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Published: June 27th 2006
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Ok everyone, I'm back. It's been a very long week filled with study, travel, sickness...etc. I'm recovering from the flu at the moment so I have spent the past few days in bed with fever and all...ICK!!! I went to the doctor and I am now feeling much better!!!
Anyway, it has been an incredibly crazy week. I don't even know where to begin or if I will even remember it all. It seems like I've been here forever, but it's only been two weeks. I don't recall where I last left off but I will try to fit in all the important things.
Last week, some of the girls and I went to the Opera. I think I spoke about that in my last blog, so I'll just post some pics. On Friday, we attempted to go out to a concert but the gaurd at the door decided that our outfits were too ugly so he wouldn't let us in. He said it was up to him to decide if we were dressed appropriately or not, and he said we were not. By the way, we were wearing exactly the same thing as all of the people he was letting
in. We had walked a long way to get there so we attempted to find other things to do and didn't quite find anything. I then went back to the hotel room to get some sleep because we were leaving early in the morning for Halong Bay. I started to have a little bit of a sore throat on Friday night, but hoped it would go away.
We woke up on Saturday morning and got on a bus for headed for Halong Bay. It was soooo wonderful to get out the this crazy city. Really, a person can only handle so much of this noisy stinky city. The countryside here is beautiful. It was exactly what I needed. Since I have been here, I can't say that I have felt much excitement or personal attatchment to Vietnam, but when I got into the countryside that all changed. Once out of the city, you are surrounded by emerald green ricefields. My favorite part is the burial grounds within the ricefields. They look like mini temples and they rest among the fields while the people tend the rice. Also, after seeing rice at the source, I have a new appreciation for it.
Women and men work knee deep in dirty water all day long in high temperatures to harvest this food that comes so cheap to us. The work involved is amazing.
The tour guide for our trip was great, his name is hop. He was really entertaining and we spent some of our three hour drive telling jokes and stories and having a good time. We arrived in Halong Bay around noon and hopped on our boat. At the door they greeted us with warm towels to wash our hands and face. We then sat down for a fabulous lunch full of seafood, rice, veggies, and beer. The beauty of Halong Bay is indescribable. I will attempt to show through my pictures what I saw, but I feel there is no words that could describe it to do it justice. The bay itself has over 3,000 islands. They are small and made of limestone and they jut out of the water high into the sky. We stopped at one to enter a stalagmite and stactite cave. It was nice to enter because it offered some shade from the sun. After tourinng the cave we went to another island which had a
pagoda on the top. I was probably in no condition to ascend the island because I was a little bit sick, but I couldn't miss out on the opportunity to view this bay from so high up and with a 360 degree view. It was a long trek up, but the reward was invaluable.
After we made the long journey back down we returned to our boat to move to another part of the bay where we would be staying for the night. When we got there we were able to swim and kayak. After dinner, the girls and I spend a couple of hours on the deck of the boat watching the stars, resting, and chatting. We attempted to sleep in our cabins, but let's just say that we weren't alone; there were creepy crawly bugs all over our room and in our beds!! We decided it was safer for us to sleep up on the deck of the boat. However, I didn't sleep very well because by this point I had a high fever and was miserable. While I would have liked to have gone on that trip when Iwas feeling better, I wouldn't have wanted to miss
getting to know the 8 girls from the group who I went with.
The view from the boat in the night was breathtaking!! Right above me was the stars, all around be was the sea and limestone islands, and off in the distance was thunder and lightning storms that lit up the sky. We awoke in the morning to rain dropping on us and the sunrise off in the distance.
Upon returning to Hanoi, I went to the hopsital to make sure there wasn't anything terribly wrong with me. Luckily, it was only the flu and I am almost all better. It was a very difficult experience, though, because when you fee like that the only thing you want is your bed and someone to take care of you. Luckily, I had Mytam, she was my mommy for a while. But unfortunately my bed was quite a ways away.
I am getting more and more comfortable here everyday and at the same time also ready for the comfort of America. I guess the emotional and mental challenge means that this trip is successful academically and personally. I suppose I didn't expect it to be easy, but I also didn't expect
it to be so hard. Someone even threw something at me last week!! Not exactly sure why, but whatever. Also, I have no idea why that man wouldn't let us into the concert. I don't know if it was racial, because we were American, or simply because he was on his own little power trip. Some women selling fruit refuse to sell things to people in our group. You'd think people this poor would want to sell to anyone willing to buy, but I guess not. Like I've mentioned before, sorting through this experience is going to take a lot of time and reflection and I doubt I will come to any conclusions while I am here. And while learning a lot of things about the world, I am also learning a lot about myself. I am overcoming a lot of fears and learning that I am capable of quite a bit. Sometimes it is still very strange to think that I am in Vietnam. We will be walking down the street and I will say "we're in Vietnam....that's really wierd!!!". I never thought I would be on the opposite side of the world and almost graduating college. It is
exciting to become the person you never thought you would be, but always knew you could be.
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Wendi
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It's about time!
Hey Gunnie, I'm glad to hear that you're feeling better now. I can't believe how much you're doing: shopping, the opera, boat rides! Are you sure you're actually taking classes there? The pictures of the ocean and the pagoda are amazing, I want to go there! Keep having fun, we all miss you!