Northbound

Train to Nam Dinh
Nam Dinh - Nimh Binh and Nimh Binh Environs
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highs: The solitude of the Ninh Binh environs away from the tourist routes, cool, foggy weather, "The Halong Bay of the Rice Fields," festival music echoing up an empty valley to the pagoda at the top of the hill I climbed
lows: LP FAILS AGAIN! CYCLISTS TAKE NOTE: No train will drop a bike in Ninh Binh and no train will pick a bike up anywhere this close to Hanoi, lots of tourist in Ninh Binh area




My northbound train ride was actually pretty nice! I felt, in many ways, the Vietnamese trains were much nicer than the Thai trains...they felt more European in that I was in a birth with four cots. I was with two Vietnamese ladies who slept the entire day and a couple other Vietnamese who came and went, but our car was mostly very very quiet. I slept pretty well through the night and woke in the wea hours of the morning to a remote coastal view out the window with waves crashing into a steap, jungley coast. I knew it, I just knew that we were negotiating Hai Van Pass!!! I had a feeling and felt so lucky to be able to see it from the train, which stays very close to the water most of the way and offers much better water views than the road. I knew that eventually, the familiar shape of Long Co Beach would come into view and the fishing boats of the fishermen I met. Low and behold, from behind the rolling jungle emerged the shape of land I came to know so well from days of strolling up and down its sands. What a treasure!

The remainder of the day passed with little scenary of interest. The skies were cloudy and the air misty, so I could only see rice fields and fog in the distance. I cracked open and nearly finished "The Kite Runner" on my top bunk, which was delightful way to pass a day. I went to the restaurant car where I had placed a yummy treat Chung gave to me before I left in the fridge. YUM! Rice noodles, rice milk, mashed bananas and peanuts! YUM YUM YUM!

I arrived in Nam Dinh in the evening, found a cyclo who I asked to take me to a CHEAP hotel and who brought me to the nicest hotel in town. It was late, I was tired so I haggled with the clerk until I got a more reasonable price and stayed in the lap of luxury for one night. I had to wait until morning to pick up my bike (in whatever condition I would find it) and, fortunately, when I arrived at the train station, it was sitting inside the rail office in the same shape I sent it in. After a spin around town and a few bowls of pho bo (beef noodle soup), I quickly loaded up and pedaled out of town to Ninh Binh, 30km away. A short ride, not too much traffic, scenary was not terribly interesting.

Ninh Binh was a nice stop. It was lovely. It was unexpectedly VERY VERY busy with MANY MANY buses plying its newly constructed straight shot roads through the rice fields. There were caves to look at, pagodas to visit and an ancient capital to see. The first day I was there, I discovered how insane the tourist traffic was and decided to skip most of the attractions and simply enjoy the pedaling. I did stop at a few pagodas and climbed a few stairs to see a couple views. But, it wasn't until the second day, when I left early with my full load of gear to ride to the ancient capital and then on to the modern capital, that I saw some real Ninh Binh scenary and landscape. I got off on a small, lumpy bumpy backwoods road and road through the rice fields and small farming villages. I ended up at a spot called the Mua Cave well before any tourist traffic arrived...the guard was still making breakfast at his house when I pedaled right by and went straight to the cave with a host of cheers and hollers. He ran after me and escorted me back to his house where I left the bike and all my gear under his watch. The valley was filled with music! Not recorded music, but LIVE traditional musics! Some festival was going on that morning and the pleasant, spiraling sounds echoed up the valley. I plied the hundred or two hundred some steps to the top of the hill to the pagoda for a view of the whole area and the notes of the flutes, drums and other instruments followed me! This was a lovely stop at this time of day. Everything, including the birds were still sleepy, though their singing from their nests within crevaces in the rock blended with the music to make quiet a lovely scene.

The remainder of they day brought more and more traffic. I stopped at the ancient capital, not much of interest and not entirely worth the 12 or so kms I went out of my way to get to it (I took a wrong turn somewhere and should have rode right by). I rode on to the next big town which was the last big town prior to the start of 60 kms of freeway leading into Hanoi. I had been warned more than once by cyclists not to ride in to Hanoi. With the help of five kind men, I hailed a local bus with a roof rack in Phu Li and got a ride the remainder of the distance to the nations capital. I will say, from my limited view from my plastic seat in the middle of the aisle on the packed bus, it was totally possible to ride this section of road. It was busy, but there was a very wide shoulder. The only thing is, there isn't food, water or a town alongside the road for much of the 60km of highway 1 preceding Hanoi. I was fine with the bus, I only had 2.5 hours to make the 60km and, in the end, arrived in Hanoi with plenty of daylight to ride the remaining 5 or so kms into the city center IN TRAFFIC!

WHOO HOO! Riding in Hanoi traffic is like riding a roller coaster! Exilerating! I'm EXCITED and PROUD to ride my bicycle in a place where automobiles are really third class citizens on the roads behind bikes and motor bikes (at the top of the totem)!!! YEAH!!! If only LA was like this!!!! There's so much motor bike traffic, cars are really forced to find small niches in traffic and ply their way carefully through the crowds, often being battered around by the whims of the motor bikes or the needs of the bicycles. This meant I could easily swerve around them, cut them off, ride ahead of them in traffic and the like (all the things I DREAM of doing back home!!!) because there was ABSOLUTELY nowhere for them to go and nothing to do except TAKE IT! Hahahhahhahaahahaaaaa (*evil laugh*)!!! This with a full load of gear, too!

I explored the Old Quarter briefly only to find prices way too high for my budget and resorted to the LP which led me to a guest house. Fortunately, that guest house lost standing with all the guide books and is no longer listed in new guide books and was mostly vacant of travelers! I got a cheap little mouse hole of a room with a TV and BBC and they had a place for my bike indoors. They said they'd keep it, too, while I was away at Halong, so I stayed.

Note: I'm growing increasingly concerned about slippage in the drive train on the bike. The cog set and chain need to be replaced before I move on to the high mountains and long long climbs. If not, I'll just have to ride around town and then bus or fly to my next destination.