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Wednesday soon came around and we all got ready for our separate tours. This time they were not so prompt and Ash and Ha left 45 minutes late while I was picked up another 10 minutes after them. I had a two and half hour drive to Ninh Binh and got chatting to a rather enthusiastic Chinese guy next to me. After being convinced that I must visit China in the near future, we arrived in Hoa Lu, the ancient capital. From the Le and Dinh Dynasties, a young boy from the area fought for the country and became a General and then King, choosing Hoa Lu as the first capital of Vietnam. We had a look round the ancient temple situated within the protection of huge mountains on either side.
From here we drove to Tam Coc for Lunch where I got to know two English girls and an Italian girl. I shared a boat with the Italian as we floated down the Ngô Đồng River rowed by the cycling action of a local man's feet. The locals that row have got this practice down to a fine art and leisurely you drift in little tin boat on a two hour excursion down and back the river. Apart from the other tourists also enjoying this experience, the place is peaceful and in the heat of the sun I soaked up the surrounding mountain scenery. All sorts of wildlife had made this beautiful landscape their home with hoards of ducks in groups at the sides of the river as well as dragonflies darting all over the place, skimming the surface of the water.
The most interesting pat of this experience is the chance to go through caves with rooves that are only a few metres above the water. We meandered our way to the end where we were met by women on 'floating boat shops' who proceeded to guilt trip us into buying a drink for the man rowing us. We then turned around and made our way back, enjoying the views from a different perspective. Once we had all arrived safely back on shore, we took the minibus back to Hanoi.
Having both had long days the day before and with Ha feeling a bit under the weather, we took a lazy morning on the Thursday. We had the whole day to kill before catching the overnight train back to Da Nang in the evening. After packing all our stuff up and moving into one room, I left the other two to rest some more and took the opportunity to take one last look around the city and aimed to spend a few hours in the Vietnam Women's Museum.
It was a great place, I learnt about Vietnamese women through history and more about their place in their culture. The wedding ceremony display was particularly interesting and I was amazed at how much more complicated and varied wedding ceremonies are in different rural communities. Women fought and revolted for their country, protecting it throughout the 20th century and still strive today to scrape enough money together to keep their families afloat.
I got back to the hotel and relaxed a bit before we headed out to the train station. The train journey was a long one, 18 hours of cramped and smelly conditions but we got what we had paid for. People had cheekily hopped on the train and paid an underhand payment to one of the ticket officers to sit on a plastic chair in the aisle completely filling up the carriage. People were swapping seats all over the place and we left the station with a poor child crying after her mother who could not make the journey with her. I slept on and off and finally woke at about 5am to have some breakfast. When I did have to get up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, I was horrified to find one toilet was completely missing and there was just a hole in the bottom of the train. After some well-needed food, it was sad to see a load of lads throw their polystyrene cartons out of the window of the train once they had finished with them, adding to the piles of rubbish littering the side of the tracks. I was relieved when we finally arrived at one o'clock in the afternoon; as much as I enjoyed visiting Hanoi, my heart now belongs to Da Nang.
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