A transport hub to see Halong bay on rice fields, floating villages, Vietnam's first National Park and some cool pagodas. That's the plan - the reality is me getting flu and feeling sorry for myself.
I managed a day on the back of a bike to see some of the sights - my guide took me through lots of little villages (mainly because he kept getting lost, this guy was worst than me - even i kept saying "are you sure this is the way?") - i really felt off the tourist trail for once. I went to the train station while in town - they pushed the cleaner out to help me! I'm guessing they don't get a lot of tourists - she spoke no English. I end up sat around a table with 3 guys all of them with blacked teeth - who all manically grin at me while we drink green tea. None of them speak English and yet we all have a great time. I thought they were drunk, after tasting the tea (paint stripper would taste good in comparison) i understand their grins - they're mental.
There's not a lot to Ninh Binh. It's like a lot of the Vietnamese towns, it appears huge because it's all spread out along the main road. It's like the towns in the old wild west movies - just fronts with nothing to the buildings. The streets are the same here as everywhere else - full of a bustling, noisy mish-mash of bikes, cars and trucks - either going through red lights, the wrong way or driving with no lights on. Horns are repeatedly used for the smallest of reasons, and repeatedly so if it's possible. Guards stand watch on corners - supposedly directing traffic...the traffic that regularly goes through red lights, drives the wrong way and has no lights. Hmmm - I'm misunderstanding something. There's a continuous stream of noise from official looking tannoy speakers by the side of the road. I picture big brother and communist propaganda being sent to the masses, but the truth is probably washing powder adverts and claims of whiter than white. A man is frantically waving his arms across the street, i think he's beckoning to me - I'm lucky to see him as he's at least 100m away. I cross the road:
moto driver man...
where you go...
moto man...
OY moto...
OK?
This is my normality...
...grrrr
