A post written by my mom (click here for related pictures)...
I'd like to tell about our boat trip at Ba Be National Park, in northern Vietnam. On April 3rd, 2008, we drove 6 hours north to Ba Be with a hired driver and car. We weren't far from China when we got there! The next morning we gathered a few things, and were driven to a boat launch with our new guide, whose name sounded like Chip. He spoke very little English, and Anna had to do lots of translating! We climbed into our 20' open boat with tarp/thatch awning. Our pilot cranked the handle of the engine, and we were off down the Nang River. How exciting to see wild countryside, mountains, and rice paddies chugging by us! After awhile the river disappeared around a corner and into a gaping hole in the hillside. We went right into a cave!
There were stalactites coming down from the ceiling, and flowstone in places. Swifts zoomed in and out of the high chamber, disappearing up a ceiling hole. Our boat docked, and we got out, walking along the wide ledge on one bank. When we got farthest back in the cave, we stared into a black cavern. There must've been a kajillion bats in there, by the sounds of their chippering and the smell of their droppings. When I took a picture, there were eye-shines here and there in the flash. Too bad we didn't have a flashlight! These flitter-mice would've been fascinating to see, especially pouring out of the cave at dusk!
We continued down the river, stopping at a Tay minority village to walk around. We felt like we were the local clown show as villagers watched us try to negotiate 8" wide rice paddy dikes! At one point, 3 men had to pass me going in the opposite direction. They scootched down and passed behind by legs as I stood sideways. They commented in Vietnamese "so big" according to Anna…little did they know she could understand! They only came up to my shoulder , but I'm not sure that was the "big" they were commenting on! We saw water buffalo, and a woman with a shoulder pole with rice seedlings to be transplanted. We walked the village paths, and the dogs barked and growled at us in the same dog language they use back home! I liked trying to imagine what it was like to live there, with the rice fields, mountains, and river around me. How secluded! Yet what community they must have!
Back on the boat, we continued downstream past mountain views and wonderful smells of flowering trees. We disembarked at another Tay village, and walked to a waterfall. The water really rushed and pounded through the rocks, and both the guide and Butch grew alarmed when Anna ventured down close in her flip-flops. Later I read that there had been tourist fatalities there, so no wonder the guide was worried!
We trekked back to the village, and stopped at a house for lunch. It was just the 3 of us and our guide there. I watched as the woman of the house and her daughter chopped cabbage and potatoes on a wooden counter. They cooked over a cement hearth, fed with bamboo trunks. We sat at a table, looking up at the thatched roof and the bamboo gutter pipes. The room was fairly spacious, with a hard bed in one corner, about 5 tables, and a little "store" counter at the front. We drank tea from small ceramic cups with the guide. We really enjoyed being in the hut and having the village experience, even if only for an hour.
Boating up-river after lunch, we snuck over to Ba Be Lake on a connector canal. We landed on a shore of the lake and took a quick hike to a small pond. It was great to get away for the noise of the diesel engine, and hear strange bird songs across the water. I'd read about this pond too: "Ao Tien is a small lake on the top of the mountain. The climate around here is very cool and fresh. Legend said that the fairies above always go down in this place to swim and play chess. Therefore, people name this place Ao Tien (the lake of fairy)." There were no fairies, no swimming, and no chess, but it was a wonderful place nevertheless!
Our next stop was at a pagoda on an island. Climbing to the top of the hill, we arrived in an open area with a temple on one side and a house on another. We visited the pagoda first, an open building with a huge drum at the end. The priest greeted us, and was quite intrigued that Anna could speak Vietnamese. They rattled on about what she was doing there and that we were her folks from the U.S. We took some pictures of the elaborate and colorful altar with statues of Confucius (complete with beard hairs, so you could tell it wasn't Buddha!). Then the priest invited us to the house for tea! We sat overlooking Lake Ba Be, and visiting. All Vietnamese want to know how old you are, so they know how to address you properly. It turns out that our host was only 5 months older than Butch. I ruminated about how their lives were so different, and yet about the same length. What an experience to have that shared moment of juncture. If the Vietnamese war had lasted longer, these 2 might have been enemy combatants, but here they sat drinking tea together in peace. Ahhh, peace is good.
We finished our boat trip with a chug around Widow's Island and landed at the boat launch. The vendors were ready for us, and moved in to sell us local tea, sesame candies, and clothes. We drove back to our bungalow at park headquarters for a long snooze. We finished the day with dinner at the park restaurant (accompanied by a French woman traveling by herself and a Vietnamese Karaoke party). The skinny kitchen kitty gladly helped us finish our meal of rice and lake fish. What a long and wonderful day we'd had, experiencing so many aspects of rural Vietnam!
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