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Published: August 6th 2012
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Now that electric!
All over vietnam this is how the electrical wiriing is designed. If I could sum up everthing that I understand about Vietnam - I would say - It's all in the wiring! As Jeff and I hopped around the old city of Hanoi I suddenly looked up to see a power pole that looked strange to me. It took me a few seconds to realize that the wiring system looked terrifyingly hazardous and I couldnt take my eyes off the mad mess of black wire. Jeff tried to focus on a taking a picture that would show the true horror of those wires that had no direction or order. He stood with the camera stuck to his eye as cars, motorbikes and people were weaving around us and then out of nowhere Jeff said: "it's a total mess but everything seems to work"
That is how I would describe Vietnam - the road signs are a guide line. Motorbikes ride on both sides of the road and when they need a shortcut YALLA there is always the sidewalk! Dotted lines, straight white lines - yeh what's that for? knowing this we opted to take a three 1/2 hour drive to Ha Long.
Ha Long Bay is a Unesco World Heritage
site . The bay features thousands of
limestone karsts and isles in various sizes and shapes. Ha Long Bay has an area of around 1,553 km, including 1,960–2,000 islets, most of which are limestone. limestone in this bay has gone through 500 million years of formation in different conditions and environments. In other words - AMAZING
After three hours of saying " Oy vey" ,OMG and I'm a Grandmother- the driver laughed everytime he heard me sa this so he taught me how to say OMG in Vietnamese ( Oy chua OY ). We ended up saying it together.😊))
G-d is Good and G-d is Great and I'm sure that only by his grace did we finally find ourselves sitting on the dock looking at one of the "Seven Wonders of the World". We boarded our boat ,actually to our great surprize it was a huge boat for 40 people -just for us, and within seconds we realized that they steer boats the way they drive cars ie. IT"S A TOTAL MESS BUT IT SEEMS TO WORK!
One boat is leaving the dock , 3 are trying to dock they are all within inches of each other
Surprize
I was in shock when we realized our private boat ws large enough for 40 people... I am closing my eyes, looking frantically for the life vest, which is somewhere but not to be seen, and every time they smoothly miss each other by a hair and no one flinches - EXEPT FOR ME.
Once we were out to sea we just loved floating around looking at the scenery and Jeff being thrilled that he was in the place where they had filmed a James Bond movie. Don't tell him but I think it actually think it was filmed in Thailand.
Off to Ho Chi Min - Saigon for some. Praying that they don't fly the way they drive! An hour and 40 minutes later we were wisked away by a cab to see a very modern, relatively clean and hip city. Our first mission was to find Chabad - as we ventured out to cross the first street of our mini trek it looked as if that at any second the whole place was going to go into a 4000 car pile up- they honk but theyre not angry. They swerve around pedestrians but never curse, they sit outside eating on small stools on the sidewalk and it's all good. It looks tangled
and confusing but it all seems to work
unless your'e a tourist trying to cross the street! So we found chabad and we finally atend tomorrow we are off to the Mekong.
I'm wiped!
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LynnieVaughan
Lynnie
From Lyn
Hi Brenda, Thanks for the lovely comment....I had not realised i had a private follower until I got your message. I have just read your Sapa trip entry and totally got it, including the trip in the train. LOL But what an experience! If everything went well it wouldn't be so much fun to share. Glad you enjoyed yourselves. Other than the demanding sales people it was the BEST!