On our second day in Hanoi (the city between two rivers) we set off in the morning at 8am to get on a three hour bus to stay a night on a boat tour.
Again, the bus was late and when we arrived at the docks we had to wait an extra hour for the other group of people to arrive. By this point in my trip I have realized that time isn’t relevant anymore. It just doesn’t matter how quickly anyone in Asia does anything. In a business people will wait when you don’t tell them anything. Ie. Their itinerary. There was a point in time when I had wanted more prevalent organizational skills from travel agencies that plan tours and from the tour guides themselves. During these moments while I am waiting for transportation to arrive, I have had the best conversations and met some of the nicest people that I demographically wouldn’t have if we didn’t have a common topic to whine briefly about. Even then it is more like passing chuckles about how disorganized everything is and we all comment, “when are we going to get there?” in the end we all know that they will come and we will make it there and most likely have a great time.
We got on the boat and met a very nice couple who are teaching in Korea. I realized that I stopped mentioning people along the way since we have met so many wonderful people. I would like to mention them all but since you people out there (the readers) don’t know who they are I will just save it for passing conversations in real time.
After eating a great seafood dinner and taking some scenic photographs we arrive in the caves at Ha Long Bay (the descending dragon). The caves are called the surprise caves since there were dragons that fought off the Chinese that were attacking the Vietnamese people living in the caves. I am not sure what the story was the tour guide wasn’t really clear and I was too busy looking at the ‘corner store’ boat lady.
The scenery out at Ha Long Bay was just the most malevolent panoramic view I have seen in a really long time. This is a place I would totally live on a house boat and not lack inspiration to thought provoking realizations, creativeness and most of all be in disbelief that life isn’t spent in beautiful backdrops more often.
Dinner was another great seafood meal, at night they sang karaoke and Karrie and I watched some movies in our cabin. In the morning we ate toast not a baguette with eggs, coffee and fruit. I believe that we were suppose to go to Ca Ba islands but I believe that we were suppose to get up at 6am for that and missed our chance, or they changed the itinerary on us and we just didn’t pick up on it soon enough.
We arrive back at the docks and are stuck waiting again for the bus that I always think ‘will never come’ but does finally when you have already given up hope that you will never get to your destination .
Back to Hanoi, after one crappy shower and two (yes, I said two) bowls of Pho later we are off to the airport in Hanoi.
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| Our Boat! |
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| I'm on a boat! |
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| The finger. |
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| In the lair. |
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| The corner store boat lady. |
It is a big change to be at an airport for once, since I haven’t been to one since Bangkok. It is exciting to get on an air plane when you aren’t going home. Thailand here we come!!!
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