South of Hanoi
Vietnamese drive 125cc motor scooters for hundreds of kilometers on highways. Workers in Hanoi drive south to provinces such as Ninh Binh and Nam Dinh on holidays. Scooters weave in and out of the few cars and many other highway users, such as quadruple axle sand trucks, ox carts, and school kids on bicycles. Twice a day, the highways are lined with hundreds of bicycles with at least two, and often three or even four school kids on each bike. They roll along like laughing monkeys sitting on the handlebars, rear rack, and wherever else they can hold on. Meanwhile, trucks barrel down the road at 40 km/h blasting their horns, brushing the bikes out of the way.
In the dust wake of the trucks, the bikers wobble to the shoulder, practically dumping all passengers. This makes the kids laugh even more; they simply regain balance and keep riding on, “ve nha,” towards home, inevitably for "an com," their rice meal of the day.
Vietnamese often drive with their thumbs above the handlebars on the scooter; their hands always seem relaxed as they ride along smoking a cigarette with one hand. I hypothesized that my thumb went numb after only 30 km of driving because I held it under the handlebar in a terror-grip. Clouds of dust and diesel exhaust, led my passenger and friend, Tin, to lean into me, pressing his face between my shoulder blades. This extra weight on the arms cut off circulation to my thumb.
We were driving in and around Hue for a few days over two weekends. Sites included what my friend called his "secret garden," Lang Gia Long, an old imperial tomb, and the surrounding rice fields dotted with old American war era watch towers.
Outside of Hue we headed down Highway 1 to Suoi Voi "Elephant springs" for a quick and cool dip. Then on to Lang Co beach for the night. The morning took us up Deo Hai Van, a high mountain pass essentially separating north and South Vietnam in geology, climate, and perhaps even politics. This is where we stopped. We took in the view, climbed over old French and American gunnery towers, bunkers, and watch towers, evaded postcard peddlers and then coasted, motor off, back down to sea-level. We took some photos of the Reunification Express, the daily passenger train connecting Saigon with Hanoi, as it puffed towards a tunnel on its way south, and through the mountain. Most cars and trucks also take a tunnel. The mountain pass road is now just for tourists to see the vista. Travel time to Da Nang was cut by one hour after the construction of the tunnel.
The Ninh Binh province, covered with limestone mountains, is often called the “inland Halong Bay.” We drove on narrow roads through the rice fields of Tam Coc, between mountains which form thousands of valleys beneath towers of enchanting limestone. We found ourselves at the primary tourist point for visiting these mountains on the seventieth anniversary of the Communist Youth Party, so busloads of children were visiting their places of national treasure and heritage, Tam Coc, included.
Further north towards Hanoi is a province where hundreds of Catholic churches rest like anchored grey ships in an ocean of green fields of rice. The efforts of missionaries were concentrated in this area, and now Vietnamese-Americans support the up-keep of old churches, and the building of new churches. We toured several villages in this area to photograph some of the churches. Our visit ended at Phat Diem, a complex of cathedrals, essentially marking the seat of Roman Catholicism in Vietnam.
See more photos and access my albums by clicking on any above. All of them, save photos of my friend Tin, were taken by Tin.
