March 22 - Dry Halong Bay

I left my rather unmemorable motel and found quite a few interesting things right in the morning.

First, I saw a number of large graves right across the villages I was riding through - by the way, at least in the morning, I managed to find some smaller roads. Note that this wasn't a graveyard - such graves, being on the fields near the houses, was a common view in Vietnam. To quote from a website, "the coffin is placed in the middle of the rice field and the dead’s eldest son has to walk backward, or even rolling on the muddy ground, to show his regret of his parent’s death".

Graves in the fields

Then I saw a school, where children were assembling, and doing physical exercises to the sound of drums.

Schoolkids exercising to the sound of drums

My bike pants were torn on the side a bit and I found a sewing manufacture right next to the road, with rows of sewing machines being (wo)manned by ladies. They were kind enough to take care of my pants - without asking for a fee.

Sewing manufacture

My book mentioned it, but it was hard not to miss - this area was a catholic one. According to statistics, Vietnam has only 6% Catholics, with the country having close to 100 million inhabitants (yes, it is the 15th most populous nation in the world), this translates to some 6 million religious people, more than in Austria. I saw a 3-storey house being turned into a basilica. It looked a bit awkward to me.

A basilica being built

...and there were large churches in the distance.

Catholic area

There were also Buddhist temples, I entered a larger one, where a dance of sorts was going on, as far as I could judge, it was just for the local folks. It might have been for charity, as they had a lady collecting money.

Buddhist temple

Charity (?) dance

After lunch, I saw a fellow long-range biker and was in for a surprise - this was a young German girl, 21, Katarina, biking all by herself. She had been on the road for about two months, starting from Phu Quoc, the island in the very south of Vietnam. She was kind enough to give me her map of the southern part of the country, I thanked her by giving a couple of energy bars. Quite brave!

21-year-old Katarina, biking by herself

The scenery turned to be very enjoyable, now I was riding in the area which is referred to as the "dry Halong Bay", there were similar wild limestone formations that I had seen the day before at sea.

Dry Halong Bay

I then took a turn from the main road to the Trang An, a scenic area listed in the UNESCO World Heritage sites, which has boat tours on a river, leading through a number of caves. For about $15, one gets a two-person boat, with a local person rowing the boat - with his feet! I was coupled up with a Danish guy and off we went.

Rowing with feet

It was a nice experience - though it took close to two hours, by the end of which I was quite bored and thought of all the distance that I could have covered by bike. The experience was also very touristy, at a place where the boats turn around, pushy hawkers came up, trying to sell all kinds of souvenirs and beverages. At the end, our 'driver' started asking for a tip rather aggressively - so he got none. Here are some pictures.

View of other tourists and the landscape

Rowing into a cave

Traffic jam

There would have been more things to see in the area, cave temples and pagodas - but all I wanted was to leave. Now I was again riding on a major road into the sunset.

The sun setting between two peaks

I rode till the town of Than Hoa, covering 160 kilometers, also called a 'century' in miles - I then pampered myself with a very nice place, Lam Kinh Hotel. At the reception, where two hotel employees, they apparently did not know anything about Hungary or Austria, then the bell-boy came up and he said you are either from Budapest or Vienna. I was quite impressed!