Hanoi 2

Today I had a day tour of a place about 70km south of Hanoi called Tam Coc. And it was really good. Despite all the hawking. There was a rich Vietnamese couple on my tour and we chatted a litting seeing as we had to with a good half an hour before the minibus arrived. We did the rounds then, collecting people, including a lady by herself from Chile and a Dutch lady (who'd befriended an English and American lady) and a retired Aussie couple. Before we got to the main attraction we saw some temples of historical significance. I just don't remember what their significance is now. The usual hawkers, some looking even more destitute than usual, and photographers were waiting outside the temples along with broken fairground rides. I didn't quite understand the temples themselves, as they seemed to be about worshipping a previous emperor rather than any particular religion. After that long stop we drove the rest of the long way to Ninh Binh but before hopping on any boats we had our tour lunch, again on long tables and not enough food. An English/Aussie couple happened to be on the tour who recognised me from the Hue train station - they took the hard sleeper and seemed to have enjoyed it. When it was time to jump on the boats I ended up with the lady from Chile and despite the disneyland look to the start, the boat was fantastic - slowly paddling through the water (mother and daughter conical hatted Vietnamese doing the paddling). We went through caves and next to brilliant green rice paddies, the mother (who looked about 150 years old and with only two remaining teeth) gestured that her arm was tired and would I give the rowing a go - of course I did. When we got to the end before we started back there were loads of boats trying to sell stuff of course - completely captive because we couldn't get away. On the journey back the mother took out a photo of her family, pointing to all the members and I just knew that was the beginning of the sell. She tried t-shirts, table clothes and the like. I just put my head down and paddled while the Chilean lady had to say "no sorry" about a hundred times. When that didn't work they started going on about a tip for "mama and baba" and I really felt the whole thing was going downhill. We passed by the English/Aussie couple on the way back and the husband shouted across the same story - down to the sore shoulder. But despite all that I really enjoyed it. Vietnamese rich guy then spent the whole journey on the bus back telling me how much he like various computer technologies so everyone could hear. It was a long journey.