Three hours south of Hanoi is a little rural town called Ninh Binh. It was here we spent one hilarious day motorbiking around the rice paddies (getting lost, of course) and hiring a boat equipped with a rower and olde rlady who also paddled, albeit sporadically.
It was a relatively cheap way to spend two hours on the rice paddies, relaxing and enjoying the three grottos and amazing mountains with little mountain goats bounding from rock to craggy rock.
Or was it?
Once aboard the little boat all comfortably positioned, new hat firmly pressed onto my head as the
midday sun was beating down, off we set. The first half of the journey was quiet and calm. Just sitting back watching Cat Co pass us by. We paddled through three different grottos, which was cool and refreshing and the lady aboard could speak english quite well and would gladly answer any questions we could languidly put to her. It was lovely.
As we reached the turning around point things took a decidedly different turn. 
The final grotto had a number of little boats laden down with goods such as coke, beer, snacks, sugar cane lollies and pineapples andn smiling Vietnamese ladies to boot. There seemed to be some order to them for as we rode past one lucky lady was allowed to paddle up to our boat and corner us. She offered us many of her goods and we finally decided beer would suit the occasion (a good decision to calm us for what was to come). After buying the beer she asked us to buy beer for madame and sir, the rower and lady aboard, it was hard to refuse as it was hot and they, well he, had been paddling hard for nearly an hour. We bought them some drinks which they didn't open- they would sell them back to her at a later point. She also, giggling all the while, asked for a one dollar tip. Steve eventually gave her a dollar. Lucky lady.
And off we headed back to our starting point gulping the cold beer down. Then madame pulls out
a bag of embroidered table cloths, a specialty of the area. They were all very lovely and expensive and she was a good saleswoman. But we politely refused, next came the embroidered wall hangings. Steve caved and bought one for his mother. Ok, we thought that was all. Five minutes later, the T-shirts were brought out. After much haggling and laughter I had procured a newly embroidered T-shirt I never knew I wanted. Captive on the boat we were unable to escape her copnstant hassling, luckily she had an hilarious sense of humour and her laughter remeinded me of a friends mother form home, she was quite endearing.
Soon, our beer was empty and knowing they would sell the drinks back to the boat vendor we offered to buy one of their beers for a dollar. They ummed and ahhed, finally asking for two dollars amidst much laughter which we refused, but her cheekiness made the old lady laugh all the way back to the starting point. They also reguested a tip at the end.
Oh my. If it were'nt for her good humour and attitude and our slight tipsyness, I would have been swimming to shore in a flash.
Thankyou Ninh Binh for showing us the Vietnamese humour and their charming ways of parting our money from us, ok, mostly steves money. The adventures continue...
