Break from reality...

It has been legendary among the expat teachers in the city; the mythical beast that was always there tempting you but then matched its allure only with a failure to appear; then one day without warning it had arrived. Chinese New Year had arrived and with it five weeks of freedom. Many expats were off to Thailand, Malaysia or back home, but for me there was only one direction to head, South East Asia.

THE JOURNEY

4pm rolled around on the afternoon of Saturday 15th of January, the hectic and overcrowded confines of the main railway station in Guangzhou was the setting for the first leg of our adventure, a 14 hour dash across the southern provinces of China to Nanning city just 3 hours from the northern Vietnam border. With pulsating crowds of Chinese all heading back o the countryside of the New Year (February 3rd) the noise, heat and smell was oppressive and by the time 2 hours had been spent queuing to get on the train the slim hard bed provided seemed like sweet relief.

Departure in GZ main Train station

En Route to Hanoi

Now Chinese trains are part of the most used public transport system on the planet, so travelling at peak time was only going to end in one thing, space invasion! After half an hour getting settled an innocent attempt to make friends with the elderly guy who had taken up squatting rites on the end of my bed ended in the next 6 hours spent making conversation. No problem here except that he spoke not one word of English consequently leaving me and Anna to explain our life story to him, and the gathering crowd, (who by this time were also using our beds as arm chairs for the story of the travelling ‘whities’) in our finest broken Chinese.

6.40, and the train pulls in an hour late. Having braved the early morning communal squat toilets for a quick freshen up, and successfully ignored the sewage surrounding them thus keeping my stomach in check, we were ready for action, and we needed to be. Our connecting bus to the freedom of the border was due to leave at 7.20 on the other side of town. To preserve mother’s nerves I will refrain from the specific details, but when the driver finally understood we were in a hurry he was only too pleased to oblige with the half hour trip completed well under 20 minutes, every Chinese has a Schumacher in them somewhere it seems. As it turned out it all this drama was slightly unnecessary as several busses were leaving for Hanoi that morning with the first not departing to 8.30 we now had well over an hour to kill!

Having rolled through the spectacular countryside of southern China and northern Vietnam for the best part of a day, with giant limestone hills (karsts) rising out of the ground at every turn, the bus’s entrance into the hustle and bustle of Hanoi seems hugely out of place with the journey.

HANOI

The city was crazy. Mopeds and rickshaws flew in all direction at frightening pace. Horns quickly established themselves as the soundtrack for our stay as humans and animals converged regularly into the mayhem. In stark contrast to China people walked fast and with a purpose, the energy in the city was immediately palpable. In the middle of the chaos lay our hostel, a comparative oasis of calm in the hectic surroundings. With bags dropped off and a complimentary coffee tucked away we walked out the door into the wall of sound and energy that rushed to greet us.

The energy was electric as we walked through the city’s old town area. Crossing the road became a genuine adrenaline rush and an almost impossible task as the narrow, buzzing streets contained little in the way of gaps to cross and after the first few times where we waited diligently for a gap to appear, the technique became clear… set off at a slow pace into the flow of traffic and let them avoid you…

Walking through the maze of streets and alleys that entwine in the old centre you are quickly struck by an oddity totally foreign to western towns and cities, each street sells pretty much the same thing. In a clear break from basic economic theory which says your business should find a niche, each street sells just one product. If shoes are your thing then there is no better street than Hang Be which sells purely shoes, Silk is on Hang Gai, and sunglasses on Hang Ngang.

Hanoi Street Life

Lanterns

One of the best things about Hanoi was a small restaurant called KOTO. Set up as a not-for-profit venture to provide some of Hanoi’s numerous street children with a way out of poverty, KOTO gives invaluable training and work-experience in the hospitality sector. This gives the young adults that work and train here the skills they need to break out of the cycle of abuse, neglect, crime and poverty. Apart from being a great cause, the food was also superb and it is well worth your support should you ever find yourself in the city.

The brilliant water puppet show is another of the city’s treasures. Originating from bored farmers in the country’s rice paddies, the show uses water as a stage, as the master puppeteers control their puppets under the water to the accompaniment of live traditional music. The show tells many traditional stories and offered a glimpse into the traditional life of the past, even if the glimpse itself came through highly commercialised glasses.

With only a handful stand-out attractions it is not long before most who visit discover Hanoi’s other great attraction, a café culture to rival the best in Europe. With the French bringing coffee to the country during its colonisation Vietnam has a developed and thriving coffee culture. Uniquely, the way of serving coffee here is to place a metal ‘filter’ above a glass cup of condensed milk, and allowing boiling water to drip very slowly through the ‘filter’ which is packed full of rich ground coffee (see pic.) The need for the sweet condensed milk is quickly apparent as the strength and intensity of the coffee is akin to eating a raw chilli, and the tea chaser provided as standard is a vital addition.

Kites over Hoan Kiem Lake

HALONG BAY

With our time in Hanoi up the next stop on our trip were the marquee sights of Halong Bay, four hours to the east of Hanoi. While a four hour drive in a minibus usually isn’t worthy of note there was little usual about this trip. Warned on arrival into the minibus that ‘our roads are different to yours so don’t worry about the driving’ I guess it was inevitable that the next few hours of my life would include the constant sound of horns, numerous moments where all that the windscreen brought was fear as a lorry or car roared towards you, and finally that most usual of things, a cow strapped to the back of a scooter. Usual it wasn’t.

Having got there in one piece (still not sure how) we boarded one of the hundreds of Chinese style junks that throng the harbour(that’s old wooden boats to me and you) and in some style headed out into the netherworld that lay consumed in mist just beyond the harbour wall.

The escapism and surrealism that grips you is intense as the misty wall in front gives way to a faint outline of slightly darker grey. As we got nearer the grey would darken, and as we silently glided past the grey gave way to the greens and browns of the thousands of karsts that rise so majestically out of the water. It feels like you are slipping into another world as the mist then closes in behind you and slowly you are dragged deeper into the maze of karsts, with open water firmly left behind.

The experience is everything in Ha Long, just getting into the middle of the mountains of karsts is worth the money alone. However, as with tourism everywhere there are things to keep you amused lest your attention should (if it were possible) drift from the stunning surrounding. In my experience very few of these actually enhance the trip but in this case the exception was found. By far one of the best things we did in the two days we were in the bay was to take a kayak out away from the boat to explore the deeper recesses of the maze. With the only sound breaking the clinging silence being the swish of the oars the tranquillity was absolute.

And so as with every great trip it must end. Luckily for us this just meant the end of the beginning as our next bus (and my next blog) too us inland (at equally breakneck speed) to the small rural town of Ninh Binh. Of our time in Hanoi and Ha Long the poetic juxtaposition of the crazy city and the tranquil otherworld can be summed up in four much over used and clichéd words…

Once in a lifetime!!!

Into the Mist