March 14, 2016
Chapter 5
A good night sleep, an early morning walk in Van Long Nature Reserve, and around 11 a.m. we were on our bikes again. In North Vietnam, it is now the season of mưa xuân, the so called spring rain. Personally, I associate spring with sunny days, plenty of colours and light. I wonder if Vietnamese people have the same association since their spring is often grey weather, drizzle and mist. It has its charm, too. The landscape of karst mountains in Van Long covered in mysterious mist makes me think of Chinese traditional paintings. It is weather that inspires meditation and introspection.
On our day 3 we cycled mainly through some small roads. Finally I could take off my mask and breathe normally. Pleasant and calm ride along rice fields, small villages, forest patches, ascents and descends but nothing too challenging. Wherever we passed everyone was greeting us, waving and shouting ‘hello’! With all this attention and honours, I feel like a champion doing his victory lap. In the two and a half years I have lived in Vietnam, many times have I been perplexed by the Vietnamese hospitality and genuine positive interest towards foreigners. Considering the violent history of occupations and wars, which is still not so long ago, I find this remarkable and beneficial in many ways. I came to believe that one should not easily forget, but definitely forgive.
Problems on the road.
Lilyana’s bike had some issues with the gears. We started early our day and rode 30km to go to the city Thanh Hoa where we were told the address of a good bicycle shop. They fixed the gears and we were in a hurry to go further with our plan. Just as we went out of the city I had a flat tire. Ok, please don’t laugh, but yes, none of us actually knows well (I underline well!) how to take off the rare wheel. We asked google, read some advice and we managed to remove it. We changed the inner tube and as we started pumping it we realised that the pump we brought with us didn’t work. It’s an old pump from Holland, so I trusted it is in good state. But it was damaged and pumping was not possible at all. After a while of vain efforts a van with two guys stopped and offered us help. They took my wheel and tires, went to the village, put some air in and came back. And then for the big problem: we couldn’t fix the wheel back at the bicycle. We tried, the boys tried, more people stopped to help, they tried... and none of us succeeded. We watched youtube videos on the side of the road, followed step by step guides, and though we were doing exactly as shown, there was still a problem. At the end, I left Lilyana waiting there, on the road, while the guys took me back to the bicycle shop in town. There was something stuck and it took a while for the bike mechanics to take it out and put the wheel back.
All these problems took us more than 3 hours from our day. Desperately I was looking at the clock and thinking how little we had cycled. We had the rest of the afternoon and tried to catch up with the program.
It was a difficult noisy bad route, with heavy trucks riding both sides with great speed, houses all along the way. And like that we rode for 50km until the sun started setting down. At the end of the afternoon, we switched to a different road, less busy and noisy. And soon after we reached a beautiful big lake and area with just a few houses. We found a good place to sleep by the side of the lake and our day with problems finished well after all. As I got off the bike I felt like a cowboy getting off his horse after a long day riding in the Wild West. Thick cover of dust lied on my clothes, my face, inside my ears and eyes.
Day 9
I am in an underground fantasy world.
I am privileged to have divine silence, no guides, no tours, only my eyes and thoughts wondering. The resonance of my steps and the distant sound of water drops falling on the ground. These drops were the same as thousand years ago, shaping slowly the colossal stalactites and stalagmites I see now. What other creatures dwell and have dwelled in this forest of karst? My imagination is kindled. I hold my breath and wait to see dragons fly out from behind the gigantic drapery sculpted like a stone waterfall. There is a little hut-like structure where hobbits must be hiding, a theatre stage, a thousand-flower tree tower, a pearl nest...
I am in the Paradise Cave in Phong Nha Ke Bang National Park. High up to 100 m and wide 150 m, the scale is breathtaking and the number and beauty of the formations is stunning.
This was my day off. I chose to hike in the forest up to the Paradise Cave and have a glimpse of the hidden underground treasures that the Park holds. The rest of the day was relaxing, eating, organising the rest of the trip. This one day of rest after so much physical and mental efforts in the past days felt like week-long holiday. It was good and enough.
Day 10 & 11
After a good rest we were ready to hit the road again. The goal was to get as fast as we can to the former imperial capital of Vietnam, Hue. Day 10 we cycled more than 140 km through rather hilly road and eventually got to the city of Dong Ha. Unfortunately we had to cycle some 20 km in addition while looking for our hotel, which we never found. What we’d booked through internet and had to be in the city center, turned out to be some 60km away from it. We had no choice but to find something else quickly. The hotel we took seemed ok but we had an interesting night. On a few occasions in the night, some men came knocking on our door and tried to open it. It was locked and we didn’t open, but we didn’t sleep much that night.
Then it was morning again. Packing, cycling...
The mountains were replaced by hills, and the hills by flat land. Day 11 unveiled us vast horizontal planes with rice fields, followed by sand dunes nearby Hue. As we cycled through small villages, I was surprised by the number of buddhist temples there are in the area. Literally, every 500 m and less, there was a little temple. I now read on the Internet that this is one of the places in Vietnam where buddhism is taken more seriously. It appears so.
We entered the city from its eastern part and we saw the magnificent royal tombs.
The city of Hue reminded me of Lyon, France. The Perfume River at its heart, bridges linking the old with the new part city. There seemed to be everything there: good local and western food, hotels, shops. Though I enjoyed what the big city had to offer, I felt overwhelmed by the noise, traffic, many people and lights. Just a couple of days ago we were lost in the mountain and there were only wooden houses of ethnic minority people at our sight. Now we are on the coast, it’s crowded and cacophonous.