Early in the morning, when it’s just starting to get light, I hear Willa wake up on the other side of the room. She scoots to the end of her bed, climbs down and pads over to my bed where I’m half-sleeping, half-feigning sleep. I can feel her eyes and hot baby breath on my face. She gently pokes at my eyelids and cheeks, “Ma?” I really dislike this name and don’t know how she came upon it for me. “Ma?” I open my eyes and she’s smiling, beaming at me. I lift her and roll over, laying her between myself and the wall.
Willa plays quietly, singing softly, making up signs with her hands and fingers. Sometimes she turns her head and watches me. Sometimes she leans over and kisses me. I’m tired, but I can’t pretend to sleep through such tenderness and love.
Our room in the Binh Duong III guesthouse has the luxuries of a bathtub, room service and hardwood floors. Most guesthouses, actually most buildings in Southeast Asia have shiny tiled floors that become lethally slick when wet and we’ve had more than our fair share of accidents stepping out of showers or on puddles formed under dripping rain jackets and condensation from water bottles.
We order french toast and when it arrives, Willa jumps from one foot to the other in excited anticipation, barely able to wait for me to cut it into squares. She holds her little plate with both hands and carefully walks it over to the table between the beds. She wiggles her butt and hums as she chews, loving her food. We realize that Willa thinks we’re saying “french toes” after the third or so time she squats down and touches our toes when asked if she’d like more.
We are in Hue, the former capital and third largest city in Vietnam. Despite its size, Hue is charming and reminds us of Austin. It is home to five universities and long parks with sculptures, trees and gardens. Several bridges cross the wide river that separates the citadel containing the old Imperial Palace from the rest of the city. Many women wear the traditional dress of ao dai, a long, silk, slit tunic over pants. Far more elegant and beautiful than the nylon pajamas so popular in the South.
Though we have decided to eschew tourist ‘sites’ - usually disappointing and entrance fees cost too much; even Johnny is templed out, tired of seeing where rich people used to live and where their dead bodies are kept - the citadel intrigues us with its high stone wall and the amount of space it takes up on the city map. Vines and shrubs grow out of the stone wall and the surrounding moat is filled with lily pads and flowers. Behind the walls, the Imperial Palace’s dark wood floors and walls are soothing and wonderfully uncluttered. (Other royal residences we’ve visited fill rooms with furniture and ornaments.) We walk from royal building to royal building until the heat and crowds of Vietnamese tourists with sun-protecting umbrellas at eye-gouging level force us back to our air-conditioned guesthouse.
We rent bicycles and ride the flat road along the city-side of the river. Out of town, beneath the highway underpass and around the large bend, to the rice paddies and villages that lie in the city’s outskirts. The road turns from pavement to dirt. We follow it, passing houses and waving hello to children who run out to the side of the road to watch us. “Hello! Hello! Hello!,” they shriek, trying to out-yell each other, not bothering to wait for a response from us.
We stop at a large watering hole where several water buffalo are cooling off, some almost completely submerged. They sputter as they come up for air and we’re enthralled by their beauty. Far apart eyes, dark charcoal grey hides, rippled horns arching back. They look like they belong in another time. Willa loves to watch them, especially the calves nursing and bonking their mothers’ teats with their heads. Though immense in size, with giant hoofed feet, they are gentle and graceful.
We ride on the elevated concrete paths through the rice fields, stopping to photograph the family cemetery plots. They rise out of the paddies, giant stone gardens surrounded by planted flowers.
On our ride back to town we pass baguette carts and stands selling steamed dumpling buns filled with minced pork, steamed and roasted ears of corn. Near our guesthouse is Minh & Coco, a cafe run by two sisters. Minh is bawdy and Coco all about business. They are rather irreverent toward their customers and we love their familiar, hands-on treatment that makes us not feel like foreigners. We also love their french fries with mayonnaise.
The sleeper bus to Hanoi (we’re only riding it as far as Ninh Binh) is a mobile dormitory, outfitted with about 25 bunk beds. It’s surprisingly comfortable. I should sleep, and I’ll pay for this later, but the night sky and the rice fields lit by moonlight are so quiet and beautiful that I stay awake, watching the country rush by. Having Johnny and Willa so close to me and this peaceful, starry night outside my window makes my eyes tear up. As though sensing my emotion, Johnny, lying down in the bed in front of mine, reaches his hand back and clasps my foot, “I love you, My-My.”
Hours later, the bus jerks to a stop and the bus driver yells out. It’s not quite pitch black outside, but close, and everyone around us is asleep. We’re disoriented, not sure what’s going on. “Is this our stop?” It can’t be. We’re not supposed to arrive in Ninh Binh, just south of Hanoi, until 7AM. Johnny gets up and goes to ask the bus driver. He races back, “This is our stop!” The bus driver rushes us and we scramble to put our shoes on and get our things together, grab Willa and run off the bus before it takes off, praying we haven’t forgotten anything crucial.
It’s 4 o’clock in the morning and we’re standing on the side of a highway, watching the tail lights and breathing in the exhaust of our receding bus. We’re a bit stunned, not sure what to do or where to go. This is, of course, the one time in all of our travels that there isn’t a throng of moto drivers shouting for our business. In fact, the road is deserted and the only light provided by the moon and a dim yellow lamp post.
“Hallo! Hallo!” A flashlight’s spotlight bounces, approaching us. “You come to my hotel!” We don’t bother consulting our guidebook marked with the names of guesthouses to consider. We follow the man and he leads us down a side street, into a building and up the stairs. Outside of a room, he knocks on the door. Receiving no response, he calls out something in Vietnamese and bangs on the door. A girl with sleep-filled eyes opens the door, mutters something and turns back to quickly straighten the room and bed. Minutes later, she pads out, followed by three other young women. Our room is ready. We stagger in, drop our bags, climb into bed and are asleep in seconds.
Ninh Binh doesn’t make much of a first impression with it’s dusty brown highway that runs through town’s center, paltry market with wilted fruits and vegetables, and a surprising amount of traffic and pollution given its small size. When we awaken for the second time that morning, we borrow bicycles to ride around town and are back within the half hour. We eat lunch and go back to sleep.
We came to Ninh Binh to see Tam Coc, “three caves”, the limestone outcroppings made popular by the film Indochine and described in our guidebook as “a miniature landlocked version of Halong Bay.” Determined to accomplish this and not linger in Ninh Binh, we rent a motorbike that afternoon and head out to the caves. Just a couple hundred meters down the road and a turn to the right and we are in the most beautiful land of Vietnam we’ve seen yet.
Brilliant green rice fields stretch out for miles, interrupted by giant limestone rocks jutting up and the mountains beyond them. Young boys languidly herd their cows and water buffalo with sticks and wave to us as we pass. The motorcycle creates a fantastic breeze, cooling us.
We park our bike at the river and take out a sampan, slowly drifting along the river. Gliding through the caves (where Johnny gives me a refresher course on stalagtites and stalagmites), the only sound is that of the oars paddling through the water. The ceilings are low and the caves are long and so dark that our eyes squint against the sunlight as we come out. In between the caves, weeds, rice shoots and water lilies surround the bases of tall cliffs bordering the river. Up on the ridges we spot mountain goats watching us. One of the two sampan rowers speaks French and we converse about our children. The late afternoon sun glimmers off of the water and mellows us.
Back at the guesthouse for dinner we are asked if we are 30,000 dong hungry, 40,000 dong hungry or 50,000 dong hungry. We haven’t ordered this way before, but we’re pretty hungry, so we go for the 50. What follows is a culinary feast. Large bowl of steaming white rice. Platter of shredded sauteed vegetables, plate stacked with crispy spring rolls, and two bowls of chicken curry. It’s fantastic and we can barely finish it. Willa eats everything on her plate and grabs food off of our plates when we’re too slow at refilling hers.
Later, as we’re hanging out on the front steps talking with other guests, Willa runs back into the kitchen. She reappears minutes later in the arms of the owner’s wife who’s feeding her rice and chopped chicken from a bowl. The woman looks at me disapprovingly, “She hungry! Baby very hungry!” I try to tell her that we fed her two platefuls of food, but I can see that she doesn’t believe me. Willa hums and wiggles in her seat, wolfing down each bite that’s offered to her. I foresee future family roadtrips with Willa’s handwritten sign, “Help! I’ve been kidnapped!” held up against the rear window.
The next morning we head out on our motorbike and ride along dirt roads through rice paddies, mountain ranges, passed cemetery gardens and water tanks. A zig-zagging stairway has been built into a mountain, leading up to a dragon-guarded pagoda at the top. We make the long climb, stopping to catch our breath on the landings. At each one, the view spread out below is even more incredible than the last. It seems we can see across the entire country.
On our way back we crash our motorbike, swerving to miss a man coming around the corner. Fortunately, Willa’s wearing her brand new shiny red helmet. Even more fortunately, she and I are completely untouched and she doesn’t even cry. Johnny and the bike have a few minor scrapes, but we’re all well and hope that we’ve gotten our bike accident out of the way.
The guesthouse owner couldn’t be kinder, telling us to never mind about the bike, just wanting to be sure that we are okay. Willa is taken into the kitchen and fed a warm baguette with honey. We go upstairs to our room to clean up and come back down for another delicious dinner. One of the guests we’ve befriended has bought a large carton of chocolate ice cream to share and we join him with our spoons on the front stoop, talking and watching Willa and the kids from next door play as the sun sets.
Ninh Binh and our guesthouse have turned out to be one of the brightest spots on this trip.
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