Rosi & Jen's 11 Thousand Beach Odyssey Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you did not do, then the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbour. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream...."

The more we travel through Vietnam the more we come to love this country and it’s amazing history and warm friendly people. On Thursday, my 43rd birthday, Jen bought me a day tour of the ancient capital Hoa Lu, the rice fields of Tam Loc and surrounding Ninh Binh. We went on a 10 km cycle alongside massive volcanically formed rock formations and rice fields at Hoa Lu. We saw countless conical hat wearing farmers tending their rice fields and visited ancient temples. The tour was a really small one, just us and a young American couple Geno and Danielle who had been living in Japan for 5 years and were touring South East Asia before they moved back to the states. They were so wonderful and it was great to finally have some interaction with like minded fellow travelers. In the afternoon we were rowed for two hours down a river connecting rice fields on either side and surrounded by Limestone rock formations by a 72 year old woman and her very chatty daughter. They were poor rice farmers who made extra money rowing tourists and while they had you captive in the boat they would try and sell you their embroidery. The young one Nuewin was very outgoing and chatted to everyone she saw. Her English was limited but much better than my Vietnamese and we had a great time chatting to each other and laughing and she told me about her life in Vietnam. She ended up selling us two embroidered table cloths for some ridiculous amount of money (someone at home will be the lucky recipient of those). We’re lucky we got off the boat with more than a dollar in our pockets as I’m sure she could sell rice to the Vietnamese. She would make a great used car salesperson at Dodgy Nuewin’s Used Cars. But it was all in good fun. It ended up to be a great birthday.