Harvest Moon

Elsbeth writing…

I just got back today from vacation in Ninh Binh, which is about two hours West of Hanoi. Overall it was good to be out of the city after being cooped up and getting progressively fed up with everything over the last two and a half months. I stayed for about two and a half days—two nights.

I took a tour there the first day and we saw a temple and went on a boat tour around these beautiful, spired mountains. The landscape is gorgeous, but they were just trying to push us to buy things on the boat trip. I was with a Japanese guy in our row boat and I struck up a conversation in Vietnamese with one of the ladies who was rowing the boat. I was so proud that I could talk for an extended length of time in Vietnamese and I understood most of what she said. Of course, though, she had to push the embroidered cloths she was selling on me (to fund her daughter’s college education, so she said). I was nice and bought two small embroidered things…so I guess that’s one of your future presents, mom. Another lady on one boat at the end of the boat tour before we turned back pushed us to buy drinks for our rowers. I was stupid and should have known better. I thought the rowers were going to pay for their drinks for some reason, but I was expected to pay at the extortionary price of 30,000 d (about $2.50) for two drinks. Okay, that doesn’t sound like a lot over there, but it’s a lot here. Anyway, the Japanese guy and I paid some. You can’t even have a pleasant conversation in Vietnamese without being asked to buy something…I guess I can see where they’re coming from.

Anyway, I ended up staying at the hotel where we had lunch and which my tour guide was pushing for me to stay at. I had another hotel in mind, but actually this one was pretty good as it turned out. It was right across from the place where we took our boat tour and the room I was in had an amazing view of the mountains. The room was also very clean and new. The owners there were pretty friendly and helpful. They even gave me a discount and didn’t charge me for some things. The first night they even had me eat dinner with their family. It was very nice.

The second day I went on another boat tour that was further out in the middle of nowhere and less touristy. It was also more beautiful and a longer tour. We went through a bunch of caves that were so low we had to duck our heads as we rowed through them. I was getting claustrophobic and some of the caves had bats flying around, which freaked me out even more. I officially hate bats. One of the owners of the hotel drove me there and back, which was nice.

After that they had another motorbike driver take me to the Phat Diem Cathedral, which is apparently the biggest Cathedral in South East Asia. It was different from any other Cathedral I’ve seen—the architecture was clearly Asian with tiled roofs and Chinese carvings and motifs. It was really neat to see the blend between Western and Asian cultures in this Cathedral. It was a long drive through the bumpy countryside to get there and I only stayed for about an hour. I ended up talking to a Vietnamese girl who came up to talk to me. She didn’t speak much English so we ended up talking for awhile in half English, half Vietnamese. She was very sweet and showed me around the area.

Then my driver and I headed back in the cool evening through the countryside. Even the flat rice fields were so beautiful and reminded me of Wittenberg in Germany for some reason. Of course, the crops are different and in Wittenberg they had wind generators dotting the countryside instead of palm trees. It’s harvest season now so there was sweet-smelling hay strewn all over the roads and they were burning piles of it—sometimes even in the middle of the road. I don’t know why they had to burn it. There was also a bright red harvest moon as we were driving back. It felt more like autumn. That evening I had dinner at the same place I had lunch at that day. Jeez, again the prices were super high for Vietnamese food, but the people there were nice.

Today I got up “early” and went for a bike ride around the countryside for a little bit. Again, it was so beautiful, but the locals were very rude. They kept shooing me away wherever I went and wanted me to buy a ticket for some tour or another. I don’t trust many people here anymore, so I just ignored them and went on my way. I didn’t stay out long. Just long enough to work up a dripping sweat. I went back to the hotel, freshened up, quickly gathered my things, and left. I took the bus back to Hanoi.

I unpacked my things and cleaned out my defrosted fridge right away. Then I went grocery shopping and cleaned my room.

Oh, also last weekend was the Harvest Moon Festival. I was here last year for it, but I didn’t see much. This year I was determined to see a little and I saw a lot. It was a nice festive atmosphere—like Halloween and Karnival combined. All the children were dressed up—the little girls had on cute princess dresses. The teens and university students were also wearing elaborate masks. I wanted to get a mask but I couldn’t find one. We saw a little Chinese dragon show for the kids in one of the streets and went to a Vegetarian restaurant for dinner. After that one of my friends from work and I ended up walking all the way back to our apartments when we realized the streets were so crowded and no empty taxi could be found. It was neat to see the festivities as we walked back and the people just socializing around Hoan Kiem Lake, but I was exhausted.

Speaking of exhausted, I better get to bed because tomorrow is going to be a very long exhausting day.