Off the beaten track

This weekend was quite an adventure. With a dream team of five people from four different countries, we headed into unkown land, off the beaten track. When the locals from Hanoi asked where we were going, they had to look it up on map.

Hanoi is great. It's a bustling city that only sleeps between 01:00-05:00. The noise, the crowds and lately also the pollution can really make you long for trees, and some peace and quiet.

So last week I looked on Google maps and zoomed in on a big green spot not too far away from Hanoi. I keept zooming in, until I found signs of civilization. A few "homestays" popped up on the map. With a little help from google translate and my local neighbour, I managed to book one night for five people in a homestay in a village called Ban Coi, in Xuan Son National Park.

Saturday morning we all met with our backpacks and were picked up by our driver, Mr T, who took us to Xuan Son about 3,5 hours from Hanoi. When we came into the national park, the roads were narrow, dusty, partly paved and with the most spectacular scenery I have seen so far in Vietnam! Rice fields, tea plantations, mountains, rivers and valleys - Xuan Son is beautiful.
Mr T had to turn back to take another road once, because the road simply disapeared into a river.

When we fianlly arrived at the homestay, a local home cooked meal waited for us.

On our first afternoon we hiked to a cave near by, Hang Coi, and explored the narrow passages and big openings in the cave. Later we walked back through the village, where we saw the locals harvest the rice fields, children palying volleyball and chicken ang geese running around on the small farms. We headed for the local "swim hole" to cool down after a day in the sun.

In the evening we had dinner cooked at the homestay. I liked most of the food but some if I would describe as "interesting". Sometimes it was difficult to know what we were eating. But we all recognized a chicken foot in the soup.

On Sunday we hiked to the "Waterfall in the sky", a 5-6 km hike in total. The path took us along a river, up a mountain side, down again, along the river and to a beautiful waterfall where we put our warm beers in the cold water and went for a swim. When we got back up, the beer was cold!

I think we all agreed that the weekend had been fantastic, and definitely above my expectations. Tourism is not big in the national park, yet. We got a lot of smiles and "hellos" from the locals who we passed on our hikes and got to see glimpses of their daily farming lives in the middle of the national park.

Vietnam really has a variety of experiences to offer!

Thanks for an amazing weekend (and the pictures) guys  <3

Our homestay

Waterfall in sky

Buffalos!

Happy Pride

Happy Hanoi Pride everyone!

And the right answer to how many family members can fit on a scooter in Hanoi is 5!

Like a new city

I like walking and running. The first few days after arriving in Hanoi I was terrified to step out of the door (only slightly exaggerating) because of the chaos on the streets. It took me a few days to realize that it wasn't so bad after all. But Hanoi is definitely not a pedestrians paradise, or a runners paradise for that matter. Or so I thought. 

Today I discovered a completely new world in Hanoi! It's the early-morning-world. I'm so grateful for the local friends I have made here, who asked if I wanted to go for a Sunday morning run at 6 am. Of course I said yes!

It was like stepping out in a new city at 6 am. All the motorbikes and cars were gone. Instead cyclists, runners, power walkers, aerobic ladies and kids running around had taken over the streets. I think I have to become a morning person when in Hanoi. 

The aerobic ladies are actually a funny story. So since I moved from the 2nd to the 3rd floor in the building, I've woken up a few times at 5 am to very loud music (terrible music...) and I cursed my stupid neighbour for having such a bad taste in music so early in the morning. But now I realized that it's the local aerobic ladies from the block, doing their morning aerobics session. It's entertaining to watch. 

This weekend I went to The Museum of Ethnology in Hanoi. I heard it was one of the better museums in the city and it didn't let me down! The museum is focusing on the 54 officially recognized ethnic groups in Vietnam, each ethnic group with their own language. Pretty impressive. And in Finland we're struggling with two official languages. What a joke. 

Question: how many Vietnamese family members can fit on one scooter? 

(The correct answer will be in the next post)

Vietnam Museum of Ethnology

Traditional bed. My bed is just as hard as this one.... Getting usied to it

Water puppet stage. It's a thing here. I still haven't seen a water puppet show

Traditional house in the museum

Outside of the museum

Scenic goat route

Saturday in Ninh Binh! The BIG sightseeing day.

After a lovely homemade breakfast with the hotel owners father (or uncle?) and her 2 month old baby, I was ready to venture out on the road with Mr. Crappy for a second day of sightseeing. The weather was sunny. The forcast promised me I would sweat again today in 35 degrees celcius.

On today's agenda was a slightly longer drive to Tràng An landscape complex, a UNESCO world heritage site and later in the afteroon the Bái Đính pagoda.

The Tràng An river/cave/limestone mountain complex can only be seen by taking the official UNESCO boat tour lasting 3-4 hours.

The tour had spectacular scenery, peaceful temple areas and claustrophobic caves. The tour I chose took us through a 350 m long cave where we all had to sit down on the floor of the boat because the cave was so low and narrow. And depending on what tour you took, there was a chance to catch a glimpse of King Kong himself. The movie Kong: Skull Island had a few scenes filmed in Tràng An.

After 4 hours in a boat Mr. Crappy and I drove to a local restaurant where I tried goat meat. Ninh Binh is very famous for its goat meat and you see goats (the live kind) and restaurants with with pictures of goats everywhere. I quickly learned that goat is "dê" in Vietnamese. You can even buy a whole skinned goat from the side of the road.

In Bái Đính it took me ages to find the parking for the temple area. After a good 30 min of searching I finally found it and later laughed at how I could have missed such a big entrance gate to begin with. The temple area was huge and I could easely have spent half a day there.

And now we get to the part where Mr. Crappy really earned his name. I had forgiven him for a small incident earlier, when the seat came off while I was filling the tank with gas. But now he didn't start. Just dead! It took two security guards to kick start Mr. Crappy. And the same happened again at a restaurant later in the evening. Good thing the weekend was coming to an end, according to Mr. Crappy.

Ninh Binh, I will miss the scenery and the lack of traffic!

Tràng An UNESCO tour

Tràng An

Yes we went through this 320 m long cave

One of many temple areas on the tour

Sweating like a pig

Mr. Crappy

Stupa at Bái Đính 

View from Bái Đính pagoda

Buddah at the end of the stairs

Ninh Binh and Mr. Crappy

This post will be about my weekend in Ninh Binh, a city 90 km outside of Hahoi and Mr. Crappy, my scooter.

My last weekend before the serious business would start I wanted to see some of the beautiful nature in Vietnam that I've heard so much about but not really seen. I was told that a city called Ninh Binh was the perfect weekend getaway from the bustling big city life.

Ninh Binh really had it all! Rice paddies, goats, rivers and limestone mountains. What more could you ask for? Oh, and did I mention, no traffic. Not compared to Hanoi at least. 

On Firday I took public transportation (the bus!) to Ninh Binh. The bus trip itself was an adventure. Busses in Vietnam apparently also operate as a mail delivery service. When I got to Ninh Binh after a surpringsingly comfortable ride I realized I wasn't in Hanoi anymore. There were no "Grabs" or taxis anywhere. No-one stopped and asked if I needed a ride. My hotel just a few km away so I was fine, just sweaty! I was thinking that getting around Ninh Binh would be difficult, without transportation... Maybe I should rent a motorbike? The traffic was nothing compared to Hanoi after all.

The hotel (Thành Đạt Hotel) was lovely and felt more like a home than a hotel. Well, it was a home since the family running it also lived there. My window faced a big rice paddy and the owners were very helpful and gave lots of advice on how to get around and what to see.

I ended up renting a motorbike from the hotel! I would later name the motorbike Mr. Crappy.

On my first afternoon Mr. Crappy and I drove to see Hoa Lư, the ancient capital of Vietnam during the 10th and 11th century. I strolled around the temple grounds after a friendly guard let me in for free (the ticket office was hard to find!).

When Hoa Lư closed its gates for the day, I continued to the Am Tien cave and temple. Am Tien cave was a short walk from Hoa Lư and had a peacful walking route around a hidden lake. On one of the mountain sides there were stairs leading up to a temple inside a cave.

When the sun set, Mr. Crappy and I headed home.

The ancient capital of Hoa Lu

Am Tiên

Am Tiên

Chùa Am Tiên - cave temple

What am I doing here

What am I doing here?

Working!

Today is a good day to explain why I moved to Hanoi and why I will stay here until the end of December. I met my colleagues-to-be for the first time today. They were a lovely bunch of friendly, humoristic people who welcomed me to their small team. We all had lunch together at a nearby restaurant and I feel super motivated to start my new job on Monday next week.

I was given the absolutely amazing opportunity to accept a job offer at the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) in Ha Noi. I'm going to work at the department called Emergency Center for Trans-boundary Animal Disease (ECTAD) which is a very small team in FAO. My official job titel is (here it goes): antimicrobial resistance project documentation consultant. Even though the titel includes the word "consultant", I think I will be the one asking most of the questions.

The rest of my team consists of locals from Vietnam and two team members from Thailand and Japan. During our first lunch together I entertained my colleagues with my chopstick talents...

I guess antibiotic resistance is not an unfamiliar term to most. The way antibiotics are used here in Vietnam is much less regulated than in western countries. If I would like to, I could get over-the-counter antibiotics from a pharmacy here in Ha Noi without a prescription from a doctor. The same goes for a farmer with animals.

So I will be a part of a team of mostly veterinarians working on (among other things) reports on antibiotic resistance in Vietnamese production animals and raising awareness of good practices when it comes to antibiotic use on farms.

Coriander and Yoga Mats

I've taken baby steps here Ha Noi, handling one culture shock at a time. Today's project was grocery shopping! Since I will stay here for a while, I figured I can't eat out every day and every meal. Now that I (sort of) can navigate the alleys, I decided to take the 900 meter trip to the nearest supermarket. I don't have a Vietnamese sim-card yet, so when I'm out of the house, I have no access to Google translate, which has been a dear friend since I arrived.

The supermarket was fun! There were so many things I had no idea what they were. And everything was in Vietnamese. I had a shopping list since today's project was cooking Vietnamese food, but my English shopping list was semi-useful in the store. I didn't buy the chicken feet. After one hour I had found almost everything on my list. In the evening I relized that the coriander definitely wasn't coriander when I tasted my food. But all in all, I would say I nailed grocery shopping and cooking today. Next time I will find you, coriander.

I also bought a yoga mat today which was another fun experience. I used google maps and translate to find out where I could get a yoga mat and google maps gave me an address close by. Now, if you read my previous post, you know how the alleys in Ha Noi are a bit tricky. Well, without internet it took me 4 friendly Vietnamese people to find the right address: one old man who spoke only Vietnamese pointed me in the right direction, one blind woman how spoke English but couldn't read the address I was showing on my phone, one young girl who was eager to help but had no idea where the address was and finally a local veterinarian who spoke good English and knew that the neighbours sold yoga mats.

The yoga mat house seemed closed, but the veterinarian shouted from the street and soon the metal doors were pulled aside and I was invited into my first Vietnamese home buy an older couple. I think I interrupted their lunch. They gave me a chair and pointed at me to sit down. Now they brought out heaps of yoga mats for me to look at. Their daugther (I think) joined shortly and spoke good English and finally I decided to go for the slightly cheaper purple yoga mat.

Here in Ha Noi, just walking 600 meters to buy a yoga mat on the parallel alley is an adventure.

Cooking like the locals! But no, the green stuff wasn't coriander.