other than that, at times it was just plain lousy Charlie Brown!
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