A bit of a scare but not to worry

---

Where are we .... well... I think I left off that Adele and I arrived in Hanoi in the early hours of the morning from the over night train ride which was interesting in itself. I think there might have been 4 foreigners on our cabin and the rest were locals traveling back to the city. To describe the train think of some prisoners being shipped off a long time ago with the caged windows, wooden frame and the most uncomfortable seats in history (soft seats they say... my ass!) and fans blowing around dirty smokey air! Oh well, just a way to get there and a place to sleep right! It was about 6:30am when we arrived in Hanoi and what do you do when you get to a city with 2 million motor bikes?!?! you get on the back of one with your huge backpack and hope for a good driver. I had a good driver (a little fast but that's ok) Sorry dad, I know you don't agree with motorbikes but I had to! We got dropped off outside of the Kangaroo Cafe (realized it was too early to be open so then walked to try and find a hotel we read up on in the LP). Ended up at some other place but it was $5 for the night and we were of course sweaty and just wanting to shower so we said sure. After showering, back to the cafe to check out some prices on the trip to Halong Bay, made arrangements for a 3 day/2 night tour and were off to venture around the city. We stayed in the Old Quarters which isn't too big so we did the touristy sight seeing activities here including Hoi Kiem Lake which is considered the liquid heart of the old quarter, Ngoc San Temple, Jade Mtn where there are the remains of a GIGANTIC tortoise (which they still believe to live in this lake), Tortoise Tower, different statues and then met up with 2 people from Holland to walk to the Temple of LIterature, Presidents Palace, Maseolum of Hoi Chi and the One Pillar Pagoda (again no one keeps track of time or days here so we didn't realize that it was Monday and many of these places were closed so we got some pictures from outside and by then it was time to see the water puppet show, a traditional show in Vietnamese. Okay so we went in with an open mind but Adele and I burst into laughter as did other people who had seen the movie 'Team America'... Merium and Alyssa you guys would have died of laughter! It was interesting to get 'a kind of' depiction of their history (of course in an artsy form) and for $2 I would definitely recommend it!
Okay so I guess I should explain the title and why I was a bit scared (ok extremely scared). After dinner we needed to get to a bank so when we finally found one with the plus symbol not 3 minutes into the bank and in the middle of Adele's transaction the lights in the entire street go out and there are noises of which sound like guns... Marloes (the Dutch girl yells out "GUNS" so I was terrified thinking 'here we are in a bank and there is a raid going on outside... this is the first place they are going to come'... so I am running to the back, Adele is trying to get her 2million dong and the dutch guy is running out the door into the steet. People are running like maniacs in the street so what would you think with all this information?! Turns out luckily that it is just the electrical wires from the hydro poles falling and sparking (this too is bad but not as bad as what I thought it was). So we started running in the opposite direction down the street and stopped when I felt safe. I have to say that I have never been more scared in my entire life (mom, dad, Mark I know you did not want to hear this sorry no worries). A little shaken and no longer wanting to go to the night market (it was back in the black out) we went to the lake and watched some of the locals do their aerobics for the night in their pajamas. You wouldn't catch Canadians doing a jig at night in the park in their pajamas but anyhting goes here!
The next day we were off for our trip to Halong Bay. Met some really great people from Holland, London and Victoria B.C. Our guide for the trip was trying to make small talk too early in the morning with us and we felt bad for him so Adele started to ask him some questions... ADELE : "um what is the #1 export in Vietnam?!? " EVERYONE ON THE BUS "Are you kidding?" hahaha it was actually quite entertaining and she managed to save herself by asking the some other silly questions. The "Boy Band" from Victoria thought we were stupid Americans... thanks Adele😊 jk We eventually got on the boat and it was very impressive and surpassed our expectations. There were only 12 of us on it which was really nice, we had cabins with our own washroom and well you usually keep your standards pretty low when you won't pay more then $10 for a room. The food however was not good (breakfast, lunch and dinner were pretty blah). The sunset was the best we have seen and after that I was out... so tired from the sun! We did some swimming and kayaking our second day on the trip which was great to be out on the water... Adele and I couldn't go straight if you paid us to but we still managed to go fast ' for 2 girls' (The guide wanted us to go with a guy but we said no we could manage). We also went for a trek... Kong our guide said it was fine to wear flip flops.... ummm not really. Climbing huge rocks, in the dirt, sometimes straight up, sometimes straight down not good for the ankles. We climbed 225m to the top and then up some old rusty tower that was very unstable! ..... shit i gotta run... update coming soon

---