{"id":2095,"date":"2013-02-28T23:55:18","date_gmt":"2013-02-28T15:55:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/?p=2095"},"modified":"2013-02-28T23:55:18","modified_gmt":"2013-02-28T15:55:18","slug":"vietnam-2013-day-6-van-lung-and-phat-diem-and-return-to-hanoi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/2013\/02\/28\/vietnam-2013-day-6-van-lung-and-phat-diem-and-return-to-hanoi\/","title":{"rendered":"Vietnam 2013 Day 6 – Van Lung and Phat Diem and return to Hanoi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another early day starting out at 7am breakfast with Pho at the hotel.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Pork<\/a>
Pork pho at Ngoc An hotel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

0740 was on the motorcycle toward Van Lung (75,000 VND) . Again, karst landscape, but seems less commercialised thanTam Coc or Trang An. But not the rower, who demanded a tip. I really dislike it when a tip is demanded for or assumed. I gave her 10,000 but then she asked for US$1 so I gave her another 10,000.<\/p>\n

\"Van<\/a>
Van Lung view.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Van Lung has only one cave that you can row through, but there seem to be more birds, I saw them sitting up on the edge of the mounds and later, as we were leaving, they started to take off into the sky. It was a lot more quiet, not the stream of boats at Trang An or Tam Coc. It’s probably less popular as it is further out from the city.<\/p>\n

\"Birds<\/a>
Birds resting atop Van Lung.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Paddling<\/a>
Paddling up Van Long.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Exiting<\/a>
Exiting cave at Van Lung.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Emerging<\/a>
Emerging from the entrance of cave at Van Lung.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"I'm<\/a>
I'm smiling, she's doing all the work.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The locals there are growing some sort of freshwater clams in the water.<\/p>\n

\"Growing<\/a>
Growing clams at Van Lung.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I noticed these pink things growing on rocks and plants. They were there in Trang An too. The rower claims they grow up to be clams, but I doubt it.<\/p>\n

\"These<\/a>
These things grow on rocks here and at Trang An.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Going even further out and in the opposite direction of Van Lung, we went past Ninh Binh city again and rode on the motorcycle for one and a half hours to get to Phat Diem, a cathedral with both Vietnamese and European style achitecture. It’s built with stone and wood.<\/p>\n

\"Phat<\/a>
Phat Diem.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Phat<\/a>
Phat Diem.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Stone<\/a>
Stone detail at Phat Diem.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Man<\/a>
Man praying in the cathedral at Phat Diem.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As we approached the area, I noticed an increased number of churches in the area.<\/p>\n

I tried a local snack called Bahn Gai unique to Phat Diem. Think of it as an un-oily ang ku kueh. The filling is bean, the outside is a rice flour mixed with a leaf that makes it green. It’s okay tasting, just unrefined.<\/p>\n

\"Bahn<\/a>
Bahn Gai snack at Phat Diem.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The motor-taxi driver took me to the bus station for a pho (40,000 VND) lunch. I probably paid for his bowl as well. So this is my conclusion. The pho of Ninh Binh is a lot more oily than that of Hanoi, where pho originated. The beef is cut less thin and more thoroughly cooked. The breakfast version had a lot of onions. The afternoon version, ginger. Both of these are not immediately apparent in the Hanoi version. I would also say that the Hanoi version is more subtl<\/p>\n

\"Table<\/a>
Table setting at Pho shop at Ninh Binh Bus Station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pho<\/a>
Pho at Ninh Binh Bus Station.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I took the Ninh Binh – Hanoi bus for 60,000 VND and arrived in one of the many bus stations in Hanoi. Not knowing where I was, I took a taxi back to Joseph’s Hotel, my base in Hanoi. The taxi cost me 100,000 VND. From my GPS track, I see the bus station was really on the outskirts of the city.<\/p>\n

\"Nem<\/a>
Nem shop in Hanoi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For dinner, I had nem by the roadside for 25,000 VND. It was a lot of refried stuff containing, minced pork and mushrooms. Some had vermicelli in it. Some didn’t. Again, it came with a basket of leaves and the salty-sweet dipping sauce with papaya.<\/p>\n

\"Parts<\/a>
Parts of the Nem dish.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Nem<\/a>
Nem detail.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The round one was covered in a chewy dough. Didn’t like that too much.<\/p>\n

The Hanoians were eating it with such relish, I thought I’d give it a try. But frankly, it was quite disappointing. I returned to the hotel and was told that what I ate was called nem, and that everyone has their own version.<\/p>\n

\"Pho<\/a>
Pho stall Hanoi.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Hanoi<\/a>
Hanoi Pho seller looking through money bag.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was still hungry, so I found another roadside stall selling pho – yes, my third for the day – at 35,000 VND. This one I had to try, because you are eating the cooked meat in front of the raw meat.<\/p>\n

\"Hanoi<\/a>
Hanoi Pho.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And here are some snapshots along the way when I was on the motor-taxi.<\/p>\n

\"Wedding<\/a>
Wedding tents.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I saw quite \u00a0a number of these tents out. Seems like a good time to get married.<\/p>\n

\"Hearts<\/a>
Hearts atop the wedding tent.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Narrow<\/a>
Narrow houses of Vietnam.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Vietnamese houses tend to be built like this: Narrow and tall.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another early day starting out at 7am breakfast with Pho at the hotel.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[465,478,479,464],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2095"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2126,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2095\/revisions\/2126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2095"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2095"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joanneteo.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2095"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}