Ninh Binh, they call it Ha Long Bay but with rice fields.  Lauren and I arrived by bus and then relaxed for the rest of the day.  I was still throwing up.

The next day we hired motorbikes from the hotel and headed to Trang An to go on a boat trip.  It was very busy because it was a public holiday, Hung King, first king of Viet Nam.  We got into one of the very unstable boats, five of us in total.  The views were amazing and we went through long tunnels that were sometimes about 500m long.

It was mostly women who were the rowers and some even rowed with their feet.

We would get off and on and look at Temples and the tour took about 3 hours.  From there we went back to the hotel and rested, it is hard being a tourist!

We then went to Truong Yen, the Ancient City.  Here were temples from the 9th century.

There is a strong Chinese influence here in the north of Viet Nam due to the proximity to the Chinese border.

The next day we visited Ninh Hai.  It was amazing, we kept walking up this mountain and there were more temples located at every turn.

We then went exploring, you can see the path in the photo below, and a man approached us and wanted to invite us into a cave.  We declined as all I could think of was Wolf Creek!

We then got a local bus back to Hanoi and I fared a lot better this time.  However, it is quite competitive to get passengers for the buses.  The bus pulls up to the side of the road if there are people there and starts yelling.  If there is another bus already there, they try and cut the other bus off.  It was entertaining.

 

In Vietnam it is more complicated on what to call family and friends than in English.  For example, the polite way to call older people is Mr and Mrs Last Name in Western cultures.  If you are talking to your grandparents you use Gran, Granny, Pop, Granddad etc.

I got onto this topic when I asked my Vietnamese teacher why some people were called numbers.  I work with a person called Nam and Bay, 5 and 7 respectively.  He said that in families instead of using there given name, they use numbers.  For example:

• Eldest: hai (2)
• next brother or sister: ba (3)
• next brother or sister: bon (4)
• next brother or sister: nam (5)

Noting that they don’t start at one (mot).

Now this is where is gets more complicated.  If I meet a friends father I call him for example Hai (2).  However if there are a lot of Hai, then I call him Hai and then the name of his eldest son, Quan,  ie Hai Quan.  This is a cultural custom and is still practiced in the rural areas but is not as common in the urban areas now.  If you don’t call them like this it is very rude.

Also there are different words for ‘you’ depending on age and sex:

• ban – same age, friend
• Anh – older man
• chi – older woman
• Chau – baby
• Con/Chau – child
• em- younger than you
• Chu/bac – male, parents age
• Co/di – female, parents age
• ong – male, grandparents age
• ba – female, grandparents age

It explains why one of the common questions asked is ‘how old are you?’.