Our overnight bus from Dong Hoi dumped us at 4am by the side of Highway 1 in Ninh Binh – a rather non-descript town two hours south of Hanoi.  We’re visiting Ninh Binh as it’s the closest town to the Cuc Phuong national park, a huge patch of tropical rainforest in a valley of limestone hills.  We rented motorbikes and headed to the park, the journey was amazing – we passed through incredible rural scenes of locals working in lush green paddy fields and herding cattle in the shadow of stunning limestone karsks.  The national park is one of the best we’ve visited so far.  It was peaceful, cool and full of sights, from the homes of prehistoric cavemen to 1000 year old trees.  We ate lunch before visiting the primate rescue centre, home to over 150 monkeys that have been rescued from all over Vietnam.  I was particularly fond of the langurs with their silver fur and orange faces and the long-armed gibbons (although I did have to question their rather lacklustre parental skills).

The following day we cycled to Tam Coc and visited three caves set in an inland waterway.  The morning mist was still clinging to the emerald hills as we gently paddled through the water.  Apparently the film Indochine was shot here (not that I’d know, as it’s a love story ‘an all, eugh).  We also tottered around a Buddhist temple set in a hill-top cave before cycling north to Hoa Lu, the former capital of the early Vietnamese kingdom.  We took a stroll around the ruins and headed back home, and onto Hanoi.

 

Hanoi is one hell of place.  It’s a huge, cosmopolitan city that still preserves Vietnamese culture in its heart.  We stayed in the old quarter – the former trades of ship sail and drums skin makers have given way to silk and liquor shops, but the narrow streets still retain plenty of charm.  As with many asian cities, the streets are particularly lively in the early evenings – families gather in street kitchens to eat freshly cooked food and impromptu ‘Bia Hoi’ (beer stands) appear on street corners, serving up ice cold beer for 10 pence a glass.  The food in Hanoi is amazing, it’s fresh, tasty and cheap.  Our breakfast of choice was Bun Bo – noodles with beef, salad and beansprouts topped with fried onions and peanuts.  We also discovered an amazing street kitchen selling the local speciality of Bun Cha – grilled minced pork with a huge bowl of cold noodles, a sweet broth, salad and a mountain of freshly cooked spring rolls.  What the place lacked in hygiene the food made up for in flavour (and quantity of spring rolls).

Aside from eating, we also visited Hanoi’s sights.  We popped into the fine arts museum, stuffed with amazing artwork and really pretty asian paintings.  We wondered over the road to the temple of literature – home to a handful of pagodas, a Confucian sanctuary and now a university.  One hot day we decided to visit Ho Chi Minh’s mausoleum – after walking a few kilometres to find the bloody entrance, and after putting bags in one cloakroom and cameras for another, and after queuing the in blazing heat for 30 minutes we entered the imposing building.  It was rather surreal – it was 36 degrees outside yet the inside of the building was ice cold.  We walked up a flight of stairs in into the main chamber where Uncle Ho’s body was on display behind a glass cabinet, guarded by four soldiers in spotless white uniforms.  Even the Vietnamese visitors – the masters of the queue-busting-elbow-barges formed an orderly queue in the presence of their national hero as we shuffled past his body.  We emerged into the beating afternoon sun and headed back to the guesthouse only to discover the power was off – no air conditioning, no fan and no breeze.  It’s the hottest place we’ve been so far on our trip and we almost melted away that evening.

Vietnam’s capital had far more charm than I’d ever expected.  We’d been warned that it was hectic and full of opportunists, but we’d managed to escape unscathed and well-fed, if a little sweaty.