~ goodbye Halong Bay ~
After three days and two nights aboard the Dragons Pearl 3, we took the shuttle to return to Hanoi but with a slight detour. We had pre booked a 5.5 hour tour of Yen Duc Village to visit on our way back .....
Yen Duc village is in Dong Trieu town and 60km West of Halong city. The village was recognized as a national relic in 1993.
Yen Duc is a beautiful village with nice scenery, historical mountains and sacred legends and relics related to Ly and Tran dynasty.
Considered as a “Stone wall” under the war, the village was a cradle of revolutionary movements with many brave, ingenious heroes and local people sacrificed to protect their hometown. Over the years, their names are still alive together with each famous mountain, river and pieces of land here.
Similar to other rustic countryside, the local people here are very diligent, gentle and optimistic.
We had already paid for this tour at the time of booking the Indochina Junk Cruise as had others, though some were only doing the 2 hour tour. Once there and after wandering around the village we felt there was too much pressure for us to "hurry up", each time we stopped to take photos, we were told to "hurry up" ......
Even when we stopped to watch the workers in the rice fields, we were told to "hurry up".
We decided then that 5.5 hours of being told to "hurry up" was going to be far too much so we elected to depart at the same time as the others in our group. We were more than happy to forfeit the balance of our money to return to Hanoi and to our hotel than be constantly told to "hurry up"....
We would have enjoyed wandering around the village, seeing the people, watching them work the fields, maybe talking with them, but we were constantly being moved from the Temple to the roadways, to the school etc.
Luckily we did manage to capture a few images of Yen Duc Village before our departure as seen below:
image is of the local school ....
below are a few images of the people of Yen Duc Village ....
including 'the cat'!
the local hairdresser ......
the local broom maker ....
the man that delivers the feed for the animals .....
the lady working in the fields ...
tending the garden ....
lady returning home from working in the fields ......
homeward bound .....
A short tour would probably suit most people, the 5.5 hour tour was to include dinner, but we felt that after two hours we were ready to return to Hanoi .....
HELPFUL WEBSITES FOR HANOI AREA:
HANOI KIDS- volunteer tour guides - hotel can organise if you book well ahead.
KOTO Restaurant - hotel can book a table for you.
This is the 12th blog posting of our visit to Hanoi and beyond.
So stay tuned for more updates!!
(especially our visit to Sapa)
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