Hanoi to Ninh Binh. Culture Shock and Riding Shock.
I didn't initially have culture shock when I was in Hanoi. It seemed more like a dream, but getting on the bike and riding really made it clear that I was not riding in the United States anymore.
Getting used to traffic in Vietnam starts with walking across the street. Slow and steady, look both ways, but don't expect that once you step in the cross walk that the traffic will stop for you. Instead as you steadily cross the street, the traffic will weave around you.
Cycling is similar, but the traffic comes at you faster. It is not uncommon for someone to make a right turn from the far left lane.
A few miles from Dan Que, we hid in an empty unpainted building to hide from a storm. Unfortunately, it didn't stop raining, so we had to continue in the rain. This was a touch of what was to come as the remainder of the riding in Vietnam which would include many hours of steady rain.
Terry saying hi on our first day of riding.
The Bike Before Being Covered in Dirt and Mud.
View from the Road.
Entrances to Houses Typically Have a Ramp Along the Middle for the Motorbike.
As we came into Ninh Binh, I wanted to turn and visit some caves and grotoes - Thien Ton Cave, Vua Dinh Temple, and Bich Dong Cave. But it was raining very hard at this point. So we stopped at a restaurant at the corner. It was nice to be able to step out of the rain. It really started to come down at this point.
Wet, wearing lycra, and being American, I felt awkward entering the restaurant. The few patrons that were there stared at us. One of the patrons spoke English. We were dumbly trying to figure out what to do. I wanted to keep riding, but I was hungry and thought it might be nice to eat dinner. So this began our first food negotiation while riding in Vietnam.
Kids' Toys. What are These?
In my reading up on the subject, I had learned that saving face was very important in the Vietnamese culture. I had also read that most things with a price were negotiated - food, produce, water, and room rates. What I didn't realize is that negotiating for food might conflict with my personal need to save face.
Since there were no menus and we couldn't communicate what we wanted, we did the next best thing, we walked into the restaurant's kitchen and pointed to what we wanted. The patron who spoke English also helped us with ordering and negotiating for a price, but we wanted a lower price. We ended the negotiations when we didn't get the lower price. As we were walking away, the cook swore at us or at the very least called us hairy pigs. The gentlemen who helped us looked at us as though we were stupid for not buying reasonably priced food. He shoook his head. To me this was almost too much to bear. I was embarrased, wet, and I was still hungry. Later on I would realize that the price that she offered was within the normal Vietnamese meal price range.
So we continued on to Ninh Binh in the pouring rain. Arriving in Ninh Binh, we began the hotel routine that we would use through out the trip: we visited three hotels and then made a decision. I had been clutching my guidebook for dear life throughout my trip so far. Altough I was warned not to, my guidebook became my safety blanket. What I would learn is that businesses change quickly in Vietnam. This was especially true for restaurants, but also was partially true for hotels. The guidebook gave a good overview of each city and its environs, but it couldn't be relied upon. After using the guidebook to get the lay of the land, we still had to find where we were going to lodge and eat by ourselves.
In Ninh Binh, I wanted to look for one of the hotels listed in the guidebook. So we kept riding south until we seemed to be leaving the city. I had a hard time focusing because I was worn out from the botched restaurant experience, the rain, and the fact that it was hard to find the street names. Eventually we passed a hotel sign. So we stopped to take a look. The Xuan Hoa Hotel (at 31D Duong Pho Minh Khai) looked nice, had clean rooms, a few foreigners in the lobby, and had western food. We then went and visited a few more hotels, finally returning to the Xuan Hoa. We ate some food at the hotel and later walked around the town, stopping at a Karaoke Bar.
Entrance to a Karaoke Bar.
No comments:
Post a Comment