V's for Vietnam...
Yesterday was a perfect blue day. I spent it with an Aussie guy Ricky looking around. First we went to the royal cidatel which was so so to be honest. Some amazing building but to me they were just buildings. Yeah, not much to say about it. Here's some pics instead...
Me and Ricky...
Royal guys...
Getting friendly with the wildlife...
A building...
Another one... (see what I mean? They are all just buildings!! Cool ones admittedly but still)
Then in the afternoon we stopped being tourists and just went for a relaxing bike ride. First we headed for this bridge which supposedly has an amazing scenic ride to it amongst rice fields and rural villages etc. We rode along not really knowing where we were going and after giving up hope of finding the bridge we came upon a little cafe in the middle of no where.
We pulled in and spent the next hour drinking sugar cane juice and, while Ricky took a nap, I learnt how to play chinese checkers - really quite similar to Chess I think. Only problem is that the symbols on the tiles seem to change on every board and so once a few moves have been made i forget which are which (Bishop, pawn, castle etc - though they're not called that. Instead they are given names like 'motorbike', 'car', 'horse' and 'gun' over here depending on their moves). So after I had solidly proven I had no hope of ever winning a game we biked on only to find the bridge was just 50m down the road!
There were duck farms everywhere too with hundreds of the buggers...
When we arrived at the bridge this guy on a boat saw us admiring his progress up the river with his two young kids and offered us a lift. We jumped aboard and went for a ride down the river. Nice still water. Perfect blue sky. Beautiful scenery on either side. Then I took the helm (that what it's called when you steer?). Instantly the kids were in fits of laughter, the boat was rocking every which way as I tried to keep us going in a straight like down the river. After about 20cm I promptly steered us straight into the bank. Fun times though and the owner didn't seem to mind (o:
The boat and his 'crew'...
Afterwards we met a farmer with his water buffalo who let me pet them - we couldn't work out if they'd attack us or not and so it was a very cautious approach up to them. The farmer just smiled when we tried to ask if we could pet them. In the end it turned out they were quite friendly and like the cows back home, they enjoyed a good scratch behind the ears - the horns were pretty intimidating though and I was ready to run if needed i have to admit. Who's minding who?!
I spent a while talking with this guy - or it was more of both of us talking to each other in different languages and not really understanding anything and yet understanding each other perfectly. We were sitting on a grass ditch watching some kids play soccer and so I soon went and joined them with Ricky too.
The soccer was a great laugh with kids everywhere going every direction and laughing the whole time at us though god only knows why. We played till we were verging on heat stroke and then headed back for some more cane juice.
Afterwards we found it was only around 3pm so we biked off down a random road. A few km's on we found a side street and peddled down. We met some girls half way who kept telling us to turn around (I think they thought we were lost) but we kept on to see where it went. It ended in a residential area and when we got a dead end we found ourselves at someones house. They invited us in for tea and what followed was a replica of the conversation with the farmer only this time it involved about 14 of us!
They also invited us for dinner but sadly - very sadly! - we had to go as it was getting dark. Before we left they wrote a letter for me in Vietnamese which i didn't have clue what it was on about. I have since had it translated and it says how they were glad to met us, sad they couldn't understand english very well and that they would love to remain friends. Pity I'm off. They were a very welcoming and friendly family. And of course they had the daughter they kept trying to get to talk to us. Hahah. But they were really nice.
The family...
We had stayed until dusk at their house though and realised that we had better head off before it got so dark we wouldn't be able to find our way home. You're going to love the photos of the sunset! Amazing! Ricky took them and will send them on to me when he can. Truly amazing.
So peddling home we stopped for dinner art this cafe real quick. All the options were in Vietnamese but they let me wander around the cafe's kitchen looking into all the pots until i had an idea of what was on offer. Very friendly people! I had full access to their home! I ended up ordering fried baby frogs - delicious! I love frog it seems. They were so good! Then once we'd eaten (all of 80c NZ for about 40 frogs) we went frog catching with their daughter after laughing about how we'd love to try it - I put back all i caught though (o;
Then home to bed after a few tidbits off the street like vietnamese doughnuts, wontons and sweet breads.
Then today I awoke to solid rain. Extreme monsoon. Best yet. And I can't even begin to describe the thunder! Wow!!! I have never heard anything like it. It was like a bomb had gone off in the room next door. So loud! Like nothing I have ever heard in NZ - probably 10 times louder. Took my breath away.
But I leave Hue today so i figured i'd better do something. So i cruised to the market. Bought a t-shirt (i have to buy XL here and they're still tiny!) and some fruit and caught a cyclo home. Cyclo's are like lazy-boy seats attched to a bike behind. Cost nothing and are a pleasant way to cruise around the town.
Anyway, the roads right now are completely flooded in some parts of the town. To get here I walked up to my knees through water down the middle of the street. Even the cockroaches are dying and floating down the streets in droves. The rain just won't let up!
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