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Published: July 17th 2008
Our tour guide really is a task master! She has us up and to breakfast between 6AM and 6:30PM every morning! This morning was no exception. We arrived in the lobby at 6:10 and went to breakfast at the hotel buffet - a conglomeration of “Asian” food (including pho, which I am eating every morning as a preventative against further illness) and Western food (represented by toast). After a quick breakfast we jumped into our tour van and went to the dock where we chartered a boat to take us on a tour.
This boat was great! We had the whole boat to ourselves, which was lovely. Apparently that is normal. We had a smaller boat, but there was still plenty of room for more people had we more people in our party. There were larger boats for overnight trips, but our trip was just a half-day. We sailed about for a few hours, enjoying the view and taking WAY too many pictures of giant rocks. The weather was pretty decent. It was overcast, drizzly a bit, rather like Oregon from the looks of it (or at least the way Oregon is any time you try to take a boat
on the water), but the nice thing was that the air was warm, so shorts and a t-shirt were fine clothes for the excursion.
Part way out we stopped at a little fishing boat. This boat had nets filled with live fish and you could pick out what you wanted for lunch, they’d pull it out of the net and kill it and then hand it to the crew of your boat to fix for your lunch. Pretty amazing! Thu picked a large fish that we were told was native to the bay area - a little on the spendy side, but worth the experience (and you know it’s fresh!).
Our first major trek of the bay trip was to a massive rock cave. I don’t remember the name in Vietnamese, but it roughly translates to “the cave of wow” because when people walk inside they say “wow!” it’s so impressive. We did have a wow moment. The cave is huge inside and we enjoyed walking around and taking pictures of the various formations. One of the nice things about this stop, too, was that part of the cave was so high that you could look out and
Ha Long Bay
View from the top of the rock cave.see the bay and actually take some good scenery shots from that location. The trek through the cave was actually a bit on the long side and it was warm and humid, so even though it was overcast we still had members of the group sweating.
While on this rock cave adventure I had my own interesting experience with the locals. While I’m no Peter and people don’t come up to me to measure their height against mine, they apparently still do look a bit. I was standing on the path waiting for some members of our group when all of the sudden I felt someone grab my arm. “What the…?” I thought as I turned around - only to find a woman (who barely reached my chest) grabbing my arm. She said to her friend (and Thu translated for me), “She’s very cold! How can she stay so cold when the rest of us are sweating?” Several of them wanted to touch me and I guess one said she’d like to get my picture, although that did not materialize (probably a good thing ).
After the cave we went to a small (and I do mean small,
Wet #1
Monsoon season in Ha Noi, where the city is jokingly referred to as Ha Loi -- the swim. people of Oregon, so don’t go picturing anything like what we have at home!) beach on one of the rocks. It’s famous because Ho Chi Minh brought some guy to swim there, I guess. We didn’t swim, just stuck our feet in the water, and then we collected shells and coral like we do at every beach. I am sure people just shook their heads at the crazy Americans staring at the sand, but that’s okay.
Our crew made an excellent lunch for our trip back to the dock - way too much food! I guess with our particular charter boat, the people who charter the vessel bring what they want for lunch and the crew cooks it. Our tour guide arranged everything and made a very good choice for lunch if you like seafood (so not really Peter’s thing, and a bit too much fish for my tastes although I am okay with fish, but Thu was in heaven). We had the fresh fish from the little boat, clams, crab, some other fish, squid, and of course the normal greens and rice plus a soup, finished with watermelon and pineapple. The lunch was excellent and we had just
Wet #2
Maybe Marie & Thu really ARE insane! enough time to eat and visit the WC before docking. From there, we jumped into the van and headed back to Ha Noi. On the way back to the city we only made one stop - a place where traveling locals stop (not white people) and buy good snack foods. We found some great snack items! We also used the restrooms while there and this was the first time this trip I’ve had to use a squatty potty. Thankfully I was used to it. That did not excuse the filth of the bathroom, though. It wasn’t the worst I’ve seen, but it was pretty close to it - disgusting. Thank God Thu’s mom sent wet wipes for us and Thu and I both have travel-sized hand sanitizer!
Back in Ha Noi we decided to go to a market before checking into our hotel. The indoor market was a bit too crowded for us, so Thu, Peter, Matthew and I started walking down the street, stopping occasionally to see about purchases. We do know to bargain! We use Thu as the translator, Peter as the guy who offers a ridiculously low price for an item, me as the person to
Wet #3
Peter doesn't look thrilled about the walk in the rain. say “that’s _________ in dollars.” I think we have a good system. There were times when we just walked away because the people were being ridiculous (like the guy who wanted $5 for a small, cheaply made towel, so Thu said there was no way when we could get a better towel for $3.50 in the US - and when the guy doubted, she said “How would you know?”), and there were times when we got really good deals. When bargaining for t-shirts for little nephews, the lady said to Thu “You’re Americans, why are you so cheap?” I told her next time that happens just point to Peter and say “Because it takes a lot of food to feed this guy!”
Our hotel this evening is not as nice as the first night in Ha Noi, but it’s only two stars, not three. It’s decent. And the toilet in our room works, so that’s definitely a step up from Ha Long Bay. I was a bit worried for a while because during this evening’s monsoon it looked like the plumbing was going to back up right into our bathroom - the drain kept flapping up - but things worked out. We had dinner at the same restaurant as our first night in Hanoi, just a different menu. Tonight we tried Vietnamese wine, Dalat, and found it was actually fairly decent - much better than I expected after reading about it.
The nights get dark very quickly, so when we returned to our hotel and I asked what time it was and the answer was 7:30, I proposed going out. Thu suggested foot massages, which sounded like a great idea. Our guide proposed a place about three blocks from the hotel, so Thu and her dad’s wife and I went there and the boys went to a café. Ying-Yang Salon was overpriced by Vietnamese standards, but very underpriced for American standards - a 30 minute leg and foot massage plus a French-tip pedicure for $15. I knew it was overpriced for here but I was definitely willing to pay it because I liked the place. It looked like a Dosha or Aveda salon, and they kept it open for us, which was lovely. I guess the owner was in the US and eventually came back here and opened the salon, which explains why it looks like what we are used to seeing in the states. The process for the massage and pedicure took much longer than we expected - the guys came back to wait for us and then decided to go back to the hotel. Peter stayed to walk me and Thu back when our toes were dry. Unfortunately, this just happened to overlap with the heaviest part of the monsoon. After watching for some time and seeing it wouldn’t let up, we thought, “what the hell, we’re Oregonians” and decided to make a dash for it - even though no one else really seemed to be out in the crazy weather. The rain POURED down and the streets were flooded in some areas up to car doors, so it was a run/wade/what-kind-of-foot-disease-will-I-get-in-the-morning dash to the hotel. By the time we made it back we figured we were probably responsible for causing some near accidents, people wondering “what the heck are the crazy Americans doing?” I figure we’ve made it to someone’s family lore. Years from now someone will tell the story about the time these enormous American crazies ran down the street during a monsoon.
Tomorrow we are up early again with plans to visit Ho Chi Minh’s embalmed body. I figure I will never go to Lenin’s tomb, so this is the closest chance I’ll have to see what an embalmed, life-like body looks like.
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