Rural northern Vietnam. This is Hoa Lu, the capital of the Vietnamese kingdom before it was moved to Hanoi. Good choice for siting a capital - the limestone karsts should have rendered the place almost impregnable.
One of the temples built by the Vietnamese kings of old, for royalty to practise ancestral worship.
While in Hoa Lu, a buffalo ambled past bearing its master, who held in one hand a bundle of grass which he dangled in front of the beast to urge it forward at random moments. A common sight in those parts, doubtless, but nevertheless uncommon to Singaporean eyes. Sio Ngai and I approached and asked in haltingly slow English if we could take a photograph with the rider and its burly steed. He very blithely obliged, and even invited us to clamber up on the back on the animal behind him. Neither of us took the offer, reluctant to be at the wrong side of a brush with a wrathful buffalo. We were amongst the first of a number of travellers who had photographs taken with the farmer and the buffalo.
Can you spot them?Bravo, if you have! Don't worry if you haven't, it took me a good while as well to spot the goats. I've read about how surefooted these creatures are, but I never really believed it until I saw this.
No, I wouldn't scale a rock face like this with all the safety equipment in the world.
Tam Coc, which means Three Caves in Vietnamese. This is commonly known as the Ha Long Bay of paddy fields, and rightly so. It surpasses Ha Long Bay in natural splendour, in my humble opinion. Although there were considerably less tourists here than in Ha Long Bay, there was no lack of the ubiquitous local trying to sell to the odd tourist souvenirs manufactured elsewhere at exorbitant prices.There were two locals who shared the craft with us, one took the oars and was the chief rower, the other now and then paddled when either Sio Ngai or I weren't (we had earlier volunteered to row). When the other wasn't paddling, she was busy peddling unwanted overpriced souvenirs to us. Our boat stopped to rest a bit after we passed through the third cave, and we were set upon by two or three riverine vendors who appeared to be excessively concerned about ensuring our sufficient hydration. We declined their kind offers as graciously as we could. Sensing staunch resistance on our part, they attempted a flank, and sought to strike where there was sympathy to be found - a brilliant entrepreneurial stroke. One of them sidled her craft next to ours, and then suggested that perhaps their comrades who were with us needed the beverages instead, if we did not.
I was later on to rue a swift capitulation.
Quite lush, don't you think?
The water babies. The latitude given Vietnamese and Cambodian (developing countries in general) children by their parents is amazing. Yes, I don't think the parents, in this case, had a choice. They would probably have paid more attention to their own children if they could.If they were not busy in trying to make ends meet.
I think this is the way children should be brought up. They should be permitted a reasonable amount of freedom and independence within mildly paternalistic boundaries. Parental guidance, of course, is of the utmost necessity. But the child should never be overprotected.
Easier said than done, I suppose. Reality seldom contains enough space for the ideal.
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