Missing… Presumed Having A Good Time

Wow! This place is beautiful! Blue/Green water surrounded by thousands of little islands and fishing boats and villages. There’s nothing better than cruising on small boat   with 6 cabins and a nice sun deck out amongst the rock formations in this bay.  It reminds me a lot of Guilin, China or Phang Na Bay in Thailand. Fortunately for me, there was a Canadian guy, Chris, on the boat that taught me more about using my camera in a day than I’ve learned since I bought it after the flood that destroyed my last camera almost a year ago. We stopped at the biggest deepest cave I’ve ever seen. Armed with my new found knowledge about low light level photography, I was able to take this picture  . I booked a two day cruise with 1 night out on the boat. I was hoping for a party boat, but most of the people were pretty laid back and were in bed by 9pm. That only left this crazy German guy I met and myself to drink out under the stars. I had my MP3 player and speakers out on the deck and of course, Cris chooses 2 of the 3 German songs that I have on my player by Rammstein (Heavy, Heavy Metal). I guess “99 Luft Balons” didn’t mix really well with “Du Hast”. We heard some people partying on another boat clearly playing drinking games, but unfortunately for me, I don’t know how to swim. So we decided to steal the kayak on board and paddle over there. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese boat crew were smart enough to hide the paddles from us which left us up the proverbial creek litterally without paddles. After searching the entire boat and a few more beers, we decided to kick it in and wake up in a few hours for the 5am sunrise.

After the sunrise we had breakfast on the boat and cruised to a village to go kayaking around the bay. That was a lot of fun! We stopped in a grotto to go “swimming” or more like floating around for me anyway. Unfortunately, after lunch we cruised back to the mainland and we had another 3 hour bus ride back to Hanoi. I definately should have booked a 3 day and maybe even longer to hike the trails on Cat Ba island.

Finally after 11 years, I’ve arrived in Vietnam. I regret to this day that I decided not to visit Nam back in 1994 when the US lifted trade sanctions against Vietnam and they opened their boarders to US Citizens. I was in Thailand at the time and was just too chicken to come to a country where I didn’t speak the language. I had no idea what to expect, but now after seeing Vietnam and meeting some of friendliest people in the world, I wish I did come and see the Vietnam before tourist industry ramped up to welcome the hoards of tourists running all around the country.

After arriving at HAN, I find a ATM and doing the calculations in my head, I decide to withdraw 320,000 Dong thinking that’s gotta be a heafty sum. Unfortunately for me, I left off 1 zero as the exchange rate is 16,000 to 1. So I pulled out all of $20. Unfortunately, the ATMs in Vietnam charge 20,000D per transaction.  $2.50 doesn’t sound like a lot of money until you put it into perspective.  I usually paid $4 per night’s accomodation and can eat for less than $5 per day.  I thought it was cheap to get from the airport to the city in Chicago at $1.50, but I managed to catch 2 public buses from the airport directly to where I stayed near Hoan Kiem Lake for .50c (Bus #17 to the end of the line and change to # 8 across the street for anyone wanting to do this as well) I had heard all kinds of bad stories about minibus drivers trying to “shanghai” travellers into their commissioned hotels so I decided to take public transport where the drivers don’t have any vested interest in where they drop u off.

I’m convinced that there are no open museums in Hanoi. We tried to go to the Airforce Museum after calling to make sure that it’s open. I show the taxi driver where we want to go and he smiles and nods. After he collects the fare, he waits patiently for us to come out as he knows that the museum has been closed for about a year while being renovated. Bastard! We end up paying him 80K to take us back to where he picked us up. So I decide that I want to go to the B52 museum. I ask the hostel again to call to see if it’s open and once again the girl at the hostel tells me that it is, but it didn’t seem like the guy she asked was really that sure about it. I get there and there really isn’t a museum, but just a shot down B52, some SAM launchers, a radar station and a MIG-21 that is supposed to have shot down 3 F4 Phantoms. The building where the museum is supposed to be looks abandoned except the cafeteria which was hosting some kind of wedding dinner while I was there.

The only thing that I did find open was the infamous Hanoi Hilton where American Pilots like John McCain were inprisoned. According to the photos and the signs they were all treated and fed very well. There were even pictures of American pilots cooking a chicken with smiles. They even had on display the nice pajamas that they gave the American flyboys to wear. If any of the propaganda were to be believed, the 6 years McCain was here would have been a cake walk, but the photos I took might tell a different story of the history of Maison Centrale Prison. Right after this photo was taken, Adam thesouthafricanguyimet, decided it would be really funny to lock and bolt the cell door shut! Fortunately for me, we didn’t really know each other that well so he had to quickly let me out not knowing how I’d react.

The traffic in Hanoi is amazing. I found a rooftop beer garden where the main attraction is a major 5 way intersection that has absolutly no traffic control. Bikes, cars, motorcycles, pedestrians… all cross at will narrowly missing each other most of the time. I have some great video of tourists mucking up the whole situation trying to cross. But the locals cross without a problem even if they’re carrying their wares for sale. The key to crossing the street in Vietnam is moving slow, smoothly and predictably and never ever stopping or they will hit u. Sometimes the motorbikes will aim directly at you at high rates of speed expecting you not to be there when they get there.

In Hanoi, they have something called Bia Hoi which is .12c fresh keg beer. It’s not very good, (Adam described it as tasting like sweet meat) but it has to be the cheapest beer I’ve found anywhere in the world so it’s a little difficult to complain. I’m off from Hanoi for a 2 day trip to Halong Bay.

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