down by the bay

the next portion of our trip was one of the most highly anticipated - our excursion to halong bay. we set the trip up just a day before, with our super friendly hanoi hotel staff. the price difference between the mid-range and top-range boats wasn't much and we'd heard the food was substantially better, so we opted for a slightly nicer package. and so, the next morning we found ourselves in a van with a bunch of other tourists, who i assume were all, like us, trying to determine what in the world our guide was talking about. something about bridges? where he went to school? who can say.

on board

the trip (after he stopped talking) was pleasant and largely uneventful - except for a stop at a horrific shopping warehouse. you know, the kind where they have faux greek goddess statues and giant paintings with gold flecked backgrounds and everything's eight times what you'd actually pay for it. the kind of place they must go to decorate every single cruise ship. and we were left to peruse for forty-five minutes. i think i left with a postcard and a pack of gum. anyway - after a few more miles of rice paddies we arrived at the bay, where we boarded the tender (weird name) to our junk (even weirder name). our little boat was quite cute. we had a cozy little stateroom (isn't it weird that there's a 'stateroom' on a 'junk'? such a disparity) and, upstairs, a shared dining room/common area and, above that a deck with some lounge chairs.

it was about lunch time by then so we all sat down at the table and prepared to tuck in. this seems like a good time to introduce our boatmates, as it was when we actually met them as well. there was the russian couple.. the male part of which looked exactly like a butch-er ron weasley - his face was as red as his hair - who generally kept his arm firmly around his girlfriend (probably because she did seem rather out of his league. but really, on this boat there was not a lot of competition). then we had a fun chinese couple from singapore - he liked to make jokes then sometimes repeat them in case the whole table hadn't heard; she tempered him and told interesting anecdotes, following every phrase with 'yeah..'. then two portuguese men who we assumed were either together or a very odd father-son duo. and finally a german couple who looked like they walked out of a nursery rhyme - he was so slight he could have been walter mitty (glasses, mustache and all) if it weren't for the thick, almost stereotypical german accent. she, on the other hand, was a rather zoftig women with beady little eyes who, unfortunately didn't speak much english. it was a fun bunch.

green waters

oh right, lunch. it was delicious! the plates just kept coming and coming from the kitchen. pear papaya salad, shrimp cocktail, stuffed crabs (di-vine!), fried fish, spring rolls, french fries, bak choi, tofu, chicken. i'm pretty sure we cleaned every plate - all 37 of them. then we had a few hours to lazy about and enjoy the views of the bay which were, by the way, beautiful. 'ha long' evidently means dragon, which makes perfect sense when you see the cliffs (karsts, apparently) rising up out of the water like scales. it wasn't as clear as it might have been in the summer and the water was probably not as bright. but even in the misty weather it was dramatic.

surprise! it's a cave

after an hour or two we arrived at our first stop: surprising cave. there are generally two cave options for day-trippers: this one and dragon cave. we had heard the former was better so we set out to see the surprise for ourselves. i guess the first surprise was that we had to go up a bunch of steps to get there. actually we're still not entirely sure what the real surprise was. perhaps that it was so big inside? (some might say.. cavernous..) at any rate it was well lit with greens and oranges and we dutifully wound our way around the path inside.

once back on the boat we had a few minutes before our next little excursion: kayaking! neither mom nor i had ever kayaked before. we seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly. and what a beautiful setting! we made our way out away from the boats and paddled along the sides of the cliffs. the water was so clear and bright turquoise from down there. about 45 minutes later we were back on our boat, a little wetter and sorer but certainly better for it. we popped upstairs to the deck to chat for a few minutes before dinner and watch the sun go down.

one fish, two fish, shellfish, squiggly thing

the europeans were discussing the economy - the portuguese and german views were predictably different. then down for dinner - more of the same from lunch. different dishes, all delicious, that just kept coming out of the kitchen. we lingered over the empty plates discussing this and that and all retired to our little rooms stuffed and satisfied.

mobile market

the next morning it was up for a markedly less exciting breakfast and to enjoy the view. a quick stop to the local fish market was pretty much all that was on the agenda for the day. that itself was fairly interesting though. who knew you could eat so much of what's in the water? or that some of it was so weird looking.. and striped. nearby were a few houses with clothes hanging outside.. pretty normal-looking except surrounding them was just water and giant cliffs. there were a few floating markets too. some with candy bars and essentials, others with fruits in just about every color you could imagine.

from there it was just another hour or two on the boat, enjoying the last of the view. by noon we had reached the harbor and we had one last meal on the boat (one wonders why we couldn't have done this farther from the rather ugly shore) before heading out. we stopped yet again at a giant warehouse - a nearly identical but different warehouse with the exact same merchandise - in the middle of our drive and as we reached hanoi were dropped off at our respective hotels.

every meal a new dish

my mother and i had one more night and half day in hanoi. the night we spent, of course, eating. after thailand, vietnam had some of our favorite food of the trip. this time we went out in search of com ga, seasoned rice with shredded chicken and lemon. the place we found it, like many of the others i had found recommendations for, happened to be within walking distance of our hotel, which was very handy. this particular walk also provided us with a promenade along the night market (yes, one in every city it seems) - one of the less exciting ones though, mostly cosmetics and fake leather bags.

the next day we went to see the last places we had on our list before our flight. this meant several taxi rides and a little bit of rushing. mom had really wanted to see the vietnam museum of ethnology, which i was all for. the inside had a few displays which looked interesting, but we breezed through it in favor of the traditional houses out back. the size of this section was really quite impressive. there were all sorts of houses - one something like an iriquois longhouse, another with a roof as tall as the stilts on which it was built (which was, uh, pretty tall). each was well signed, with good information on the region it was from and the people who would live in them, along with - of course - who sponsored its construction (a lot from germany).

we wrapped up there a little early, missing out on the last few abodes. but we wanted to be sure to get back to hoa lo (aka the hanoi hilton) before it closed for lunch. the prison was initially used by the french to hold vietnamese prisoners. the vast majority of the space was devoted to that. and it did seem that the conditions there were pretty grim. i mean, there was a guillotine. but when you get to the two rooms devoted to the american soldiers it was all sunshine and christmas parties. the videos and text actually proclaimed that soldiers enjoyed the "best living conditions". no mention of the physical torture or mentally crippling isolation. sigh. but then, i suppose it is still a communist country. (did i mention they had blocked facebook? not quite the same, just another aspect) it had us both a little annoyed, but luckily this came at the end of our journey in vietnam so didn't sour our perceptions too much.

from there it was off to cambodia! our last country of the four