Ba Be Lake Excursion Plus Some

Elsbeth writing…

It’s been a long and, at the same time, quick last couple weeks, so I haven’t had much time just for myself. Mainly work, work, work or travel. Teaching is going just fine, but I was sick the week before last with the flu and called in sick two days. Sorry, no Swine Flu, though, to make an interesting story, and I’m perfectly fine now.

Luckily, I was all better just in time for my trip to Ba Be Lake last weekend (I had stayed home on Friday). I went again with the Zoom Zoom group from the New Hanoian and had a fantastic time. I had been looking forward to last weekend since the previous trip. There were many new people, but it was still a great group and so good to meet people outside of work—ex-pats and Vietnamese alike. I wish I could go on more trips with them, but I can only take so many days off and I want to save up my days off so I can go home in time for Thanksgiving.

Anyway, this time we didn’t drive motorbikes and instead took a bus. Although I love driving my motorbike and I think it’s the best way to explore the countryside, it was a relief to take a bus. Traffic is crazy and driving for hours on end gets tiring. It’s nice to not have to worry about all that and be able to gaze at the countryside (even though you don’t feel as close to it as you do when driving a motorbike). I felt much more safe and secure. In Vietnam you can rent buses for group trips. They’re not your typical coach bus equipped with TVs and a bathroom. You rent these buses for private trips, not tours. They’re smaller and basic.

Even though I appreciated having a bus, the length of the drive was another story. It took us almost eight hours to get to Ba Be (thus the reason for taking a bus). It went fairly quickly because I talked with one girl I met on the trip, read a little, listened to my iPod, thought, and tried to sleep. I haven’t been able to sleep very much lately. I’m too restless. I have this drive to get out and do things, especially because I have so little time off of work. That’s a good thing, because I’m usually always tired.

The countryside was beautiful—especially the second half of the journey when we wound our way through the valleys. It was a little precarious though with all the steep and tight twists and turns. Many of us were getting car sick (we had also just eaten lunch) so we tried to sleep it off.

Finally! We arrived at our destination—Ba Be Lake. It was beautiful. We stopped at the small ferry docking area and took rickety, small ferry boats across to the “island” (I don’t think it was really an island, but connected to the mainland on the other side of the lake) where our stilt house was. The house wasn’t as nice and clean as our last homestay. The bathrooms were dirtier with squat toilets and the beds weren’t as clean, but the view outside the open, wooden-shuttered windows was amazing. About 50 meters bellow water buffalo and ducks grazed in the marshy field while men fished in the lake beyond with bamboo poles standing in hollowed out wooden boats. Behind them were green, jungle mountains. We joked how it all seemed so orchestrated. Someone was telling the pigs and ducks to stand just there while the water buffalo meandered in and out of the streams that ran through the field; then, in the meantime the birds were told to fly gracefully just in the distance. Perfect. Bravo.

We went almost immediately on a trek. It wasn’t very difficult. I was glad about this, because I didn’t want to push myself after having just recovered from the flu. We walked to a cave, which had a pond that went deeper inside. We didn’t go very deep and just took pictures for awhile. Then we walked back and down some small gravel country roads between traditional farmhouses. We turned back after a bit, because it was starting to get dark. Although it wasn’t hard going we were pretty sweaty and dirty, so we took turns taking showers and then had a traditional Vietnamese shared dinner. It was pretty good. After dinner some local women did a traditional performance for us. Originally, we planned to have a bonfire with the performance, but because it had been raining all week we had to have the performance at the stilt house. (P.S. luckily, the weather was perfect all weekend.) The performance was great. They wore their local Ao Dai style—velvet dyed with a dark blue color from a local tree and silver hoop necklaces, I believe signifying the peach tree. They played traditional lute/guitars, danced, and sang. Our fearless leader, Quyen, translated the songs for us. They talked about the beauty of the area, their customs, and welcomed us to their village.

The next morning many of us got up early and chatted for awhile before breakfast. Then we went to the ferry dock and took a five-hour tour on the ferry boats around the lake. It’s a huge area and so beautiful with tall rocky mountains, jungle, and quaint, traditional farming villages. It was just peaceful and relaxing to sit and look at the scenery. I dreaded going back to the bustle and constant noise of Hanoi as you can imagine. We visited a cave, which was more like a tunnel to another part of the lake. You could get off the boat and walk along a path. There were thousands of bats hidden in the ceiling and they were dropping poop left and right. The path was half an inch deep in their putrid feces, which we had to walk through. Disgusting. We also went to a rushing waterfall and sat for awhile. On the way back we stopped at a pond where there’s a tale of a fairy maiden who came to bathe in this pond. There were so many yellow and orange butterflies there. It really did look like some Asian fairy tale. Everyone stopped to have a rock skipping competition before we headed back to the boat.

When we got back to the house we had lunch and then left at 3 p.m., sadly, to head back to Hanoi. We didn’t get back into town until almost 10 p.m. I went to dinner with the trip leader, her boyfriend, and Steve, but I was so tired and felt and looked disgusting.

This week and weekend hasn’t been too eventful. Next week doesn’t look any more interesting. Back to work again. I don’t know when I’ll have another two days in a row off next or when I’ll get out of the city. Kind of depressing, but there’s heaps to do here and the days go by pretty quickly. Last Monday was my 11 month mark! Can you believe it? I’ve been here for ELEVEN months—almost an entire year. Crazy how the time has flown by and yet so much has happened…. That means only four months left before I get to go home. I’m excited for it, but there’s plenty to do here in the meantime that’ll distract me.

Yesterday I taught one class in the afternoon (it breaks up your entire day) and went with a co-worker to see Harry Potter. I was so excited to see it, but sad that I couldn’t share the experience with Sarah or Katie as our tradition goes…. It was good. Jeez, I haven’t read the book for ages; I’ve forgotten a lot. I can’t wait for the last one to come out—I hear it’ll be broken up into two parts? Today I finally got off my bum and went to this pool across town to swim laps and read. I have to say that I am amazing with directions…not to brag or anything ;-), but I could navigate my way there and back through the crazy Hanoi traffic. Not to mention I didn’t know my way back home very well, but nevertheless came straight here without having to stop to check the map. I’m getting used to the layout of this city. Tonight I’m met Ellyn to see the Quiet American at the Cinematique (the cinema I think I’ve mentioned before that plays old and foreign films as well as documentaries). It was the old 1958 version and pretty good. It was interesting to see how Saigon in the 50s is portrayed. Remember I told you, mom, that the Continental Hotel was in this movie? It was pretty cool to see it on the silver screen after having eaten breakfast there one Sunday morning on our trip. It looks pretty similar. I finally got a membership to the theatre tonight as well so I should go there at least once a week.

Oh, yes! The weekend before last I also went to the Cinematique on Saturday night where they had an improv skit show going on. Some ex-pats put it on. The first part was pretty funny, but I ended up talking to a friend, who I don’t see very often, and his roommate for the second half. On Sunday, I went with some other co-workers to the Ethnology Museum across town. It was really interesting to see, but we didn’t see it all because most of it is outside and it started to pour. Driving on the way back was crazy. I had one of the guys on the back of my motorbike and the rain was insane. He got soaked and I was pretty wet despite having a (crappy) raincoat.

Okay, I think that’s enough for now. Time to go to bed so I’m fresh and awake for…*shiver* Monday… Blah, who doesn’t hate Mondays, especially when you only have one day off before it comes? Hope everything is going well for all of you on your end…wherever you are!