D21: Tam Cốc to Nho Quan

February 24, 2018

It is never, ever, not ever a good thing to get a phone call at 2am in the morning. It's an even worse thing when the person calling you is one time zone off and they are actually calling at 3am. Not that I was asleep mind you. The combination of the second cup of coffee with Francis, the flat undemanding roads, and the finale of The Widow's House by Daniel Abraham meant that even though I was contentedly snuggled up under the duvet on the first really and truly soft bed since I left home, I wasn't sleeping. Once I got the phone call however on the topic of "could I help with the police" because an American friend in China just got bottled in the face by one of the local troublemaker foreigners, it was hard to find the sleep I'd just recently been telling myself I was chasing while I read "just one more chapter".

In addition to the soft bed, my hotel room had a heater. Combine that with my very late night, and I had a nice long lazy lie-in. Got up, got dressed, and went outside to breakfast probably close on to 10am. It was cold and gray and nasty outside so I didn't really lose any of my day by not leaving my bed.

In the hopes that you'll realize that they produce embroidery and that you'll buy it from them, the room at the Tam Coc Craft Homestay was full of various embroidered things. I'm reasonably sure the pillowcase and duvet embroidery was hand done.

This is the second time this trip a foreigner facing hotel on the so-called "Banana Pancake Trail" has included breakfast in the price of the room. Both times breakfast has been banana pancakes. Last time was more like crepes and had chocolate sauce but I think these were actually superior pancakes. Also, real coffee. You can never go wrong with giving me real coffee.

I borrowed a mountain bike to go check out the temple at the end of the road. All things being equal, my bike probably would have been perfectly safe in the covered parking. I probably wouldn't have had to worry that anyone would think a pannier hid a laptop. But, I preferred not to risk it. I appreciate that the guesthouse owner was willing to loan me a bike but, at the same time, it was, I think, the singularly most uncomfortable bicycle I have ever ridden. The seat post wouldn't stay in place, the frame was a shade too small, the brakes didn't work, the spindle on the right pedal was bent, the tires were low on pressure, and the saddle was padded with bubble wrap held in place with a shower cap.

I don't think this is actually a Louis Garneau bike

However, it got me to the temple and it got me back again.

If there was any doubt left that this was in fact the place that Mike and I visited in 2006, the temple took that doubt away.

We'd rented bikes in the town where we were staying. Maybe from Mr. Fawlty but maybe not. Neither of us is quite sure. We rented bikes and we went to the boat tour parking lot where we were the only people getting a boat tour. Then we rode the ratty tatty road to the end, stopping a few times to let buses pass on a road too small for them. We spent long enough at the temple that we had to discover that even though both of our bikes had generator headlights, only one headlight worked.

I didn't see the deaf caretaker Mike was able to talk to in homesign and, traveling on my own, I wouldn't have climbed all the way to the top of the karst peak which the temple is built into and around even if there wasn't a sign telling me not to do so. I also didn't see any reason to pay to get a boat tour when I was alone on a cold gray day.

I appreciate that the "Don't Climb" sign is in Vietnamese, English, and Chinese

There are still buses but instead of bikes getting out of the way for them, the buses wait patiently for the groups of cyclists wobbling their way down the road like schools of not very organized fish that can't be guaranteed to be good at stopping. The road isn't ratty tatty any more. And while goat sausage is still a local specialty in the areas where the Vietnamese tourists go, no one is slaughtering goats by the side of the road.

I have the feeling that those water bottles are full of blood

In many ways it's a different place than it was when we were there but it's still the same place. A little more frenetic, a little more jaded, a lot more tourists who aren't there as temple goers but still beautiful.

I don't think I saw a single visitor who was dressed anything other than casually

There's a statue of Guanyin hiding in the entrance gate

When I was here with Mike in 2006, I got all excited because I could read some of the inscriptions and I started trying to puzzle out what they said. Mostly they said "so-and-so such-and-such on this-and-that date donated X amount of money or goods for the purpose of improving/fixing the temple". I'd only been formally studying Chinese for a semester at that point so being able to just casually read something random was a fairly new skill which, prior to this point, I'd never actually tried out on a temple (so I didn't know just how formulaic and easy most temple inscriptions are).

Because I apparently understood what was written on the walls, this deaf guy, who apparently worked at the temple, ended up grabbing me by the arm, pulling us back into a private area behind the kitchen and pulling hundred year old woodblock printing press blocks out of a cabinet. Of course, if those hadn't been mirrored and had been in pure Chinese rather than Viet-Chinese, I still wouldn't have been able to read them at the level of Chinese I had at the time.

Probably because I'm only trying to puzzle out very simple things but the Viet-modified form of Chinese is surprisingly easy to read

After about five minutes that were probably very boring for both Mike and the deaf man, he indicated that the time was getting late and basically dragged us up the stairs to the various shrines built into the mountain. The cave parts didn't have any lights back then. Thankfully, they've got lights now.

After we came out of the uppermost cave, we followed him to the very top of the karst peak on a trail that was better suited for mountain goats than people. On our way down, Mike (who used to be an Eagle Scout) and I found ourselves unable to not pick up some of the rubbish that practically lined the trail. When our hands got so full of trash that we weren't going to be able to carry it any more, the deaf guy took it from us. Then he hid it behind a rock. Out of sight, out of mind.

I'm pleased to say that the temple has lots of garbage bins now. Even if it's only a small step and only in one place, it indicates that Vietnamese attitudes toward littering are changing just as American attitudes changed 40 years ago or Chinese attitudes changed 5 years ago.

Left the mountain bike at my guesthouse, got my bike, and went to lunch. Spent much too much time at lunch. Spent much too much time talking to people. Finally bought a (not very good) paper map of Vietnam. Got lost seventeen times trying to find the correct small road out of town before giving up and taking a bigger one. Didn't go on any of the other boat tours, didn't visit the big temple complex or Hoa Lu Ancient Capital. Instead I biked and biked and biked along flat roads of varying qualities and sizes and shapes and pavement through villages and crowded parking areas and silent countryside and traffic jams.

Would have enjoyed the day a bit more if I'd been a bit less worried about the early sunset on a foggy gray day that never really got especially bright. But it was a good day. I had fun.

I found where all the non-white tourists go

The guy on the bike is herding the horses down the middle of the road

Judging by the crowd on the stairs, I am very glad I am not at that attraction - whatever it is

I'm not sure why but rather a lot of bridges in Vietnam were financed with money from Japan

I saw a small road donated by Australians but I didn't see bridges built by anyone non-Vietnamese other than the Japanese

Random bit of dual carriageway without any cars (but lots of litter)

Nice little Catholic church in the near distance

The GPS thought I should stay up here instead of moving down to the paved road

The drifts of trash are literally everywhere... it's like that Crying Indian PSA by Keep America Beautiful

I was very glad when I got to Nho Quan as the never very bright sky was getting a lot darker a lot earlier than I liked. It didn't actually get dark until 20 minutes after sunset but it started feeling dark more than a hour before sunset and, no matter how often I checked where I was at intersections, I kept finding myself somewhere slightly else taking a road that the mapping programs thought was the longest of my five options.

Today's ride: 49 km (30 miles)
Total: 1,043 km (648 miles)

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