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Published: July 10th 2007
Wow. Where do I begin? I've only been in Vietnam for about a week and I've already seen more beautiful, amazing and interesting things than I have ever imagined. We left Korea and got into Hanoi on Wednesday. As we were landing I looked out over the landscape and I was surprised to see little housing developments similar to track homes. They all had terracotta roofs, almost Spanish style. But as we drove into the city the landscape was much different than it looked from above. The houses were all like 3 to 4 stories, but only like one room wide. It all kind of reminded me of Mexico, with billboards, little houses, outdoor cafes, farm land, etc.
Then we arrived in Hanoi. I have to say it's the craziest place I've ever seen. When we got off the airport bus we were immediately 'attacked' by 6 or 7 people trying to get us on their motor bike and bring us to their guest house. The guys who drive taxis and motos make money from getting tourists to go to certain guest houses. We told a taxi driver what guest house we wanted to go to and inevitably he brought us to the one of his choice. It was hot and we were tired so we let him win and settled at a guest house that was $10 a night ($3.33 each since we were about to meet Pat's friend Drew).
We took off to explore the city and find the place we promised to meet Drew. I thought it was going to be impossible to find him, every street looks the same, they are all tiny little alley ways and every single person rides a moto. I mean EVERYONE. It looks like there's a motorcycle convention in town, or a parade, or a very large biker gang. But no, it's just daily life in Hanoi.
We found our spot and posted up for a while to wait for Drew. We ended up on this corner called a beer corner. It's where there are little shops on all four corners with tiny plastic chairs and stools outside that all serve the same beer. The beer is by no means delicious, but at $0.12 a beer who can complain. We were hanging out, packed into little chairs along with other like minded people when Pat gets up from his chair and shouts: "That's Drew". He started to run across the intersection until I reminded him that there were about 150 motos coming right at him. Luckily he made it though the mess of bikes (all you have to do is walk though the street and they maneuver around you) and caught Drew stepping off the back of one such moped.
We had a celebratory beer then headed back to the hostel to freshen up for the night. (I have taken more showers here in this week then i usually take in like 3 weeks. I'm up to 3 or 4 cold ones a day!) So that night we wandered around the city, got lost a few times, checked out the lake, had some dinner at a street-side eatery and ended up back at the beer corner. We hung out for a while then ventured to a patio-garden bar and then back to the guest house around midnight to look for Pat's friend Charity.
Amazingly she too had tracked us down and met us in the common room of our guest house. To continue the celebration we braved a shot of the Cobra. All over Vietnam they have these huge glass bottles that are shaped like Alhambra bottles filled with alcohol and dead animals. The most popular is by far Cobra. The snake stares you down with its head flared out. It's really scary, but the guy at the guest house poured some out and into a cup for us and an Irish guy, Robbie. It tasted like rubbing alcohol and I think Drew agreed because he went right outside a puked it up. That was about the end of that night.
The next morning at 7am the people at the guest house were waking us up and ushering us on a bus out to Halong Bay. It was a rough bus ride, but after 4 hours we made it out there and hopped on the most ghetto boat in the harbor. Nice. We were lucky enough to have a really awesome group of people on our boat: two Mexican guys from Mexico city (one of which actually went to high school in California and knew Drew's high school girlfriend. Small world, huh?), a Kiwi couple, and two English guys just out of their first year of college. There were some other people originally on our boat but we dropped them off. Guess they weren't cool enough.
It was hilarious to watch how the boats get out of the harbor. Thy basically play bumper boats until someone wins. We weren't on the nicest boat, so it took us about half an hour to get out. We watched this all go down while they fed us some mediocre food that was to be our only diet for the next three days. Breakfast, lunch and dinner: octopus with onions (Korean food), Kale with garlic (Korean food), rice (Korean... OK Asian food) and french fries. Weird.
As we got out into the bay I was amazed at the beauty. Halong Bay has HUGE limestone 'islands', like 3,000 of them. They aren't really uninhabitable since they jut up in the air into shear peaks, but they are amazing none the less. First we went and saw some caves with huge stalagmites... or stalagmites... I kind of felt like I was in Disneyland's version of Moaning Caverns. Don't get me wrong the caves are impressive, but they were lit up with colored lights and we were herded along a path through the cave that there was absolutely no straying from. The second cave was a little less Disneyland, a little more Transylvania. There were bats flying all over near the top, screeching and freaking me out.
After the caves we got to go though the floating village. People actually live on on the bay in little houses anchored in place and tiny docks for front yards. The tiny kids row around on boats and try to sell things to the tourists. I couldn't believe that people actually lived there, but they do. They even have a school and dogs!
We got off the boat into a tiny little motor boat and went into a hole in one of the cliffs. Inside, it was like a beautiful lagoon, but no beach, just cliffs. The boat took us though the floating village and we saw up close and personal what their lives out there are really like. We then went out and anchored our boat and got on some kayaks. We were all more interested in swimming since it was scorching out so we tied the kayaks together and I tied them to my ankle and we swam instead. This was a much better idea because I found out that I'm not much of a kayaker.
We returned the kayaks and our boat anchored for the night. We had some dinner (the usual, there's no choice in a communist country), and hung out up on the deck talking with the rest of the travellers on the boat. It was a nice mellow evening. Waking up in the morning on the boat in the middle of the bay was one of the coolest experiences I've ever had. The sun was coming up and the scenery could have not been more beautiful. I don't think I'll ever forget that.
The next day we were taken to Cat Ba island. It's the only island out in the bay that is inhabited. We went into the cave that was a secret hospital for high ranking officers during the war- one of the few places that was never discovered. It was insanely creepy and it kind of made me realize why they won the war. The soldiers were really crazy. They would get injured, go there to heal and be exercising and swimming and running up ramps the whole time to get back in shape to get back on the battlefield. They really wanted to be out there. Anyway, our tour guide for the cave was supposed to be this old solider, but he didn't show up because he smelt the Chinese and had to go scout for invaders. Seriously. Luckily we were with someone who knew enough about it.
We went to a hotel on Cat Ba Island and almost immediately it stared to rain. Not like rain we're all used to. Like torrential downpour, wind taking signs off buildings kind of rain. We took a leisurely stroll to the beach and when we returned we might as well have jumped in the churning ocean in our clothes. Pat almost threw away his shoes they were so wet. Our guide told us at dinner that we should eat as much as we can because we might be stranded on the island due to this typhoon. He was serious. The power kept cutting in and out as we ate, luckily I'm very prepared and busted out the head lamp to eat dinner. Since our hotel didn't have a generator we went out for a while with the whole crew (us, Kiwis, Mexicans and the guide Thrang) to a place that did have a generator. By the time we went home the rain was letting up a little and it looked like we'd be able to make it back the next day.
After being marooned on an island we found out that someone on the boat trip actually died that day that we were swimming and kayaking. Some Korean guy jumped off his boat for a swim and called for help. They jumped in right after him, but he was sucked down and they never found him. Now, there are a few explanations to this. First, Halong Bay is known for something similar to the Lock Ness monster. Maybe it was the monster. Second, there have been a few whirl pools in the past. I can't figure out and explanation as to why these whirl pools have happened, but maybe he was sucked down in one. Third, I know from experience that Koreans can't really swim. There more of a wading culture. I know this is a generalization, but they wear jeans and polo shirts in the water. If he was one on the Korean norms he should have thought twice about jumping off that boat. I'm going with the third explanation.
So with this in mind we got back on the boat and we met by our Irish friends we had the cobra experience with. They are a really cool group of guys. The seven of them have been traveling the world since January and they're really fun. I took this boat ride back to work on my tan. The tan competition is on and I don't want to be let behind. Ha ha. The boat took us back the the harbor, then to lunch (surprise the same), then we boarded the bus to return to Hanoi.
Back in Hanoi we found the coolest restaurant to have dinner. They played traditional music, served delicious food and in true Vietnamese fashion it was only like $3.00 each. I can't get over how inexpensive everything is. After dinner we went looking for a cool place to chill out ended up at this really cool bar with awesome music and hookahs with flavored tobacco.
Our last day in Hanoi we spent wandering the city, eating more delicious food and exploring the little back alleys all around town. Charity went to the prison museum, Drew and I went shopping and Pat sat by the lake and drew pictures. We had to get on the bus to Hoi An at 6pm so we just kind of relaxed.
When we got on our bus we were pleasantly surprised. We had booked a sleeping bus, but we weren't sure what that meant. Pat had thrown his bag off in the middle of the street and got on the bus as quickly as possible to get us some good seats. He found us our own VIP section in the back of the bus. Five beds next to each other. Of course we would have to have some one else in our VIP section, but lucky for us our Irish friends were on the same bus and Adam hopped back there with us. We set up the iPod with some external speakers and listened to music and watched videos for a few hours until we fell asleep. It was actually a really pleasant ride. I did feel bad for the people on the floor of the bus. They overbooked the bus and then lined the floor with mattresses and stuck a bunch of people on the floor. Any time anyone had to go to the bathroom they either had to monkey it across the bus on other people's beds or step on these poor people on a fourteen hour bus ride on the floor. Bummer for them. The VIP section had movies and wine, they had nasty feet all over them all night.
More to come on Hoi An and Nha Trang. Pictures will be up soon also the camera died mid upload. I miss everyone so much. Write me and leave me comments to let me know what you're up to!!!!
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Kim
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Adventure Land
Oh my gosh, Ashley, that all sounds incredible! I got all wrapped up reading about your adventures! So glad to hear you're having such an incredible time! Thanks for writing, have fun! Hugs and kisses!!