Ba Vi National Park

Yesterday marked the second Sunday in a row I've been able to take a day and tour the Vietnamese Countryside. 


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We travelled west from Hanoi again, this time visiting Duong Lam, an ancient, authentic Vietnamese village dating back to the 1500s, then on to Ba Vi National Park.  I was accompanied by Mr Thanh, Air Mekong's Manager of Space Control (which sounds like something out of NASA and is non-existent in the US airline industry; his department is kind of a mix of Revenue Management, Dispatch and Scheduling functions for you airline readers) and Steve Banks, our VP of Maintenance.

Fortunately, it was another beautiful day here.  We left early to minimize driving in the heat, stopped for a bowl of pho on the way out of town and headed for Duong Lam.

Most of the drive was a mix of semi-suburban, industrial use development, so wasn't very scenic.  Fortunately, we saw plenty of agricultural landscape in between (which, in Vietnam, means lots of rice fields). 

On the way, we were able to see what these contraptions are used for.  I think they're rice thatchers?  Anyway, the farmers feed the rice plant into the top side and grains of rice pop out in the bottom front.  You can see the woven bowls they use to collect the rice as it comes out of the machine; once the bowl is full, they fill the sacks and it's ready to go.

An ox on the side of the road.

Eventually we arrived at Duong Lam.

We pulled into town at market time and it was very busy.  There were vendors there selling tons of fruit and fresh meat, all splayed out on wooden tables for all to see. 

We pulled into a center courtyard and sat down with an old woman and had a beer.  She had about three teeth and proceeded to tell us that during the war, the American's dropped food near her home there.  She was quite the chatterbox.

Afterward, we walked around a bit and visited two very old buildings.  The first was a residence built in the 1600s.  Inside we sat and had tea.

The entryway into the courtyard; a tunnel made of

the roots of plants hanging above.  Very cool.

That's dried corn-on-the-cob hanging to the left.

Next we walked to a communal house which dated to the 1500s and had a community well in front.

Before leaving town, we saw a couple of other interesting scenes...

A woman walking her cow through town...

Another woman selling chickens from the cage on the back of her motorcycle.

As I stopped to take a picture, she loaded 3-4 on the scale just behind her.

Somebody had chicken for dinner last night!

After leaving the village, we travelled back through the countryside, stopping at a roadside vendor for some fresh bread which was mighty tasty. 

And I can never take enough pictures of bikers with trees...

And on the way, we passed this interesting "orchard" of some kind; I have no idea what kind of trees these are or what grows on them.

Eventually we arrived at Ba Vi National Park and the scenery was spectacular.  Unfortunately, as we climbed the mountain (which should show on the Google map above, but I couldn't get the line to reflect our drive to work right), it got foggier and foggier, so not many pics I'm afraid.

By the time we arrived at the top of the park, the weather had cleared.  At the top of the road, there was a nice little park where people had brought picnic lunches and were enjoying the fresh, clear, clean rainforest air.

It also marked the entrance to a short hike to the top of the mountain.  It was all steps, straight up for 20-minutes, so it made for a great workout. 

At the top was a temple dedicated to Ho Chi Minh, "Uncle Ho", who's quite the cult figure here in Vietnam.  Not in a Kim Sung Il, North Korea cultish kind of way, just in an honored reverence kinda way...and likely more so here in North Vietnam than in the South.

You can see a gold statue of Uncle Ho in the center;

at the base were several people praying.  For a new pony, I think.

Unfortunately, at this point, my cell phone battery ran out, so that meant the end of any picture-taking.  Fortunately, there wasn't much new to take a picture of on the way back home.

It would have been nice to have a shot of the restaurant where we ate on the way.  It was a very nice place built over a small stream with a beautiful wood interior and Japanese style tables (so we sat on mats on the floor instead of stools). 

At this point, we were starving so ordered a full meal featuring chicken and sticky rice.  What we didn't realize is that our chicken was out clucking in the back when we arrived.  Yeah, that's how fresh it was. 

And just to remind me of his demise, they served him up fresh on a plate with his poor little grilled head staring right at me.  :o/

It was another great day of travelling the Vietnamese Countryside.  And best of all, there was another spectacular sunset waiting when I got back home to Hanoi.

Aaron, Jim, Sylvie and Amanda; this is for you.