We took a tour to hoa lu - tam coc early at 8 this morning. It was a rather last minute decision, and we book the trip from a nearby tour place near our hotel, at USD12 per person (after bargaining), it is definately a trip worth goin to.
We first went on a bus traveling to the east of hanoi for about 1 and half hour, on a toll way surprisingly.
Hanoi outskirt look like prospering these days. Endless paddy rice fields, fish ponds, farms. But the living condition generally look still behind time.
Ancesstral grave tomb sharing land with the wet paddy field. Chinese tend to think this bring bad feng sui!
Churches found even in smaller town. But most Vietnamese remain religionless, as communism turn the society into a secular one
It was rice harvesting time when we were there. Everyone is busy drying rice on the walk way, corridor, road side. Even the straw get dried for other use. Nothing left unrecycled.
We first went to the Dinh and Le dynasty palace. Looks nicely preserved, really nothing too remarkable as a palace (you know, i just been to the forbidden city in beijing last year). But as a temple itself, the cravings, drawings on the beam is quite remarkable. The pics here cannot really show the kind of elaborate decorations the real thing has.
After lunch at tam coc, we wall to the nearby pier and took these small shaky looking small boats to see the beautiful mountains and three caves.
Words not good enough to describe how beautiful this whole place. You see the pics yourself.
The water is quite clean as well, as fishes and grasses can be seen clearly from the boat.
Vietnamese people are really admirable hard working people. They are determined ve work for their every cent. The two lady that rowed for us, really took great effort to row for the next two hours. But after that, they can be persistent on selling us the souvinirs, consisting mostly fair quality embroidery stuffs. I bought some for usd5, not really cheap And before we left, the insist us in giving them tips as well! Duh!!
