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Published: August 13th 2007
After flying back from the wedding, I spent a few days in Hanoi wandering around, exploring, and getting lost in the maze of Old Quarter streets. The Old Quarter dates back to the 13th century and has little nooks and crannies that can make you feel transported through time. I stumbled upon the old Co Luong Communal House down a little alley where the motorbike traffic disappeared and sat by an elaborate alter and had tea with the residents. Later that day I sat on a kid-sized plastic chair at one of the many sidewalk Bia Hoi (draught beer) places and chatted with some Ausie soccer fans. Australia was playing Japan in the Asian Cup football/soccer finals (or semi-finals, I don't really know), and the match was in Hanoi. The group had tickets to the match and were pre-gaming and celebrating with an Australian flag a street vendor had found somewhere and shrewdly sold to someone in the group.
One evening I passed by a group of teens as I was strolling by the lake near my hotel. We engaged in the usual "Hello! Hello!" shouting match and then one boy ran up to me and held out his hand.
I was used to Vietnamese eager to shake hands, so I extended my hand in return. He quickly grabbed my hand, gave the back a quick kiss, and escaped back to his friends before I knew what was happening. The group erupted in clapping and cheering as my Romeo took bows and reveled in the attention he received for his brave romantic gesture.
A day trip from Hanoi, Halong Bay is one of the most popular sites to visit in Vietnam. The bay is littered with hundreds of karst islands riddled with caves and grottos and covered in lush vegetation. The green water and cliffs are framed beautifully by blue sky (at least during my trip), and adding red and yellow to the palate are the sails of chinese-style junk boats ferrying tourists to the sites. I decided it was imperative that I visit Vietnam's most visited World Heritage site since I was trying to attract tourists to the country's least visited World Heritage site. So I shopped around and found a two day trip on a junk boat that hit the main caves and included kayaking and an overnight on the boat for $33 USD. Not too bad.
First we visited the congested Heaven Cave where our sweet and eager to please tour guide Doanh tried to get us to see the various lions, dragons, people, and one woman's breast complete with nipple that could be seen in the cave formations. Many of these figures required a lot of imagination, even with Doanh's use of a laser pointer pen. I smugly noticed that the caves we saw were not nearly as interesting as those in Phong Nha Ke Bang. As our boat was making its way out of the jumble of other boats at the dock, we hit another one and knocked a pice of its roof off. We gasped, the other boat's crew shrugged, and Doanh grinned, exclaiming, "It happens all the time!"
I quickly bonded with the other tourists on the boat. It was fun to just be a tourist and I completely relaxed as I lazed around the boat talking about everything from Nostradamus to Woods' musical marriage proposal. That evening we moored with scores of other boats. However, none of the boats were close enough for us to hear anything below shouting. As soon as the anchor was dropped we were told
Tourists in Heaven Cave
The neon lights and the crowds- Halong Bayit was swimming time. We started jumping off the boat into water that was cool enough to be refreshing but warm enough to be soothing, even therapeutic. Ricki, a Brit traveling with his girlfriend Carly decided to climb to the top deck of our three level boat and leap in from there. He whooped and met the water with a huge splash but without any reported pain, so I decided I should give it a try. I hesitated for a second once I saw how high I was (maybe about 15 ft.), then joined my boat-mates in a count of three before abandoning reason and jumping. The drop lasted just long enough for me to appreciate and take thrill in the helplessness of falling through empty air before I entered the water feet first and straight as a nail. It left me a little breathless and gave me tunnel hearing, but it was so much fun I did it again and again until my ears couldn't take any more.
The excitement of the jumps still hadn't worn off by the time most of the others were climbing out of the water at dusk, so I proposed taking a swim
out to meet the neighbors. Rikki and Rob (the Australian guy I met when I first got on the tour bus) joined me and we swam to the only other group of swimmers we could see in the water, a circle of Australians bouncing a soccer ball off their heads to each other. While treading water, we chatted about the Ausie-Japan match (Japan won) and declined a beer on their boat when we heard Doanh's pleas for our return from across the water. The way back felt like triple the length of the original swim. I didn't realize how far the nearest boat actually was. After beers back on our deck looking out at the faint smudge of the milky way in the bright sky, I went to bed with ears popping from trapped water and slightly disappointed there were no waves big enough to rock me to sleep.
The next day everyone who had signed up for the two night trip transferred to another boat, leaving just Rob and me to go kayaking. The kayaking was fun but a little disappointing. We had no guide which meant that we had our hour to go where we pleased, but
also that we spent a lot of time exploring islands with shadows that looked like caves but were merely shadows. We did find a random alter on a rocky beach that originally appeared to be a fancy bathroom, and we also paddled past a kayak rental place housed in a shack floating in the middle of the water. After kayaking we ended our trip with a quick swim at a beach and then got on the bus back to Hanoi.
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jason M Poole
non-member comment
I'm sure Doanh enjoyed
pointing out the nipple with his laser pen. Who knows what his imagination was requiring? :) i can't possibly express to you how pleased i am that you're getting to experience this. not just the sights but other tourists. we americans so seldom get out of our own country, we don't realize that there exists a rich western "adventure tourist" culture that is really fun to experience and important to be exposed to. so, was is that you had a couple more days before getting back to work, or was being a tourist yourself a part of your internship? sorry i didn't comment right away- i was on vacation all last week!