Jesse Writes
Not much to say about today. I was sick, alternating between sweating and being unable to get warm. I watched a lot of TV, and Cass went and got me some meds and snacks. I don't know if it was foodborne or what, but it sucked. Achey, hot/cold...you know the type.
I stayed inside while Cass went out and explored a bit, drank some beers and saw a bit of the city.
We decided to stay an extra day in Hue, and I put off my suit pickup until tomorrow.
The train was fun. We paid extra so we had the room to ourselves and I believe that the mattresses were a bit thicker than in the regular bunks. In other cabins you could have 4 or 6 bunks, but we thought the private room was worth the premium.
The train ride lasted 12 hours, with somewhat regular stops, but Cassidy and I put headphones in, got as comfortable as we could (it was warm) and just tried to sleep through most of the travel. If you have the extra bucks to do it comfortably, I would highly recommend this way of getting down the country.
In the morning, we awoke to passing grasslands, farm fields, cemeteries and villages. We had made our way into the Hue, a long held seat of power and the home of the Imperial City. I was excited to check out the cultural landmarks here, and see how things felt different from Northern Vietnam.
We were able to check into our hotel early, Thank you Moonlight Hotel Hue, and decided to go for a walk. We were staying a block from the famous Perfume river, and basically on the walking street – full of vendors, food, and textiles.
An Aside: Throughout our travels in Vietnam, if we were in a touristy place of any kind, you would get approached by people offering goods and services. It heavily depended on the time of day, but usually we were being ushered in to restaurants, followed by sweet old woman selling fruit or textiles, or art.
In the evening, things changed a bit – the restaurants were still at it though they tended to expand into the roadways more, there were generally less fruit vendors, but there were throngs of “massage” places with attractive women suggesting you get a probably legitimate massage.
As two men walking around at night, we were also offered cocaine, marijuana, and prostitutes, and though we were interested in none of them, I would say this was the most persistent of the no’s we had to give.
All of this is to say that we encountered a new offer in Hue, Easy Riders. A service where you can hire a driver to take you on motorcycle from Hue to Danang, about 150km (depending on the route) over the scenic Hai Van Pass, and along the beachline. All the power to them, but I will say, they were some of the most persistent “offers” we received on the trip – even going so far as to engage us anew but minutes after we saw them the first time.
The other eventful thing that happened was we went to a barber and I got my head shaved. The sad truth is that I am in fact, vain, and that my thinning hair has been on my mind a lot lately. Since I was away, I decided to just go for it and shave it all off. It was not as significant event as I thought it might be, but I can’t say I am in love with the look. Growing old(er) is just something one has to deal with I suppose.
In the evening, Cass and I walked around the touristy area we were staying in and happened upon a tailor, Bo’s. I couldn’t resist. I got sized up and ordered a full suit, ready for the following day. Bo is a pleasant and funny woman, and though I was sweating just existing standing in the shop, she was quick and professional.
The end of the night, unfortunately, was not as exciting. Cass and I hit up the “rooftop” pool – it was on the 5th floor I think, and just exposed to the outside, not exactly on the roof – and I couldn’t stop shivering. I thought it was just cold. Turns out, I was getting a fever. And so, the next 2 days I saw Hue through the window of our hotel room.
The Whatsapp number I received from Josh and Jess the day before paid off. As promised, I texted the number and requested a day rental on a scooter and in 20 min, two men arrived at the hotel indenting to leave me a bike in exchange for the equivalent of $5 CAD, my passport number and a signature. When I asked if we could have two bikes, he simply smiled and doubled the price and handed the keys over to the other bike. Best service.
We acquired these bikes for a couple reasons - the first is that we hadn't actually driven any scooters yet. We spent our motorcycle trip on dirt bikes and wanted to taste for ourselves the casual joy of zipping through traffic on an automatic bike. The other reason was that we wanted to go for an iconic hike up the Lying Dragon Mountain and wanted to get ourselves there via scooter.
The third reason was that we needed to kill some time today before we started our journey Southward: we were catching an overnight train, but not until 10:30PM. So that meant we needed to fill the day with fun activities (and probably beer) so we could sleep soundly.
So that's what we did. It was a beautiful day (which is a real double edged sword for a couple of very light skinned northern boys) so we hopped on our rides and Cass navigated us (after a little mis-navigation) to the beginning of the Lying Dragon Mountain.
Parking and admission paid, we navigated through an Eco-lodge that operates at the bottom of the mountain.
It is really beautiful. There is a really nice manicured walkway with small bungalows, ponds, and restaurants all leading up to the beginning steps of the mountain. When walking up, we noticed the intersecting raised walkways that ventured out into some fields, but decided to explore those after we tackled our main task.
I think describing climbing 500+ steps is boring, so just imagine that it is hot, fairly muggy, and you are climbing up 500 steps - BUT everytime you take a break and look behind you, there is an ever expanding vision of the beauty of the Ninh Binh area. Mountains, rice and lotus fields, mountain goats just crushing it, and other sweaty hikers. And if you look up, there is glimpses of a Dragon lying across the top of the mountain. At one point you can choose to go left or right and we went right and climbed up to what I later learned is called the Mua Caves Tower. Here we met up with some Americans - Brendan and Heidi. Brendan gave away he was from the South because he called me "brother" and ended his sentence with y'all. Such pleasant people. They were travelling for the last few months, and considering relocation out of the United States for a while. So of course we talked about what every North American talks about, perched up on the Mua Caves tower overlooking Ninh Binh - the cost of living.
But seriously, we ended up hiking with them for the rest of the mountain and just chatted eachother up. I might have mentioned this before, but not alot of Vietnamese people we met spoke very much English (nor should they need to obviously), so in a lot of ways beyond the two of us, it has been pretty isolating in terms of conversation. So, it was nice to just easily chat with with new people who seemed just like genuinely nice folk for a while.
An aside: I mention people we met and talked to, but don't really share pics of them because I didn't take a lot of them and didn't ask them if I could post them to a social platform, even if it is this mostly personal blog. I think that anonymity while travelling should be maintained by default if not asked for permission ahead of time. So, that's why most folk do not feature in the pics - you'll just have to imagine them instead:)
So we hiked and got all/some of the iconic pics. As you do (it was well worth the aching knees and calf):
We hiked back down and talked some more with our new brief friends over a tea, and then as two brothers are wont to do we walked through the lotus fields on the boardwalks. It could have been more romantic with the flowers in bloom, but what can you do?
By the time we returned to Tam Coc it was time to check out, and luckily the hotel would hold our bags for us until we needed to depart later that evening.
We scootered around a bit more, but with nowhere to go really, we ended up at a nearby restaurant for some appies, where a German fellow who "didn't work there but was a friend of the family" made awkward small talk with us. We watched him try to get others to come sit down, to no avail. I had learned a couple nights prior from Lawrence that when we saw English, Italian, French, German speaking people working at these places they were actually volunteering for room and (sometimes) board. Fair enough.
Done with that scene, we kinda of just ended up back at our hotel so we could park our bikes. It was late afternoon and we wanted a beer. Once we did that, it was no more driving, but we had no where else to go really. So, I parked us at The Banana Tree across the Way and we soon learned that this was the local hostel-complex (a dorm style residence, bar, pool, and restaurant) and hangout. A younger Australian dude, Henry, started chatting with Cass when we were ordering our first beer and invited himself to sit with us. the next 4 hours was just math - the accumulation of more hostel residents, empty beer bottles and stories. I won't list them all, but we met a British woman who was a barista in Squamish, a French dude who kinda looked like a model with a dad-stache (now popular with the youth), another English woman who told us nothing about herself expect that she was 33 and liked Soju, and a British guy (also 33) who enjoyed hiking, had done the pacific crest recently - he was planning to settle down in BC in April if possible after his travels and I got a chance to wax poetic about the Bowron Lakes Chain.
Cassidy, to his credit, shines a lot more socially once the beers start flowing. I am good as an opener, but do tend to get bored (or too intense) - he is good keeping those vibes up and casual as the night goes on. It's been a pretty good combo so far this trip.
So it was I, responsible (allegedly) older brother, who ushered us out of there half way through the Karaoke Bingo so that we could catch our train. We both were having a lot of fun and wanted to stay, but tickets were bought, and we needed to leave the North of Vietnam.
The train came, and we boarded. After a terrifying moment where I thought our sleeper room had been double booked, we had our space confirmed and Cassidy and I laid out in relative comfort as the train rumbled into the night.
