Islands, Storms, Monsters, Cobras, and Motor Bikes

So we made it to Vietnam and successfully worked our way into a scam almost immediately. First thing we did was immigrate and then took the shuttle bus from the airport and that was no problem. It was a bit odd adjusting to the style of driving here. If you're in a car or a bus all you have to do is honk and speed up and everyone else is responsible for moving out of your way (everyone being the myriad of motorbikers). Cars and buses are a rarity probably because there is so little room for them with the tens of thousands of motorbikes navigating the city. It seems more like a bike race than driving. So here's the scam. As soon as the shuttle drops you off you have about twenty people yelling at you to come with them to a nice guesthouse. The ones that speak English the best seem to do the best at getting your attention. We listened to a guy who said that he was going to take us to a guesthouse that we had read about in our guide book and of course it was a 'free' ride. So anyway he took us to a guesthouse but definitely not the one we wanted. The good thing was that the guesthouse that he took us to was exactly to our specifications: one double bed, one single, a bathroom w/ shower, air con, and $3 each. So being hot and bothered we said se la vi and took the place.
After settling in a bit, getting the air con going, rinsing the heat off with a cold shower, and getting sold everything from water to boat trips, we went to the streets to get some exploring done and to find Drew. That sounds like a nice leisurely day, huh? No. Man Hanoi has to be the most hectic and craziest city I have ever been to. We even met two guys from Mexico City and they were amazed by Hanoi. It's a city over flowing with motor bikes,
ladies balancing poles on their shoulders with baskets strung on either end to carry around the goods they sell, and cars and buses that just barrel through the city hoping that everyone will get out of their way. Crossing the street in this country is a phenomenon. There are so many motorbikes at all times that you just have to go. It's amazing! Well maybe just crazy. You walk across the street at a leisurely pace and all the traffic just goes around you. I felt like Moses, parting the waves.
So we figured out the street crossing thing and then went to fill our bellies. We sat down at a small restaurant and ordered a couple of beers and some spring rolls. We were completely unsure of the exchange rate at that point so we paid the bill in the dong we had (yeah, their money is called dong, haha). We decided we needed to go back and check the exchange rates. It turned out that our two 22 oz beers and a big plate full of spring rolls was a whopping $2.50. The distance a dollar can take you hear is mind blowing. Just imagine if we had pounds of euros. So we set back out to find Drew, and, now knowing how chaotic the city is we were a little worried as to whether or not this was going to be a manageable feat. We had told him we would meet him at a small restaurant we had seen in our guide book so we went there and found that right out side there is what they call 'Beer Corners' in Vietnam. At all four corners of the intersecting there are people hanging out drinking beers for 2000 dong (about 15 cents ea.). We decided that this was a good place to wait and low and behold before I'd even finished half of my beer up comes Drew on the back of a motorbike.

So the trio was formed and the journey officially underway. We went out walking around. We wanted to go walk around the lake but somehow managed to walk in a big circle around it without ever seeing it. But we finally did find it and had a gander. We were all still freaking out about how nuts the driving situation is in this country and crossing the street was making us feel a bit like we needed to take some Xanax. So to avoid a panic attack we back to the beer corner and went big dropping about a dollar each. After that we went home. The curfew in Hanoi is 1 am. Communism. But when we got home we were pleasantly surprised to find that my friend Charity, a classmate of mine from Cal Poly had made it to meet up with us and was upstairs waiting. So we had to celebrate. We hung out in the downstairs part of our guesthouse and had another beer. But as we were chatting and and getting all riled up about the start of our trip I couldn't help but notice the large jug sitting next to me and staring me down, literally.
In Nam they drink alcohol marinated in cobras and scorpions. So being in high spirits and ready to conquer any obstacle to come our way we set out on our second mission. We survived the streets and now it was time to tame the wild life. Our hotel host was kind enough to offer us each a shot if we would have one. So, we did. Drew immediately puked it up. Charity was happy doing just one for the thrill, but the guy had poured it in a good size cup almost half full so Ash and I had to take on the rest. We each took two and there was still a pinky nail left of cobra and nobody was jumping at the opportunity until all of a sudden a crew of seven Irish Lads showed up and of course one of them was down to pound. Slainte Robbie.
So obviously we woke up the next morning at seven and were feeling the cobra But we managed to pull ourselves together enough to grab everything we needed for our three day two night excursion to Ha Long Bay. .We took a three hour bus ride out to the port on which we all did our damnedest to sleep. Once we arrived we spent about a half an hour watching them play Tetris to get the Junk (that's what the boats are called:) out of the scores of others that were blocking us in. So we slammed our junk into every other junk around us and finally finagled our way out. We now know the exactly circumstances under which the idea for bumper boats was originated. So we set sail (actually our junk was kind of dodgy and didn't have any sails) and cruised into some of the most beautiful scenery I have ever encountered in my twenty some odd years on this planet. No I'm not thirty, not even if the Koreans say I am. Ha Long Bay is breath taking. The lush greenery blotching the plethora of sheer cliffed limestone islands was nothing short of a world wonder. The pictures we took were publishable but still do it no justice. I really felt how lucky we are to be able to enjoy this at such a young age. Well Ash and Drew anyway. Maybe I'm old enough.
They fed us a lunch that was surprisingly familiar. It was boiled cabbage, kale, some salty sea weedy soup and rice (so Korean). I didn't mind the Korean food that was pretending to be Vietnamese but the weird Russian guy with no shirt on next to me was a little overboard, or should I say I was wishing him over. Ashley pointed and asked where they had gotten their wet towels and he scoffed at her and moved it away. I swear he thought they were Levi jeans the way he was protecting that towel. But life cruises on and Russians don't follow you around like the Vietnamese do. We hung out just soaking in the amazing scenery until we arrived at some cave the was lit up with fluorescent lights causing it to resemble queuing for the Matterhorn or splash mountain, something like that. It was hoaky, but there were a ton of bats and that was cool. Also you could get up pretty high and look out on the other islands. We had fun just jaunting around and making jokes and shooting the poo. After that we went kayaking and the real fun began. Since we discovered that we were horrible kayakers we decided to scrap it and go for a dip. We found a nice cove and swam around for a bit, just enjoying the luke water and having doggy paddle races. After kayaking we had a nice dinner (again Korean) and drank some beers into the night chatting it up with our shipmates: a Kiwi couple, architects on their way to London in search of work; some English guys visiting their parents in Saigon; two Mexicans from La Ciudad de Mexico, one half Spanish and studying in Univ. in Mexico, the other an American national going to UCSB; a couple of S. African girls who were a little too quiet to get to know; and a really nice French Vietnamese woman who had been living in Nam for a year doing exporting to France and England. It was quite a crew and we had a great time just talking about any random thing under the sun with them, sometimes breaking into Spanish. I was told that my Spanish sounds like Brandon Frazier in Bedazzled when he wakes up as a Colombian drug lord (I guess that's kind of cool, no?).
Next morning we woke up early after a good nights rest in probably the nicest suite on the Junk and made our way to Cat Ba island. It's one of the only islands in the Ha Long Bay archipelago that is inhabited. When we arrived we went to visit a secret hospital that the North Vietnamese used for their high ranking wounded officers during the war. It seemed like somewhere you could film a crazy horror flick about being captured and tortured. The guide kept telling us that the reason they won the war was because they are crazy and brainwashed. I was kind of hoping for his sake that nobody around was listening. Don't want him to get into trouble with the government. It was all kind of ironic and awkward to be standing there listening to our guide talk about a war in which Americans, my family, fought against these people telling us these stories. There was actually supposed to be an older man that had been an officer for the North Vietnamese during the war who was to guide us through the secret hide out, but we were told that he had smelled the Chinese coming and went out scouting for any signs of invasion. This place is nuts. I love it. After the checking out the creepy hospital that should have been the set of 'Jacob's Ladder' (you know what I'm talking about Zamora). We went to our hotel in Cat Ba. Again it was more that accommodating with air con and a nice bed. We got situated and went out to take a gander around the city and got a true taste of the Namzanity that our guide had been talking about. First our guide told us that only about fifty meters from where we were swimming the day before a Korean man drowned around the same time. There are three explanations for this and all of them are hilarious. Sorry to make light of a mans death but any which way this story is legendary folklore in the making. So the explanation we received was that Vietnam is filled with whirlpools and the man was sucked down like dirt in bath tub. The second explanation is a little more believable. In Ha Long Bay there is the equivalent of the Locke Ness monster and he seems to have claimed another victim. The third explanation is my own and it is base solely on experience. Koreans can't swim. The beach is closed for ten months out of the year and the pool consists mainly of dog paddling. But who really knows, maybe it was all three. The next Namzanity we saw was at the Internet cafe. After we finally got a computer to work and I finished checking in with the folks Ashley and I were sitting on the steps of the place waiting for Drew when we saw a man running down the street being chased by another man with blood on his face and a butchers knife in hand. Our guide says it's very common and "he probably didn't want kill him, just slice or cut or something like this." Wild!
As we sat on the steps contemplating the craziness that had been going on and how much fun we were having it began to rain, and, as time passed, the rain came down harder and the winds blew more and more fiercely until we were told that there would be no boat trip home the next day. Being consummate optimists we began talking about how cool it was going to be to say, "remember back in Nam when we were marooned on that island." However, it turned out that the winds were on our side and blew the storm through at quite a rapid pace, and we embarked back to Hanoi the next day as scheduled.