Wondrous We-at-Nam!

A year long period of travelling dormancy was broken with a blissful trip to one of the very beautiful countries in South East Asia: Vietnam.  The process of planning the holiday, making itinerary, booking flights and hotels was as exciting and fun as travelling itself. All set, we embarked on our New year escapade from Singapore with a short stopover at Ho Chi Minh city; time spent mostly playing UNO cards and learning basic Vietnamese words and their pronunciations: Thanks to Google Translator! An uneventful flight journey followed after which we reached Da Nang, a widely spread city in the central province, around which we spent the next couple of days. Thoroughly enjoyed the drive from airport in the twilight: broad immaculate roads, having more than 70% people on two wheelers (all helmeted), cycle rickshaws with people on front, hoardings with incomprehensible roman alphabets, starred red communist flags finding place every 10 metres, narrow but long houses with glass frontal, busy decorated roads with people hustling for new year celebrations.. Welcome to We-at-Nam! (US soldiers named it Nam).

Dumping luggage at the hotel, we headed straight to have dinner with veg noodles and salad, rice paper wrapped fried pumpkins (yum!), specially cooked for us vegetarians. We took a walk to the ancient town of Hoi An, brightly lit streets which have preserved French architecture from colonial times, with a tinge of Chinese and Japanese styles. Bountiful shops selling local handicrafts on the riverside were thronged by tourists, with illuminated wooden houses on other side. A boat ride by an old lady happily rowing us across Thu Bon river with colorful floating lanterns was no less than paradise. Lying on the boat on the chilly night with music and buzzing people in the background, shining light reflections on water, staring in the star-less cloudy sky, was so calm and serene. Surabhi and Aninda took a few pictures, it was tricky since it was dark and camera couldn’t capture the beauty that our eyes felt and saw: perfect appetite for Friday night thrills. We strolled through the waterfront watching the amazing blend of ancient tradition and modern music, loud yet peaceful ambience constituted the cultural centre of Hoi An, a UNESCO world heritage. It was unique to welcome New Year in a different country, though we were fast asleep when the clock struck 12.

                                    

Sur and I woke up early next morning and quickly got ready only to realize later that we forgot to reset our alarms and were 1 hr ahead of time. Stuffing in the limited veg breakfast available, we were met by our tour guide for central province: Uncle Chin, a cheerful old man with a sound knowledge on Vietnamese history and culture and was as enthusiastic to share stories as much as we were interested to hear. Marble mountains was the first stop of the day, where we first had a look at the marble sculpting process; the statues quite expensive were intricately carved and embellished. There were five mountains representing different elements of universe, but due to time constraints we chose to visit the Thuy (water) mountain which was the largest of all. Having to take a swanky elevator at nature’s best was a put off, but going up gradually revealed a wide expanse of the city. The site being coastal, was overlooking a beautiful beach and offered a panoramic view of the rest four element mountains. It was a tortuous mountain track, several hidden, rocky caves, with Buddhist and Hindu temples and statues conserved in pristine state. The caves had great significance during the war times as the Vietnamese communists would hide in these caves at night. Climbing up the mountain was effort taking, especially with some rains, the uneven terrains and steps become more slippery. Due to this reason, we missed out on some details and Mukund always managed to catch up with Uncle Chin, or rather the reverse. While driving back, we stocked up fruits and bread and listened to Uncle Chin’s stories about Lady Buddha and other related events.

 

We passed through a picturesque countryside on our way to next destination: My Son (Meaning: Beautiful Mountain), last of Hindu temple remnants from Champa kingdom. Stopping by the museum, Uncle Chin briefly explained how people migrated from south of India and constructed temple complexes between 8^th-14^th century in different parts of Vietnam. We moved ahead to the sanctuary, which were bombed during French and American wars and all that remains now is some mahogany coloured bricked constructions in the lushy green land with a faint fragrance of residual Hindusim. Preserving the ruins of centuries old temples, with creepers growing through the untouched shriveled bricks, mutilated idols, were some things that made the heritage so appealing. Interestingly, the shape of each complex outlined the structure of ‘Shiv linga’ and they worshipped full structured Shiva idols, not just the Shiv lings. Most of the Hindus here converted to Islam, saying a goodbye to the only Hindu civilization in Vietnam. On our way back, we paid a short visit to Cham museum which houses some statues and idols, Sanskrit/Pali inscribed stones that survived the war bombings. Marking our attendance at a nearby beach and standing by the waves for a few moments we continued our journey to the Imperial city, Hue through dusk till night.

Being punctual students, we were on time to be received by our energetic Uncle Chin next morning who warned us from being tardy, lest we forgo some important to-visit places. It was long walking through the sprawling decrepit citadel of Nguyen Dynasty, whose monarchy lasted until 1945. The building, altars, library, entertainment theatres designs were typically Chinese, ornated with red-golden designs and the affluence spoke for itself. The then forbidden city where king privately held meetings, Queen’s palace etc were destroyed and several other structures were either being restored or rebuilt. Tankers, airplanes from the wars times were in display outside, visible even while walking through the city roads. Short on time, we took a quick ferry ride to the other bank, everyone was muted and watching the water: it was quite a sedating view. We visited tombs of two emperors from this dynasty built well in advance before their deaths at different locations in proximity. The build, architecture, serene and peaceful surroundings only iterated the beliefs of the wealthy emperors in ‘after life’ and their efforts in reassuring comforts post death. Our historical tour at Hue, filled with truck loads of information and trivia ended here leaving us exhausted and famished. Throughout Surabhi was doing ‘RGgiri’ competing with class topper Mukund, who was undoubtedly Uncle Chin’s pet. Hungry minds devoured the parceled fried rice on way to Da Nang airport, where we parted from our tour guide moving forward to the next leg of our trip: Northern Vietnam.

 

Sur and I carefully listened to class topper’s his-story of Hanoi during the flight journey and watched a beautiful sunset atop snowy clouds. We headed straight to Hanoi railway station after landing for overnight journey to Sa pa, the most awaited part of this trip. Excited walking past the classy coaches, we arrived at the first sitting hard berth coaches (ours), much to our disappointment. Fully booked, seven mins for the train to depart, we made a call to pass this one. It’d have been impossible to spend a whole night sitting on these wooden benches and still be energetic enough to trek the next day. There began the adventure, the first challenge of which was hotel hunting on a freaking Friday night preceding the new year weekend in Vietnam’s capital. Aninda, Dipa ji and Parthiv took care of our luggage, and we went to ten hotels before the posh May De Ville gave a nod. Next challenge was to plan a to-do for the next day which could match levels with the beauty of Sa Pa trek and make us not fret about having missed it. Skimming through the lonely planet guide and internet, we unanimously decided on a day trip next morning to Ninh Binh, the first capital of Vietnam.

Third challenge was finding cheapest quotes from a travel agent for Ninh Binh, and soon enough we were cramped inside a 7 seater car with our short statured tour guide Chiang. The 3 h journey without a break was quite hurtful to spine and joints, although we managed to keep ourselves distracted by singing bollywood songs, on request by Chiang. We visited the tomb of emperors from Ling and Le dynasty, which looked quite inferior to the previous grand tombs. It was amusing to see the kind of offerings for their gods and ancestors at the altars: coke cans, cigarettes, red bull, biscuits etc. We sorely missed Uncle Chin’s narration, as Chiang’s accent was inconceivable with the omission of last syllable of every word (Wi for wife, ee for eat etc). Now comes the best part (thankfully!) of our trip, a mesmerizing boat ride through Tam coc river in pairs of two (Sur and me). Our stylo oarsman was rowing with his legs, which although seemed challenging was quite energy conserving. There were photographers on other boats eager to click our pictures and sell, most of us were indifferent as it was hard to take eyes off the beauty we were witnessing live. The weather was pleasantly perfect, in the almost clear sky, the view of blazing warm sun playing hide and seek among mountains and valleys was just so fascinating. Afar and disconnected from bustling city life, this fantasy world left us speechless, we enjoyed the heavenly view in silence. The sound of cranes, oars pushing the water back rhythmically, quacking ducklings forming a train, chilly air blowing by the cheeks, quiet tourists passing by on other boats, it was so calm and peaceful that time came to a standstill. It smelt damp and felt cold as we passed through limestone caves with plentiful stalactites hanging around. Dusk fell when we turned to go back to our starting point, had goosebumps, both due to freezing air and enchanting view! I felt jolted out of this reverie as the boat took us to the river bank; with cars, buildings, noisy crowd, yeah the real world in sight. Ofcourse we realized Sa Pa didn’t happen for a very good reason. Heading back to Hanoi, we had a rushed up dinner just to be on time for the much recommended water puppet show. The show focused on the rural and cultural life in Vietnam, the aesthetics and techniques were commendable. Post show, we took a short walk around the beautiful Hoan Kiem lake and called it a day.

We started early next day for an agonizingly long bus ride to the most famous touristy spot of Vietnam: Ha Long Bay. The bus seats could be blamed for the uncomfortable journey, there was a short break to stretch legs. A vegetarian table booked for us in the ferry had nondescript lunch waiting for us, it  was gobbled up quickly to enjoy the scenery on ferry deck. The sea was calm and seasick-people friendly, there were huge grottoes resembling animals all around the sea. In a sub-trip, a bamboo boat sailed us around floating village area, which was an absolute rip off. Peripheral ends almost going numb Sun shone to make us feel warmer in the freezing weather. We stopped at one of the limestone caves, climbing upto which we saw humungous stalactites and stalagmites. It was fun interpreting and guessing the different shapes formed like: elephants, broccoli, curtains, human, dead lizard etc. The ambience was fabricated, colourful lights on S&S, tubelights, staircase; though beautiful structures it felt unreal. Way back, lying on the deckchairs I stared into the empty sky; couples around me were enjoying the romantic view of sea, fully grown bushes ornamenting weathered rocks. The view of distant grottoes in the shrouded mist resembled huge pointed ice bergs. Ha Long Bay trip was a mundane repetition and bigger version of Ninh Binh, saturating long, big boat flooded with chattering tourists, commercialized and overly hyped. The much dreaded long journey back to Hanoi was spent playing word games which wrapped up the last day of our trip.

6 friends, 6 days, 6 cities, all 4 capitals, 4/8 UNESCO heritages, history, culture, scenic beauty; what better can an ideal holiday offer? Met wonderful people who went out of their ways to help us, enjoyed sumptuous vegetarian meals and multi course breakfasts, total detachment from real life, spent time playing games, so much travelling and learning; this dreamland was beyond expectations.. Thanks to my fellow traveler friends for making this trip such an enjoyable and memorable one!

Photo Courtesy: Surabhi, Aninda.