lunatic bumblebee

Finally, it was the last day. Of course, I liked the trip to Hai Phong, but after three days I really missed my family and especially Moritz. But still, there were some dates on the last day. We had a meeting with the director of the National Park Cat Ba. He wanted to show us around the park. It was the first time when I went into the rain forest. It was really impressive, quiet and beautiful. We saw many curious plants, orchides growing high up on trees and learnt a lot. I learnt, that there was a tree. The tree’s seed is brought high up on another tree by birds or other animals which eat the tree’s fruit. The the seed sprouts, the roots grow to the ground and slowly the original tree is wrapped by the roots and is squished to death. The original tree then becomes nutrition for the “killer tree”…Cool, isn’t it? On the way back we took the road along the coast line. Cat Ba’s view and landscape is really amazing. I would recommend Cat Ba for every tourist, who wants to visit Ha Long Bay. Cat Ba is much better, cleaner and less tourists.

The third day we had wonderful weather, it was perfect for our boat trip. We visited many caves and enjoyed the sun. At that day we met Peter, a Dutch zoologist. He works on the project to save the small population of the lagures, a small monkey species, which only lives in Cat Ba. At this moment there are only 64 animals left and Peter is working on how to improve their rate of breed. As he said they’re very lazy concerning this topic ^^.. female animals live in their own group with only few male animals.
I think it’s a rather interesting job and his place of work is fantastic, although he said that it was the first time, going to the islands by boat. But he has been in Cat Ba (Vietnam) only since February, so I think he’ll have much more chances to go around.

And what’s more interesting is, is that I saw him tonight on TV, while they were reporting about the National Park Cat Ba ^^.. I get to know more and more celebrities during my work….so great! =)

Anh Thu

It was a really relaxing day.

After Ralf flew back to Germany last Monday night we mostly attended meetings concerning our internship in Vietnam. So it looks like we can start after Chinese New Year =)

The week before we went on a trip through some cities in the middle part of Vietnam: At first we flew to Da Nang. There we were picked up by our tour guide and after that we were visiting some sights of the city. The sights were okay (only the museum was a little boring), but the beach at Da Nang was great. Too bad it was rainy and windy that day and the temperatures were too cold even for a short dip in the water. However Moritz and I got wet, because Ralf was looking at the picture he shot instead of telling us that the water was coming ^^…it’s your fault Ralf! xD

The next city we went to was Hoi An. Luckily, the weather was nice at this day so that we could enjoy our shopping tour in the ancient city. Hoi An is definitely the place, where you should go if you want to buy good AND cheap tailor made clothes although you only have little time. I bought me a really nice coat, which they tailored within only three hours and delivered to my hotel. Except for shopping and old houses there isn’t anything else in Hoi An, but surprisingly it’s very popular among the tourists.

On the third day we went to Hue — city of the emperor. Here it’s the other way round: Hue has so many temples, pagodas and tombs that we couldn’t see all of them in one and a half days, but we saw the most popular and most beautiful ones ^^.
Unfortunately, my condition on that day was so bad, that I couldn’t enjoy the boat tour on the river accompanied by live music (Vietnamese folk songs).

After a good night (although the hotel was really unacceptable) I got better and so I could endure the four hours bus trip to Phong Nha Ke Bang nationalpark. The view of the park was really beautiful and with little boats we went into the famous grottoes — amazing but sometimes too dark so it was really hard to get nice pictures. On our way back to Hue we visited some other sights which were on our way — but nothing really special. And I think, I was too tired to enjoy them ><.
Our last night we spend in the 3-stars hotel with the other tour members. When we booked the tour we took the 2-stars option and in Da Nang and Hoi An the hotels were okay, but not in Hue. The rooms in Ngu Binh hotel had too many “little roommates”, so that we didn’t want to stay only one minute longer than necessary.

On the last day we went to the Tu Duc tomb in Hue. The terrain is huge and beautiful, with many trees and nature and we really wanted to stay a while longer, but our flight was at noon and we had to leave the group early.

All in all the trip was great, I saw many things of Vietnam I’ve never seen before. They also took us to special handicraft villages or companies, where you could see how they make marble statues or silk embroiderings. Although the time we could spend there (of course proportial to the money we could/should spend) was too much for me. The group members were funny, too. Only the German-Australian couple was sometimes annoying (because everything was “soo BEAUTIFUL” and the American guy who was TOO American (quote: “languages are all about memory and Vietnamese is such an easy language — but I don’t speak any Vietnamese because I’ve got a bad memory”.)…..erm….definitely!
Despite of little things we had much fun on the trip although I would recommend the 3-stars option for those who want to book that tour ^^…it’s really more comfortable for only a little more money.

Anh Thu