The Weekend

It’s obvious what I should write about now. Marjie and I went to Ninh Binh this past weekend to enjoy the luxury of a soft opening at the Ana Mandara. I’d put a link to their website, but I can only find reviews and articles about the resort.

Tub with a View

Let me be clear, the weekend was a blast, but there was always something nagging me. We paid a fair to high price for what got. Can you complain about a bathroom with a view like this? Probably not, aside from the fact that anyone on the second floor of that building in the distance can look in, so … nice try. The buildings for the Deluxe Bungaloos had intricate wood carvings and traditional looking ceilings with exposed cross beams. Despite the initial appearance of luxurious elegance it only takes a few attempts to open or lock the bathroom door, the one call to maintenance to show you how hard you have to pull to unlock your door, and seeing water stream into the room during a heavy rain storm to realize the resort was not necessarily designed with attention for certain environmental factors that seem to afflict Vietnam – heat and rain. See, when it rains, you’d like to think your room is not at risk of flooding because the door doesn’t really seal when it closes. And, you’d like to think for the money poured into the wood and carvings that the designers also thought about perennial power shortages and high electricity prices, resulting in a beautiful, highly energy efficient bungalow. Not really, there were many holes to the outside where A/C could escape and bugs could enter. For the days when the weather encourages you to open the window, the lack of screens and mosquito nets coupled with pools of standing water making you decide between saving the planet or getting malaria.

Alright, enough griping. OK, well almost. The food was really expensive and there wasn’t much variety. It tasted good, but it just wasn’t worth what we had to pay.

That was it. All the little quirks aside, we loved our weekend there. We took a tour of the area to visit the three caves – Tam Coc – a few temples, the green pagoda – Bich Dong – and took a long bike ride around the Van Long Nature preserve.

Did I mention it rained all weekend? Well it did. And I think we loved what we did even more. Marjie was hell bent on taking a tour to see the caves. I was less than enthusiastic – another tour? in the rain? really? I could tell this was not a battle that could be won, so I went along. She was excited and loved it. I loved it, too. I’m glad she was unwavering in her determination to brave the fringe weather of a tropical storm to check these places out.

The River and Karsts

We were rewarded with lovely views of a karst lined river. We saw old temples. While not trying to be Theroux poo-pooish, the sites were only slightly marred by the stream of tourists, buses, and tourist service facilities that surrounded each of the attractions. The whole series of attractions was like a theme park for Vietnamese history. Think of Bush Gardens in Williamsburg, but much more legit and filled with locals trying to sell you all sorts of souvenirs.

I have to say, my favorite part of the weekend was riding around the Van Long preserve because we were on our own, didn’t need to listen/talk to a guide, and we could just go at our own pace. Aside from getting soaked in the last 20minutes of the ride, the other two hours took us through some ruddy roads, jungle, and around the big mountains. Next time we’ll actually get into the preserve with our own inflatable kayaks.

Though this may not be the most well thought out, insightful piece, I want to get back into the habit of writing. My one observation, confirmed during a conversation on the shuttle on the way to work, is that land use here in Vietnam leaves much to be desired. There’s no coordination across the country, so you wind up with massive concrete plants in pristine places that sit idle. You have massive industrial parks that are connected to no major economic center because the roads are terrible. You have massive resorts that likely employ local people, but they’re right smack in the middle of traditional rice paddies.

 

Upper Zambezi Canoe Trip

Compared to the Lower Zambezi, the still waters of the wide Upper Zambezi gave me the feeling of being on a lake rather than the mighty Zambezi that had tossed me around like a rag doll yesterday. However, adrenaline still coursed through my veins as I kept my eyes out for crocodiles and hippos surfacing near the canoe.

The morning was chilly, especially in the open bed of the truck carrying us and the canoes. We drove about an hour or so from town, into the Zambezi National Park. The road wasn’t too bad and the scenery was about person-high bushes, shrubs, and the scattered tall tree. It was mostly brown – it is winter and the dry season down here – and we saw a small herd of water buffalo checking us out as we drove slowly by.

At the river, we disturbed a group of baboons, but otherwise, we sat on the beautiful banks of the not-so-mighty-looking Zambezi. Here, the river is wide and dotted with hundreds of small, sandy islands that disappear at the height of the rainy season. For now, we enjoyed out breakfast and a safety brief before going for a lazy paddle.

I felt a little disappointed at first. We didn’t get on the water until the sun was well above the horizon and we didn’t see too many animals at first. Just a few birds, really. Then, our guide spotted a few hippos. These guys can move quick in the water and are pretty territorial, so we gave them wide berth.

A little later, we rounded the corner and, voila!, two elephants at the water’s edge. We quietly maneuvered the canoes so we could watch and take photos. I would say the elephants were no more than 50 to 100 meters away. Next time, I’ll be sure to bring my laser range finder to give you the exact distance.

We saw a few more elephants on the far bank of the river. You could tell they had been in the water because they were two toned. Light for about the top one-sixth of their body and dark the rest of the way down. When I saw the elephants, I felt the trip was worth it.

Just being outside in the sun, paddling on the river was great. The air is clean and the water cool – although you don’t go in because you might tempt a crocodile to nibble gently on your toes. I could easily have spent another day or two on the river, just watching the banks go by.

Benediction

I heard this benediction on (you guessed it) Democracy Now!.  The Sierra Club recorded Edward Abbey during a talk they sponsored at the University of Utah.  I thought this was brilliant!

May your trails be crooked, winding and lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view.

May your mountains rise into and above the clouds.

May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys, tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets’ towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal, mysterious swamps infested with crocodiles, and down from there into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down, down again, into a deep, vast, ancient, unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.