Hanoi : Trip to Nimh Binh

Our deferred drive out to this beautiful area went ahead with a replacement guide. He had fluent English though with a quirky accent which meant we had to listen carefully. I am sure our driver also had some English but we only heard it once when he jokingly refered to a large elaborate house as "my house".
It was an hour and a half out of Hanoi with a rest stop along the way. We stopped first at one of the accessible water ways to go for a quiet row through the marshlands adjacent to some of the limestone carstes. At least we admired the scenery while a diminutive woman rowed us. It was very serene with only a couple of other boats until the last part of the circuit when a tour bus offloaded. We saw quite a few birds, heard some monkeys howling in the distance, saw the local women foraging in the reeds for small crabs and ultimately were rowed through a cave the water had eroded out of the base of a cliff.
From there we were taken to a restaurant that caters for the tour groups and presented with a huge lunch. There were several local specialties which were new to us. Finely sliced goat meat was designed to be loaded onto rice paper with mint and rolled up into a loose spring roll. A peanut and soy dipping sauce was the accompaniment. Sticky rice had been molded into a flat square shape and baked until crispy. This was broken into a bowl with a meat and vege soup ladeled over it. It required chilli sauce to give it some flavour but was quite interesting to eat. Apart from these we had chicken,  sauteed Morning Glory, steamed rice and fruit. One fruit was one we had seen in the markets, a very small, piquant salty fruit which we did not appreciate as much as the locals. This was washed down with a large mug of green tea which was the only thing we had to pay for.
Fortunately we had not tried to demolish all the food which was at least enough for four. Our next stop was to climb 250 meters via a stone stairway to view the scenery. Our guide gave us plenty of opportunity to bail on this as he wasn't confident we could make the grade. However he was delighted when we reached the top because he had not been there before. Along the way we were accompanied by an intrepid bride to be in gown and sneakers (with groom) who was having the obligatory before wedding photos staged half way up the staircase. At the top I couldn't resist gently taunting a group of young men who were occupying the gazebo to exclusion of others. They admitted they were tired from the climb. No stamina in young people these days. The view was well worth the climb but we weren't demanding the option of a bicycle ride and accepted the decision that a relaxing drive back to our hotel was acceptable.
Ingrid and Elise had arrived back from Halong Bay a couple of hours ahead of us. They had a great trip on a new cruise boat, the Azalea and were blessed with really good weather and pleasant company. We had dinner at the hotel  and shared the slices of birthday cake the hotel had presented me with the previous day.