Monday morning rush-hour in Hanoi is quite the experience. Millions of scooters crowd the overcast streets, with commuting workers sporting face-masks and mobile phones surging around Mr Minh’s car as he battles his way through the traffic. We drive next to the railway-line for a time which runs all the way south to Saigon, greeted by a northbound train trundling into Hanoi 48 hours after it started its journey in the tropical Mekong Delta. Traffic announcements are pumped out via lamp-post tannoys and policemen stand in the road at intersections, directing the organised chaos with batons and whistles.
After an hour we escape the sprawling outskirts of Hanoi, flat and grey in this light, and as we speed along the motorway see people wrapped in winter clothes working in the muddy paddies, planting rice in the rain. I snuggle into my seat while Sunny turns up the heating.
Leaving Hanoi
Once we turn off the toll road we begin driving through little towns, bumping over potholes and trailing behind people on motorbikes wearing ponchos to keep them dry. Puddles flood the road and the scenery is obscured by mist and the cold; these wet and grey conditions are not boding well for the next few days of cycling.
Eventually we pull into the small village of Duc where hundreds of little rowing boats are moored. In a few day’s time they will be teeming with tens of thousands of pilgrims heading to the Perfume Pagodas, to celebrate Tet and pray for good fortune for the year ahead, but on this cold, and rainy day Sunny and I are the only ones mad enough to hire one of them and disappear into the mist ahead.
Our boat, like all the boats on the Yen River, is paddled by a hardy woman, whose weather-beaten features barely crack a smile. I’ve got four layers on, plus a scarf, hat and gloves but am still freezing as we silently progress through scenery I’ve been told is spectacular but in this eerie, gloomy weather becomes indistinct and repetitive. Our destination is the Perfume Pagoda, one of northern Vietnam’s highlights, only reachable via water, but I question my sanity pressing ahead with the trip as Sunny and I shiver in the boat.
Row boats on the Yen River
Either side of us rise limestone cliffs and outcrops, called karsts. They are breath-takingly beautiful on a sunny day but now, in the height of winter they lie shrouded in mist and cloud. As we continue on little motorised boats pass us laden with supplies for the pilgrims to come, some sitting so low in the water due to being laden with equipment and fridges that they are mere millimetres from sinking, and we occasionally get a wave from one of the people on board… but most look at us like we’re idiots as we serenely glide along powered only by our oarswoman’s strength.
Sunny whistles and sings away to himself behind me as we go on, running through various traditional melodies, modern Vietnamese chart hits and even at one point launching into ‘Happy New Year’ by ABBA. He tells me that in spring the whole river comes alive with water lillies and there’s no denying that it is a gorgeous way to see the countryside… but it’s a long, cold hour on an uncomfortably hard metal bench before we reach our destination.
Seemingly out of the middle of nowhere appears a jetty with a modern ticket office, a riverfront promenade of temporary restaurants all in the finishing stages of being constructed, and various workers building stalls for the influx of pilgrims. We disembark and start climbing a vast staircase of slippery steps and along cobblestoned alleys towards the Pagoda high in the mountains above us.
On the river
Either side of the winding path are shops and stalls waiting to open, selling souvenirs, medicines, toys, food, refreshments, clothes and electronics – a bonanza of goods for New Year revellers to purchase and consume as the festival spirit takes them. Sunny tells me that within three days the entire place will be heaving with tourists and pilgrims but, besides us, we probably see about 20 other visitors in the whole day. I pray that the pilgrims will get better weather than we do!
Many of them will make the arduous climb all the way to the Pagoda at the summit but fortunately for us, there is now a cable car that ferries the less hardy up the side of the mountain. It’s still quite a climb just to reach the cable car station and when we arrive it’s obvious how many passengers they must have at its peak because there are barriers to herd thousands of people in queues, but there’s only us and two others waiting for the next cable car to arrive.
It’s a good ten minute journey into the clouds in the little cable car, and I’m grateful Coman isn’t with me because he can’t abide travelling in them. As we ascend the visibility decreases ever further and when we reach the cable car station at the top of the mountain I’m almost laughing at the futility of this entire journey. The remarkable panoramas are completely obscured and I’m cold and wet. I could have had a lovely lie in and pottered around Hanoi for the day.
The Cavern of the Perfume Pagoda
However, once I enter Dông Huong Tích, the Cavern of the Perfume Pagoda I realise I’m fortunate to see it this way. Through the most atmospheric mist I descend into a primordial forest, and deep into a cave that feels millions of years old. The daylight falls in shafts of illumination as I wander around the deserted space, filled with stalagmites and stalactites, and dotted with different temples full of representations of Buddha and bestrewn with flowers, gifts and incense.
I wander the little rocky pathways and steps – which will be overwhelmed with pilgrims in just a few days’ time – all alone, waiting as Sunny (who confesses he’s not religious at all) prays at the temple dedicated to producing a son. He tells me he’s a bit of a playboy who accidentally got a girl he was seeing pregnant, but for their respective families’ honour they went ahead and got married. They’re happy together, but he’d like a son to join their baby girl.
Once we make it back down to the lower cable car station we stop at a basic restaurant, which is now open to serve the trickle of tourists arriving ahead of the pilgrims, and then walk along further paths to visit Chùa Thiên Trù, which dates from 1680. A working monastery, it’s a fascinating place full of different temples, gardens and statues which was rebuilt in the 1980s with the donations of the pilgrims who flock to the Perfume Pagoda.
Chua Thien Tru monastery
The mist-soaked serenity of the complex is somewhat marred by an American family who arrive with cameras and voices turned up to eleven, talking incessantly in each religious space, but Sunny and I manage to get ahead of them by nimbly skipping up the steps they struggle to climb, leaving them huffing and puffing in our wake.
On our return boat ride, the clouds part briefly to reveal some of the countryside through which we float, and Sunny chats animatedly about life in Vietnam, asking lots of questions about life in Europe and my relationship with Coman. While homosexuality is legal in Vietnam, here in the conservative north it’s more taboo than in the liberal south and I get the impression from Sunny that if he’d be born elsewhere he may well bat for the other team. Certainly the songs he sings wouldn’t be out of place in a drag club!
From the village of Duc we continue to the smog-cloaked city of Phu Ly and I take my leave of Sunny and Mr Minh when they drop me at the vast Muong Thank Ha Nam hotel on a busy main road. Way off the beaten track for tourists, it’s very much a hotel for Vietnamese business men - as I uncomfortably discover tomorrow - and seems completely deserted.
Returning along the Yen river
However when I check in the receptionist, who doesn’t speak English, passes me over a photocopy of a British passport. Confused, I point out that she already has my passport but she points to the face on it and I realise that it’s fellow Truant cyclist Carol Tindley, who apparently checked in with her husband Paul an hour ago. As far as I was aware, none of the Truants are due here until tomorrow so I’m delighted. Tonight I’ll have company for dinner!
It’s still only mid-afternoon so, mindful of the fact that it’s the start of the working week back in London, I catch up on emails and after a bath wander down to the lobby where Paul and Carol are waiting for me, drinking cocktails along with another fellow Truant, Malcolm. With many stories to catch up on, and drinks proving remarkably cheap, we chat for hours, moving on to dinner in the enormous yet empty restaurant, before eventually making it to bed just before midnight.
The holiday is now officially at an end, for tomorrow a new road lies ahead… I’ll prepare to cycle 250km raising money for charity in the company of 50 other madmen and women in some of the remotest parts of the country. Thankfully tonight I sleep very well indeed.
