The Monkeys and the Communist

Written by Amy Lyon

Amy, Amy.
Jonathan calls to me from under his mosquito netting.
Amy, there is something in our room.
The sounds of the jungle pale against the rustling cellophane.
Are you eating something? I ask, still groggy.
No, there is something in our room. I think it is an animal, it might be a monkey.

We’re staying in the simple but clean rooms in the Cuc Phuong National Park after a tired but good day of cycling through flat farmland dotted by rugged carst hills. We’ve seen the ancient capital and worship rooms of the first king to unify Vietnam around 900 CE. We have grilled goat for lunch in a tourist restaurant. There are either tourist restaurants or sidewalk cafes eaten on ones haunches, and not much in between, especially in the countryside. restaurants. Rebecca and I especially enjoyed the grilled goat with sesame marinade.

We arrive at the National Park late in the day and are all exhausted. This is our first day after the train ride during which none of us could sufficiently rest, although the hard beds preferred by the Vietnamese should have prepared us for the metal bunks of the train. Fortunately Spice Roads has organizedfor us government hotel rooms so when we arrive at 4:30 am in Ninh Binh, we shower, rest and are ready for breakfast before we start our ride for the day.

At breakfast I go into the kitchen to borrow a knife to peel the mangoes lefover from our train picnic. Very clean and large, a woman enters with fresh chicken and cilantro as the chef is busy boiling broth, a pile of noodles ready on the table. That and some good and strong Vietnamese coffee helps take the edge off.

A monkey? I think. We did catch a frog earlier in the corner of our room and safely released it out of our front door. I could understand how the frog squeezed in between the bamboo windows, but a monkey?

A monkey? I ask my imaginative husband.

Maybe not, he says, I think it is a rat.

I don’t like this. A monkey is one thing, a rat is another, not so romantic.
A rat? I say and wrap myself in my blue silk sleeping bag and carefully tuck the mosquito netting around me. The light switch is far away all the way across the room by the door and there is no light on the nightstand. I wait for my husband to act like a husband. He does and bravely goes forth across the ceramic floor towards the constant rustling. The room lights up and he pulls the TV table away from the wall.

It’s a mouse.

A mouse?

Yes a mouse. He’s eating something. I’m going to leave him alone.

You’re not going to do anything?

No, I’m going back to bed.

So he’s just going to stay in here all night?

Yes, he’s under the refrigerator, he won’t bother us.

What about the pineapple? And here, I say extending my hand from under the mosquito netting, put these cough drops in the refrigerator.

He does and as he is I scamper from under my netting to under his and curl up like any mouse fearring woman. Later on I wake to sound of rustling and have to the go to the bathroom. I wake my husband so he can get out of bed and turn on the light for me. He does.


After our government breakfast we cycle up an eleven kilometer path in the National Forest, past huge banana plants, with fronds larger than me. Halfway up the hill, we stop to explore an ancient cave. We try to negotiate with a group of Vietnamese tourists to give us their rental flashlights and we’d give them the deposit money but we fell into a language gap and entered the huge cave without a light. Without a flashlight Jonathan uses the flash from his camera to show us the extensive caves that recede into the mountain. It is remarkable and we have to hold Jonathan back from crawling out of sight. He takes lots of pictures. The stairs up and down to the cave are more treacherous than much of our ride.

It is a hard ride up, a constant 10% grade and it takes us close to two hours. The tropical forest is thick, shades the rode and beautiful. Butterflies flock in the patches of sun and we greatly appreciate the cover of the forest, a welcome and seldom break from the heat. The reward is the downhil. We are all pleased to coast down, save a few inclinces, and marvel at our endurance. As Harve said to Andrew and Shari, this will be on the job training, this ride, and it is true for us all.

The National Forest is home to a Primate Rescue Center. It is illegal to hunt monkeys, bu the indigenous tribes have done so for years, for food and now they can also sell a monkey for a lot of money on the black market. The confiscated monkeys are brought here until they can be safely released We ride directly to the center to tour it before our lunch.

It is lunch time and the monkeys are happily chewing on fresh greens, the baby onces frolic and the large monkeys swing across the tops of heir cages. And they sing, they sing and sing, louder and louder, until all else is muted by their chatter.

At lunch Mike and I are especially happy when they bring out two big plates of French fries, just like the ones we had the night before for dinner. We take the bottle of hot sauce that Rebecca had gifted to Mike and mix it with the lime/salt pepper dipping sauce to feast.

The afternoon is a 20 kilometer amazing ride through the levied farmlands, past villages, houses made of mud, crab boats, water buffalo, rice paddies, boaters who use their feat to oar; there are tiny dugouts with hand paddles and larger boats with canopies. We veer around cyclists carrying chickens, fish in water in plastic bags in baskets, pigs, greens, longans (another fruit) all going to market.

It gets hotter. The last hour of our ride Mike reports, the temperature increases another 5 degrees to 99 Fahrenheit. We are all happy to reach our van for the transfer to Hai Phong.

From the rustic outreaches of the National forest and train saga to elegant Harbour View hotel. Some of had our laundry done at the National Park and the rest of us who did not have our clothes washed in the rivers of the forest send out our sweaty dirty clothes, including headbands for an overnight launder and head out for dinner.

We have spent a lot of processing time on how and where we eat. Most of our meals are included in our trip and the Vietnam tourist organization brings us to the tourist restaurants which are often isolated and the food quality inconsistent. We finally negotiate with Tang for the reservations we can not cancel that we order upon arrival instead of the fixed meal, since we’ve discovered that those fixed meals are often prepared hours ahead of time. There was one very hard fish in tomato sauce at a lovely beach side restaurant that was inedible although the mussels in wine, ginger and lemon grass was delicious.

It is late and we are all tired. The bus brings us past bustling outdoor local restaurants to an elegant staircase and three or four attendants usher us up to a private room. This looks like a recipe for disaster. Andrew and Sha (that is what the Vietnamese call her) are drooling to be amongst the people; Jonathan and I lament our decision not to stay in the elegant hotel and order room service; Rebecca in her constancy, is making the most of each experience, and does not seem to have too many regrets, although as the token non family member, perhaps she is on better behavior than the rest of us. We reject the English fixed menu and ask for a la carte. Sha has one menu, Mike the other.

Monkey. Mike says.

Monkey? We ask.

Yes, you can get Monkey here, fried monkey, bear, fried civet, drink juice of monkey brain, cut the throat of the porcupine, bile of bear, tableside slaughter of snake, frog any way you like it. Snack of rat. Seriously. This restaurants caters to all foreigner, especially Chinese business men.

This is going downhill. Mike does not want to give this establishment any money, Rebecca wants Tang to work as interpreter with the manager so she can explain how serving these foods is immoral and they should stop. Tang looks down.

We explain to Rebecca we think this is not a good idea. Sha jumps in and starts to read the other menu. We figure it all out, fresh and fried springrolls, shrimp fried rice, mustard greens in garlic, steamed grouper and a seafood Hot Pot. The meal is very good, Sha and Andrew embrace the VIP room, Rebecca orders red wine from Dalat, we drink local beer and lime sodas.

Did I tell you about the Hot Pot? A boiling broth on a sterno and a plate of fresh fish, that most probably the chef had someone run to a market when we ordered it, and a heaping pile of greens, and a plate of noodles. This is a meal in itself and we all do our best to do it justice. It puts us over budget, and we spend some time making sure we have enough common money to cover it.

We finally settle down and enjoy our meal. Having barraged Tang with all kinds of questions, he as interested as we in the discussions. But this has been a hard day, and the morass of food issues have snared Tang more than once.

Tang, Sha says, Let’s talk about Communism.