Today I had another early start as I had a long day ahead as we were going to drive out to the Perfume Pagoda and it was going to be my first time riding a bike, let alone riding one 120km!

There were four of us heading out today, there was Quong and his, ahem, boyfriend Daniel (a German student living in Hanoi), and Summer and they came over to my hotel at 10am to pick me up, Quong and Daniel on one bike and Summer and myself on the other bike. First thing we had to do was to stop on the way out of the city so that Daniel could buy a helmet which I was very surprised to see that he only paid 200,000 dong (£7) for one.

With Summer driving me out of the city, after about 20 mins we came across Quong and Daniel at a garage (if you can call it that) getting his bike fixed and putting some ice on their feet. Someone had just driven into the side of them on another bike and then driven off, bruising both Daniel and Quong's left foot and bending the gear peddle at the same time. Luckily nothing broken so we carried on.

Once we got out of the city, I swapped seats with Summer and took over driving the bike following Quong and Daniel. The journey took just over two hours and went without incident to get to the river near to the Perfume Pagoda where we parked up the bikes and bought our tickets. Quong and Summer said that they were our guides and got some money off the tickets.

From here we got a boat which was rowed by a local woman, which was so hot that we could even sit down directly on the metal seats, I had to sit on my rucksack and the others sat on their shoes. 10 minutes downstream we stopped and picked some big leaves to use as hats to try to keep some of the sun off our heads. Although it didn’t really do much, we all looked like fools together.

45 minutes after setting off on the boat, we arrived at the Perfume Pagoda which was a complex of pagodas and Buddhist shrines built into the limestone cliffs of the Huong Tich Mountain (Mountain of the Fragrant Traces), which is where I assume it gets its name from. I had a quick walk around the pagodas before walking up the mountain for about an hour to get to the top where there is a Buddhist shrine within a big cave. Daniel opted out of the walk up and took the cable car option where he met us at the top.

I wish I had taken the cable car option as by the time I got to the top I was sweating loads and I was glad to walk in to the cave where it was a lot cooler inside. We sat around for a while, held our hands under a stalactite waiting for a drip of water which is supposed to be good luck (like most things here). People have waited here for hours waiting for a drip. Luckily for us, we only had to wait a minute or two before we caught a drip.

Heading back down the mountain, now joined by Daniel we came across a monkey chained to a bench. As I had a banana left over in my bag, Quong asked the owner and then fed it to the monkey, asking "should I peel it first?", I said “It’s a monkey, I am sure it knows how to eat a banana!!!” LOL

This was probably the best meal that this monkey has had for ages.

For today’s lesson.....

The Perfume Pagoda or Perfume Temple is in fact a vast complex of Buddhist temples and shrines built into the limestone Huong Tich mountains. It is the site of a religious festival which draws large numbers of pilgrims from across Vietnam. The centre of the Perfume Temple lies in Huong Son Commune, My Duc District, former Ha Tay Province (now Hanoi). The centre of this complex is the Perfume Temple, also known as Chua Trong (Inner Temple), located in Huong Tich Cave.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfume_Pagoda

Back at the bottom of the mountain and while we waited for our woman to finish her drink and chat, we found some turtles that were for sale, which I thought was a bit random and we did think about buying one just to set it free in the river but then we thought it would just be caught again and resold. So we didn’t bother.

On the way back to Hanoi, we stopped a one of the villages which was famous for its roasted duck for some dinner, which was amazing. Then as it was getting late I drove back as far as the outskirts of Hanoi and then Summer and I swapped seats again and she drove back through the city and dropped me off back at my hotel. I offered to give her some money for petrol but she refused as she hadn’t been there for such a long time, she was just glad that I drove the majority of the way.

Once back at the hotel, I was sitting in the TV room watching some of the football and then someone came up saying that there was a pig down stairs. I had to go and see this! Yes they were right, there was a pig walking and weeing down near to reception. A few people had been off to the Snake Village today, killed some snakes and when you do, once you have killed it you eat the heart while it is still pumping. While eating the cooked snake, and drinking lots of rice wine, one of the guys thought he would be kind and save a pig from certain death, by buying it for 2,000,000 dong (£70) and bringing it to the safety of our hotel. So I think the pig spent the night in the air conditioned pool room up on the top floor and probably had its best night’s sleep ever!