I arrived in Hanoi on Thursday night and was inundated with
motor scooters galore, they are everywhere and they obey no traffic rules.
People carry their babies (yes plural) on the scooter, construction materials,
100 lb bags of rice, you name it it’s transported on scooters. The city was
amazing so I was a little disappointed I had to leave so soon to catch the
cruise in Halong bay…oh just wait I made it back to Hanoi for more! Friday
morning my new travel buds Colleen, Nikki and I had a 3 hour ride to Halong
Bay. We met some other great people along the way: a couple from Canada taking
a year off from work to travel along with the gal’s Mom who joined them for one
month and another couple that deemed themselves everyone’s Travel parents, Ian
and Cherylanne. Ian and Cherylanne met in Australia, she is aussie and he is
Canadian and they have been P.E. teachers in Canada for 29 years, they are
retired and teaching in Hanoi for 2 years, they were genuinely some of the
nicest people I have ever met in my life. It was fun to learn about everyone
and what brought them to Halong Bay. We stopped at a rest stop along the way
where the workers were diligently working on creating the art that was then for
sale in the store, wow that is something I have never seen before! It did feel
kind of like visiting a sweatshop so that was sad but it was amazing to see the skills they
have. Once we arrived at the boat we met more of the fun cruisers that were on
the boat with us.
Special delivery....
Artists hard at work!
Once on the boat we had an amazing lunch as we shipped off
and enjoyed the scenery that the word picturesque can’t even capture, the giant
island like masses in the water are lime stone and stunning. Our first stop was
to see a floating village. This is where 70 people live full time, they
basically live in little garages that are built on a floating inter-tube like
thing. They are full time fishermen and at some stage they just decided to stay
out on the water and not go back to the mainland. We also visited the floating
school which only has seats for the small children, but most children stay in
the floating village with their parents and are only schooled thru the primary
grades. There are a rare few that leave the village and if they do they go off
to boarding school. They do have some electricity, you could see a few boats
that looked like they were generators, really crazy to imagine living here.
Floating Village
As you have gathered so far everything about this
cruise/house/boat was to.die.for! I love a good vessel and the craftsmanship
was spectacular along with the meals and service. After being on the boat about 20 hours and
waking up for morning Tai Chi it was time for breakfast. The nice man leading
communications (and I use the word, leading, loosely) was going from table to
table, I imagined he was giving us the agenda and was eagerly awaiting the
bullet points!! –tea ceremony, squid fishing, spring roll cooking lessons…ah
not so much…. he came to tell us there was a typhoon blowing in from the
Philippines and the cruise was going back to land. Total bummer but we did get
to see so much in 24 hours that I wasn't too upset.
Not the best pic, but you can see the balcony right off the room, love it here!
On the van ride back to Hanoi our Canadian friends living in
Hanoi invited the boat members to a dinner in the spot they have deemed the
best Vietnamese food they have had since moving there, so we had to go! There
was a group of about 15 of us stranded cruisers that met up and had dinner, so
delish and about $10 per person. We ate a lot too!! Our Canadian ‘travel mom’
wanted us young girls to have a real taste of nightlife so she phoned up her co
worker who is closer to our age and asked what was on tap…well there was a
rugby party and Cherylanne sent us on our way, she did warn us that the crew
could get wild but we told her we could handle it. Ummmm, I am no stranger to
cray cray but this crew was getting after it! They had been drinking since 2pm and it was
11pm and I am sure you can guess how that goes. I met and old guy named Tony
Quinn who gave himself the name Ho Chi Quinn, I met a man whose job is to
diffuse bombs, and yes I did ask him…like hurt locker??? He said yes. Lastly, I
learned rugby players take their clothes off in public and that is ok in Hanoi,
I guess. Ah, Check please…we were def on a different level than these cats.
The last day our Canadian travel angels arranged a motor
scooter tour through the city, they had 12 motor bikers come for the cruise
crew and we all got to ride on the back of a scooter, we did not drive, that would be a death
wish. It was truly the back door tour,
through alley’s and by the river and by the lake that John McCain was shot down
in and where he was captured and taken into prison. It was so amazing,
something you could never sign up for. For a 2.5 hour tour it was $12, that is
a steal. I think we made the drivers month on that $12 trip, my driver Gong
seemed quite happy.
Front and Center: Katy G & Gong! (when I asked him his name I basically said 'me katy' so when he responded me Gong...I felt like I was having a conversation with King Kong. Sometimes fewer words makes life much easier over here...
To get real a bit, it was strange after all these years of
school and hearing about Vietnam at home to be there in person. I carry all my
people in my heart as I travel around and Uncle Bill and my late Uncle Kurt
were definitely on my brain as I travelled through Vietnam. How much more you
appreciate the sacrifice that was made by our very own family for our country.
I am not political by nature; I just felt such deep gratitude for seeing how
far you had to be away and in an unimaginable situation, not to mention the
heat, my god, the heat! I was also quite shocked to see that what we call the
Vietnam War is locally referred to as the American Destruction War.
End Bits:
-Ugh, smoke, haze and face masks. I was thrilled my trip to
Hanoi was planned since Singapore was buried in smoke and haze. Indonesia has
little funding to clear their farm land once the crops have been picked so they
set their farms on fire to clear the land, if the wind shifts that fiery smoke
blows over to Singapore. Just my luck that the fires and smoke have been the
worst in history…his.tory. It’s so gross and makes you sick. My house smelled
like a bonfire. Hopefully they can stop this going forward, b.c. I am assuming
the article I read about 1 airplane dumping a bucket of water on the fire isn’t
gonna do the trick. Also Indonesia went ahead and said Singaporeans were being
a ‘bunch of babies’…6MM people can’t go outside, I think that’s a big deal.
-Vietnam, of course I will buy a scarf to cover my shoulders before entering the mausoleum. I wouldn't dare bare my arms to the late Ho Chi Minh, I am not that kind of girl!
-I am keeping my end bits short since I was babbling about
my trip!
