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HaLong Bay
some junksI remember how my great-uncle Jerry would sit on the porch and whittle all day long. Once he whittled me a toy boat out of a larger toy boat I had. It was almost as good as the first one, except now it had bumpy whittle marks all over it. And no paint, because he had whittled off the paint.
-Jack Handy, SNL
Welcome back to the travelog everybody. Haven't done anything too interesting in the past day. Professor Pack and I met up with one of his Vietnamese buddies from a summer ago named Duch (at least that's how it sounds). We hung out in the hotel that he works in for an hour or so waiting for him to get off work. Work for him though is simply hanging out in the hotel lobby in air conditioning browsing the internet. Not too bad. But 7 days a week could get a bit tiresome. I met a few other students in the lobby and exchanged numbers, so don't worry about me, I'm making friends. After Duch was off work we went to one of his local spots to have a few drinks and get dinner. We tried dried cuddle fish and deer. The cuddly fish tasted like jerky dipped in salt water but after dunking it in a few sauces it didn't taste so bad. The deer was also similarly lackluster until it was coated with a nice glaze of hot sauce. Next came some tofu, a food I had never taken seriously. It actually just tasted
a lot like fluffy eggs, add some sauce and it was great. The night ended with a few hanoi beers and three dollar taxi ride home. With the help of Duch, a native vietnamese dude, the taxi drivers charge about half as much. Whatever is normal, a foreigner pays double.
Tomorrow morning I embark on a voyage to Ha Long bay via Junk. Junks are decent sized boats that are mostly used for tourism these days. The first day we get to check out some of what are supposedly the coolest looking caves around. I'll also have a chance to swim and kayak around some of the rock formations in the bay. The night is spent on the boat and the next morning we arrive at Cat Ba. This village is mainly a tourist attraction nowadays but it apparently has some decent beaches and a couple mountains to climb. I'll spend the night in a hotel here where hopefully I can update to let you guys know whats up. The next I'll be back in Hanoi in the middle of all the bustle and commotion. The sound never stops here in the city so it will be quite a relief to get out on the open waters and hang out under the stars. The trip was quite inexpensive, especially with Duch's special discount. Everything is taken care of but it will be weird being around a bunch of white people for a change. Apparently very few vietnamese actually make it out to these places because of the cost and here I am just making a weekend out of it. Well that's it for now, I gotta go get some dinner, probably some bun ca.
Jingle all the way,
bnm
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Cuzin Jeff
non-member comment
haha
Haha jingle all the way. Thats the best ending to a blog I have ever seen. How does the lake compare to ole Elk Lake back at Zeke's place? I also have noticed that you are madly in love with the word quite. I'd like to see you try some new words there, you know some zingers, just to keep it interesting. Zaboomafoo.