Continuing
on tour of Northern Vietnam, we decided to head across to Ba Be. The trip was long and had us on two different
buses, a motorcycle with all of our bags, and a boat, but we finally made
it. Not knowing we exactly what we wanted to
do in Ba Be, we settled down, got a beer and some great food, and looked at the
brochure that our guest house had provided us with. Ba Be National Park is supposed to be the
‘outdoors capital’ of Northern Vietnam, but we weren’t really feeling the whole
hiking/biking thing after having hiked for two full days and a full day of
traveling.
The
next day we decided on a full day boat tour of the lake and to set it up
through Anh Ngoc Guest House; where we were staying. Upon asking the owner about taking a tour she
called one of the boat owners who arrived quickly afterwards with a map of the
park. After he circled a few spots he
thought we would like to see we asked to add a few more spots we wanted to
see. Then came the price negotiation. He started off extremely high, so we asked
what the price would be if we removed a few of the locations, negotiated some
more, and came to an agreement of 600,000 VND/30 USD total for the tour.
Hopping
on the boat we headed off across the lake to our first location, Puong
Cave. The ride to the cave was amazingly
beautiful. As we crossed through the
middle of the lake, we were surrounded by high jungle covered mountains on all
sides. Once on the other side, our boat
slowed to make its way up the Nang River.
The river became narrow and shallow at points, but the boatman was very
knowledgeable of the river and had no problems finding his way.
The
Nang River is remarkably beautiful. The
river is lined with jungle covered karst mountains that jut abruptly into the
sky, broken occasionally by bright green fields of rice and the occasional
traditional stilt house. As we meandered
up the river, we also saw water buffalo as they trudged through the water and
up the muddy banks.
As we
turned a bend in the river the mountain opened up to the large opening of Puong
Cave. The massive cave opening loomed
like a huge craggy mouth devouring the river we were on. Soon after entering the cave we landed at a
nearby boat dock already harboring a few other boats. As we scrambled out of our boat and across
the others, we were greeted by a lady selling drinks and sausages, which, on
our return, our hunger would compel us to buy.
The cave itself, although not long, was vast and was more than we
expected. Upon one side was the craggy
rocks and recesses where the sound of bats could be heard as the screeched and
on the other was the river as it flowed through the darkness and out into the
light of the other side.
There isn’t much to the cave
itself. Just a short walk over the rocks
on a concrete path that leads to the other end of the cave about 300 meters
away. The view through the large cave
opening on either end of the brightly light jungle in contrast to the dark cave
and the ability to take a boat up the river through the cave make for a fairly
unique experience though.
Once we finished with the cave
we hobbled back into our boat and headed down river. We traveled back the way we came, but instead
of turning into the lake we continued further down the Nang River till we came
to a boat station just east of the Dau Dang Waterfall. A small village has sprung up around the boat
station and it has become a popular lunch stop for the boat tours. Walking into one of the restaurants, we were
shown to a table, and then left confused as to what there was to eat. It turned out that there was just a set menu
and we were soon brought an array of delicious dishes.
After eating, our boatman pointed for us to go down the walkway following the edge of the river. When we started, we were unsure where the path was taking us, being uncertain of our actual location within the park, but we soon came to a sign for the Dau Dang Waterfall pointing us down a nice trail. The trail leads to a viewpoint overlooking part of the waterfall and gives a great view. The waterfall is located in the midst of jungle and the water plunging over the boulders creates a great atmosphere to enjoy. The waterfall itself is nothing too special though. It’s more like a set of steep rapids with the begin and end just out of sight.
After eating, our boatman pointed for us to go down the walkway following the edge of the river. When we started, we were unsure where the path was taking us, being uncertain of our actual location within the park, but we soon came to a sign for the Dau Dang Waterfall pointing us down a nice trail. The trail leads to a viewpoint overlooking part of the waterfall and gives a great view. The waterfall is located in the midst of jungle and the water plunging over the boulders creates a great atmosphere to enjoy. The waterfall itself is nothing too special though. It’s more like a set of steep rapids with the begin and end just out of sight.
Continuing our tour, we returned
back to our boat and began to make our way back to Ba Be Lake and our next stop,
the Fairy Pond. We had seen pictures of
the Fairy Pond online and were looking forward to seeing it ourselves, but it
ended up being a huge let down. As we
pulled up to the boat station people began summoning us to buy their
goods. The entire path leading to the
pond was lined with people selling food and medicinal herbs who all tried to
get us to buy something. Once at the
pond we found that it looked nothing like the pictures we had seen online. Instead of pristine water with fish swimming around
and birds chirping in the trees we found a silent and stagnate pond. The dirtiness of the water could have been
caused by the recent rains, but in any case, it created an image that was not
very mystical.
The An Ma Temple atop Widow's Island |
Leaving the Fairy Pond a little bummed
and confused, we made our way to our last destination, Widow’s Island. I expect far more from Widow’s Island than it
what was there. I expected that the An
Ma Temple at the top of the island would be bigger and nicer than it was. There is a large billboard showing what might
be the future look of the temple, but there have been no moves in that direction. The island itself is nice and covered with
trees, but do not expect to get a great aerial photo of the lake from the top
of the island, as the view is obstructed by these same trees.
When we were finished with the
island, we started our final journey on our boat and I decided to fly the drone
for some aerial video of the lake and boat.
This turned out to be a bad idea.
On my first try, the drone disconnected from my phone and tried to
land. Fortunately, it drifted into the
boat and landed there instead of the water.
I connected it up again, took off, and instantly the drone started
having problems. Its forward movement
was slow and all other movements were very sporadic. By this point we were close enough to the
coast that I put the drone in sport mode and flew straight for the shore and
happily landed it there; happy not to have crashed my drone.
Some great pictures there.
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