Back in Hanoi.
I kind of escaped back here..
After Silke left I went up to Cao Bang, a tiny town in the mountains, close to the chinese border. Except me there was no (NO! NONE, ZERO! NADA!) western tourist there. And absolutely nobody spoke a word of english. Not even "hello" or "bye bye".. Well, I at least learned the vietnamese phrases :)
Pretty hard to get along. Hard to find the way to nice places and arrange to get there.
On the other hand I often skipped paying fees and permits since nobody could explain anything to me. The officer right at the chinese border, for example, just waved me away- hi didn't know how to explain the permit. And I "kind of didn't understand" :)
Another advantage of no other tourists around: I got invited for tea with some local hill-tribe-families. Very exciting! Everybody just smiling and trying to make sense of the sign-language. "Thumbs up" worked fine :)
Also getting vegetarian food was not easy, not to say unpossible. Hard, when i could't explain that water cooked with meat is never going to be vegetarian soup.. So I think I got my share of chicken there..
The first day in Cao Bang the plan was to rent a motorbike to explore the area. I thought a real bike would be a good idea since it's so steep everywhere. I finally found a guy who was willing to rent me his bike. But after I killed the engine for the 4th time without moving a meter (EMBARRASING!!) I gave up and hired as well the guy. What a good driver!
He took me to the cave where Ho Chi Minh was hiding in 1941, close to the chinese border, so he could escape if nesessary. There was even a stone-table, where Uncle Ho translated important parts of the "Kapial". Cool!
I walked through the jungle for a couple of hours. Nice and quiet!
The day after I went to Vietnams biggest (not highest) waterfall. The guy who tok me there was driving like a maniac. I was scared to death part of the time, while he was singing vietnamese songs from all his heart.
The waterfalls were great, but THE WAY there was just breathtakingly beautiful (he he- one of my all-time-favourite-phrase from the Rough Guide). The green mountains, tiny villages where women were drying the rice, water-buffaloes and the total endlessness.
From Cao Bang i travelled further to the Ba Be Lakes, a national park in the mountains. Still no western tourist and no english spoken..
I payed a fortune to take a boat trip on the lakes. But when there are no other tourists, there is nobody to share the fee with either..
Beautiful! Lots of animals around, zillions of different butterflies, lizzards and rare birds.
Last day anyway I was so upset about all the money I had to pay all the time, that one of the girls there had mercy with me and smuggled me on a bus with vietnamese tourists, who were visiting a cave.
That must be the biggest cave I've ever seen! No kidding! We went down and down, deep down, headache-deep, and then into the cave for at least a kilometer. Marvellous!
I spent all my energy and patience on travelling back to Hanoi on local busses.
Now I'm glad I had an evening and a day in town. Sitting in street-coffe-shops, watching the people going by and smalltalking to the locals.
And finally I found out WHY nobody is speaking english.. Ofcourse! This is a communist country, so a lot of people actually studied in the USSR or Cuba. They speak rather russian and spanish.. Fortunatly I do too (aaaaaaahaaaaaaaahahaha), so I'm off to the mountains tonight again. Give it another try :)
Nightttrain to Lao Cai and from there to Sapa.
I like being in Vietnam. People are nice, but not hystericly friendly. And even if they don't speak english, they try to help. Like good communists, oh yeah!
I put some new pictures in the "North Vietnam"-folder.
