The long wet road to Trang An, Ninh Binh province.

Waking up in Phong Nha, we didn't know we had three rainy days of slow progress & mechanical misadventures ahead of us. We got up early with our Austrian roomies who had a 6:30am bus to catch. Had an eggy breakfast at the Easy Tiger, made friends with this timid turtle (later named Clarence after a guy to whom he bore a striking resemblance), topped up our fuel tanks, and set off.

To start with the riding was picturesque and the local kids weren't camera-shy. All was well with the world.

 

Pretty soon it started bucketing down, but we'd wrapped everything in a couple of layers of plastic so we just dug our heels in and tried to gain as much ground as possible. It was all going splendidly until Bry ran out of petrol. We coasted down a fortuitous incline towards the sound of voices echoing off the hills, and came upon a merry band of drunken men sheltering under a tarp by some beehives. We showed them the empty fuel tank, and one started yelling at the top of his lungs. I think he was telling the neighbour over the hill to keep an eye out for us. Then they pointed off into the distance and held up five fingers, which might have meant anything. We pushed on, and sure enough after about five minutes, here was a guy who understood enough of Bry's charade to put his lunch aside and sell her half a plastic jug full of '92 unleaded. Meanwhile Blandy played a spot of football with the lads on the road, blissfully unaware that her electric ignition and kick-start had both called it quits for the day.

What followed was the first of many rolling crash-starts (at which we are both now quite proficient). To cut a long story short, we have probably spent about 9 hours since then at a total of three roadside mechanics. We've munted the throttle, broken the brake cable, and replaced all manner of pipes and pistons.  We've watched these ingenious little crouching men with their collections of wives and offspring tear the guts of that bike apart and put her back together with bits of string and toothpaste (honestly! Blandy sniffed it to be sure). It's been an eye-opening interlude.

Having woken to this scene of suburban domesticity out our hotel window, we hit the road once more and this time made it, finally, all the way to destination Ninh Binh.

Ninh Binh itself is not much to rave about, but it's right on the doorstep of some pretty impressive natural wonders. We decided to take a boat ride at the stunning Trang An Grottoes.

It was about a three hour return trip. We shared the boat with a Vietnamese couple, and the four of us paddled with typically Vietnamese makeshift oars while our guide probably narrated a fascinating account of the local geology and history which we will never know.

In places the water was so clear we could see the fish-life swimming amongst the lilies. The boat trip took us through numerous caves that were so low in parts we had to bend right over and put our heads between our knees in case we scraped them on the rocky ceiling.

Some of the cave systems we paddled through were over 250m long and so dark inside that the sunlight glared into our eyeballs when we emerged. 

The other interesting thing about our boat ride at Trang An Grottoes was all the Temples and Pagodas that we visited. It's like an alien landscape out there, so far from the traffic and noise of the city, and you paddle through so many ponds and underground channels amidst so many mountains that you think you must be lost. And then suddenly out of nowhere springs this intricate structure, resplendent with statues and altars. Everyone starts praying and lighting incense and placing down offerings. It's very surreal.

All in all it was a very beautiful, calming way to spend a morning. We were grateful that our long journey of many breakdowns had come to an end (for now) and that the sun had been good enough to make an appearance. Definitely recommend the boat trip at Trang An Grottoes.

Flat tyre and colossal caves (Phong Nha)

Waking up in Phong Nha, the plan was to see the caves that made this region famous three years ago.  Apparently before then, foreigners didn't frequent this entire area.

Riding along in the National Park, we stumbled upon two locals signing they wanted a lift.  Before our wheels had even come to a stop, these lightweight ladies jumped on the back.  Both of us double checked our pockets were zipped, and our hawk-eyes turned on.  Something seemed odd.  Within 100m, Blandy's rear tyre was flat.  Hmm!  So we pointed to the flat tyre, said 'ah oh, sorry' to the ladies and thankfully they popped off.  We quickly started our roll down the hill, not wanting to be scammed or taken to their 'brother' or 'friend' for a special price repair job.  If there's a feeling that's not fun, it's being scammed.  

Turns out Blandy rode that flat-tired bike for 12 kms, to the cave entrance. There a dude helped us by calling his friend, and we paid more than normal to him instead!  

All through the National Park there were butterflies.  Mini bright yellow ones. Purple beauties.  Flickering royal blues.  Monarch butterfly cousins, but of the sky-blue variety.  They were everywhere, and danced around us as we rode!  Actually, what do you call a group of butterflies? ... A flock? A throng? A herd? A crash, parliament, hoot, coalition? Those are all other animals ... But what about butterflies?

With the tyre sorted, and our pockets significantly lighter, it was time to head in to see those famous caves.

Phong Nha's Paradise cave is colossal, has colours that remind you of the golden yellows of the ceilings of Italian churches, and we only saw a snippet!  We walked a long way in to the entrance (buggy would've been a better option!), and then walked uphill for another 600m.  The cave has boardwalk for the first kilometre, which we enjoyed.  If you're keen to go a bit further, ya need to take a guide, and you can explore the rest of the 31.4km cave at your leisure.  It's enormous!

To save you googling ... A group of butterflies is a kaleidoscope.  Or a swarm, or a rabble or flutter.  We'd guessed flutter as we rode along, but only as a joke.  Which reminds me, dinner was to be shouted by the last person to see a snake today.  Neither of us saw one (but Bry could wash her mouth out after saying she saw four), so looks like we'll go without dinner tonight.  

(Jokes, that'd never happen!)

Outta the box thinking (Vįnh Môc)

What would you do if your town was being heavily bombed?

Villagers who lived in the demilitarised zone received a constant hammering from American bombs.  In particular, near the coast, 7 tons of bombs fell for every inhabitant.  In 1966 one of these villagers took a pick axe in their hand and started to dig.  The village joined in, trying to find a solution to escape the cascade of bombs.  The villagers initially dug down 10m, to move their entire village sous-terrain. 

The Americans received intel that these Vįnh Môc villagers were supplying food and weapons to the North Vietnamese army on the nearby island (Con Co).  The North Vietnamese troops on Con Co were proving to be an obstacle for American planes flying up to bomb the daylights out of hallowed Hanoi.

So the Americans designed bombs that could plunge down to 10 metres. 

(The two lying down at the front were sea-based missiles, the rest hurtled down from the sky)

Those bombs could do some serious work - our armspan (fingertip to fingertip) is about 1.75m.  Check out the size of these bomb craters. 

With so much destruction happening on the surface, the villagers dug more tunnels, these ones as deep as 15m and 22m.  The Vįn Môc tunnels gave up to 60 families underground housing until early 1972. 

9 000 tons of bombs fell in this area, and not one villager lost their life.  The tunnels grew to include a small room for each family (maybe 1.8m in length, by 1.5m in height and width), a couple of cooking spaces, wells, meeting rooms, a maternity room, a hospital, and one toilet.  Can you imagine?!

17 babies were born in the tunnels, they were only born a couple of years before us.  All of a sudden that terrible war seems closer to home.

(Photo not ours, but shows the cramped living quarters of a family)

7 exits/escape routes face the South China Sea, and yes the villagers often transported supplies to their mates on Con Ca island.  6 exits/escape routes  coming out at the top of the inland hills.  The escape routes were all rather camo-ed from the air and sea.  The villagers dug with hand tools, and it took 18 000 labour days to complete.  The tunnel complex is a total of nearly 2km.

Asking the guide if these irrigation channels were built by the villagers too, he laughed.  Those were actually trenches for soldiers.  Oh how blissful to live in our naive peace-filled worlds.

The large memorial plaque in the museum is pictured below.  To be or not to be, even if it means relocating your whole village underground!  What an exceptional story of creative thinking, gritty hard work, and the power of synergy.

Hien Luong Bridge

Riding over the Bên Hâi river felt quite eery.  This was the principle highway through the country, and for 21 years also drew the line between the former North Vietnam and South Vietnam.  The 17th Parallel was what the demilitarised region was known as, but in real life the line was demarcated by the river.  The DMZ was 5km wide, and most of that region is flat alluvial plains.

The bridge is called Hien Luong, and means the peace bridge.  During war time, the northern end of the bridge was painted red and the southern end painted yellow/blue.  Hope there was a multi-coloured little smudge somewhere right in the middle!

The monument shown in the photo below is taken from the northern end of the bridge.  This bridge was bombed tons by the southern allies during the war, but always reconstructed.

South side's monument is a bit curious - a mother and son look longingly to the north, surrounded by six tall feather-like items, but they look more like bombs.  It's called the Reunification Monument, and was an eye-opener to the fact that families were separated, and neighbours were divided diplomatically, politically, and physically.  The monument depicts the way villagers used to come to the river to share news with their family or friends on the other side.  Wearing a white scarf around their head meant someone had died, hands behind their back meant someone was arrested.  

Trúông Són Martyrs' Cemetery

Vietnam's national war cemetery contains the graves of northern soldiers killed in the DMZ and in the Trúông Són Trail, known to us as the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

More than 10 000 graves are headed with the word liet si (martyr), this being only a fraction of the North's casualty list of 300 000 dead or missing.

An amazing day - inspiring at Vįnh Môc, poignant at the Peace Bridge, and sobering at Trúông Són.

Questions about Huê

This whole post is comprised of questions, can you figure out why?

Have you ever been to Huê? (did you know it's pronounced Whey?)

Have ya arrived somewhere wishing you'd learnt more before you'd come?

Have you heard of the Nguyen Dynasty that made Huê the capital of Vietnam a long while back?

Would you like to walk around the moated citadel that's 550m by 600m?

How would you feel if you spent 45 minutes trying to find this central citadel, but got stuck in the labrynth of rivers, canals, and moats?

Would you have a laugh if Huê's Perfume River actually smelled a bit yuck?

Would you gladly pay the parking attendant at the gate to watch your motorbike, only to then be told in sign language to walk around to the other side of the citadel where the actual entrance gate is?

How would you camouflage taking a photo in the palace when the sign clearly says 'No photos'?  (Anyone think we were naughty?!)

Would you nick a 5000 dong (30 cents) bag of fish food if the table was unattended?

Would you play I spy with the Emporer's overfed goldfish?  (so ... How long was that fish-food attendant actually gone for?!)

Would you mind if you saw an impressive audio-visual animation, and then when you went outside to look at the real thing, realise that all the pretty stuff was bombed a few decades ago?  

How soon would you realise you were lost in these long corridors?

Would you like to play Spot the Difference in the next two photos?

Could you imagine that the Emporer's Forbidden Purple Palace used to be on this site?  

How ready to go home would you be at this point?  Wouldn't you also prefer to read our really cool book, in the air conditioned comfort of our hotel?

How long would you last walking around in the muggy 35 degree celsius heat?

Would you pay three times the price for a bottle of water?

If you had a pretty average time in this place would you still blog about it?!

When you went out for dinner during a thunderstorm in Huê would you feel sorry for the waitress who put a plastic tub down under the gushing burst pipe, only to watch it float away on the tide rapidly engulfing the restaurant?

Can you name these vegetarian dishes, using the clues in the menu below?

And, last question... if you'd been walking around in stinky puddles all day, would your socks be able to stand up for themselves?

The spesh-tacular Hai Van Pass

Filling up on local street food breakie, we enjoyed a completely non-verbal conversation with the grandma and grandpa who run this little Banh Mi joint.  There's these kind of carts all over Vietnam, where you rock up, choose your filling and right there on the spot they make you tasty baguette.  There's a little fire tucked under the counter to toast the baguette, and the often grubby finger-nailed lady has a gas element to fry your eggs.  We need to learn how to say 'coriander is not our favourite, so please save that for someone who'll appreciate it' but that phrase isn't in our Vietnamese repertoire just yet.  

In fact part of what was charaded in our conversation was that the previous day we had enjoyed watching this very same grandpa cutting down his tree with a small-sized hacksaw.  The Vietnamese twist in the story was that he had been entwined with electrical cables as he precariously stood on the top rung of his bamboo ladder.  At one point he stepped down a rung, and actually sat on a wire!  

Pulling into a spot to get the oil changed on the bikes, our timing was fortuitous.  Dark grey clouds let out their contents, and for a good while we waited for it to ease.  An inch of water surrounded us underfoot, hmm maybe it was time for a little coffee or another passionfruit tart! 

Rain often has a good turn, and after an hour or so of the biggest raindrops you could imagine, the sun pops out again, and Incy Wincy spider climbs up the spout again.  

Heading through the port town of Da Nang, we started the ascent of the spectacular Hai Van Pass (petrol heads, you might have seen the hilarious Top Gear piece on this same pass).  The ride was reminiscent of the stunning Queen Charlotte Drive, with lush green hills plunging into dark ocean below.  

All along our journey we've had marker posts like the one above, they denote the distance to the next town (in either direction), plus on the road edge it tells you which highway you're on.  Still trying to figure out what the red numbers mean, if you've got the answer, let us know!  

Back to the Hai Van Pass.  To date, this has been the most scenic coastal road we've enjoyed!  It's such a great view from the top.  Quite a lot of people have appreciated this pass, so much so that it was heavily contested during the Vietnam war.  The visual vantage point and the transport route was a prize to fight for.  Apparently at this latitude of Vietnam, there were only two north-south routes, and to control them would've been a strategic priority.  Agent Orange was heavily used through this region.  A local hawker told us the the bunkers at the top of the pass were American, they were riddled with bullet holes.  

In contrast to all of that, when we arrived a bride and groom were getting their wedding photos taken at the top... What a sweet backdrop!  Amazing how nature always rejuvenates. 

We rolled down the north end of the Hai Van Pass and built up some decent speed with neither engine running (sorry Grant).  A great thing about this road is how quiet it is.  Most go through the tunnel, leaving a scenic high road clear for thrill seekers like us.  Trucks carrying gas or livestock aren't permitted through the tunnel, so they head over the top too.  

The inlet at the base of the pass was picturesque.  Fisher families had constructed houses on stilts, with rumpled rickety boardwalks to the shore.  Instead of doorbells they had dogs, mostly lying on the road in the sun, snoozin.

Another downpour of rain, and we pulled in to the closest driveway.  The bloke offered us a very expensive can of coke, but to enjoy his shelter was worth it.  Thinking about his rain-hostaged visitors, he gave us a tour of his eucalyptus oil factory (consisting of a couple of 44 gallon drums, 2 pipes and a tap), and tried to make a swift sale.  Both of us are not really into buying stuff.  And besides, our bikes had needed to be in first gear to lug us and our bags over that pass.  Luckily for us we had a bottle of tea tree oil in our bag, and after they passed it around their quality control circle, we said chuc may mung (good luck to you!), and made a very fast getaway.  Onwards to Hué!

(Sorry our map isn't quite accurate to our route today.  We went up the mini coast roads from Hoi An, along Da Nang coast road, over the Hai Van, to the west of the mini inlet, which means that only the last little bit of the blue line is correct!  Know of a better app to track our route?)