Ha Long bay

We left for Halong bay on a minibus on Friday at 8 a.m. Our group was composed of maybe 30 persons. The trip to Halong bay took about 4 hours and only few people talked with each other. There were few individual posses who chatted together.. At Halong bay we were transferred to our junk (well they are not actually junks (dzonkki) but they called them junks). The weather was quite misty and not as warm as in Hanoi, so everyone was kinda feeling weird as this wasn’t the picture we saw in the brochures . The sun was absent the whole trip but it turned out OK.

The activities were eating (food was proper Vietnamese so it was good), jumping out of the boat (maybe 8 meters) and kayaking (too short IMO, maybe 1½ hours) where the views were magnificent. The rock formations in Halong bay are sometimes breathtaking and once we entered a sort of cove which was surrounded by high rock walls with vegetation on it. Some people said they saw monkeys there.. I just experienced the silence there when all other kayakees had left the area. It was me, my kayaking partner Maik (from Germany) and the silence which was only broken by some silent bird singing. Weather was calm and tranquile there. At some point of the kayaking trip we helped Silja and her kayaking partner Kate (from Australia) by towing them, soon we broke one of our paddles. But all ended well, it was good times.. As the evening grew deeper our junk cast its anchors and we started our games of “I have never” and “The ring of fire”. Needless to say, we were having soo much fun. The people mostly involved were Maik (German entrepreneur who decided to go traveling for one year, very decent and hilarious guy), Emilio & Sofia from Argentina, Buenos Aires (at some point in the beginning of the night they were playing together cards so I interrupted them and expressed my interest into Spanish cultures and so we went on playing uno with them and Maik soon joined us. Emilio & Sofia were very helpful and we had lot of good time with them. They were as well travelling for some time in Indo-China), Steven & Aaron from Ireland, crazy Irish drinkers, especially Aaron was still totally wasted on the next day during our trip back home (they were techno fanatics with good Irish sense of humour). A few Swedish guys, one Canadian girl (Carolyn), Thomas from Canada (jesus what stuff he had tried as it turned out in I have never….), Eric from Ohio was very cool guy for a redneck ;) and Noa from Israel. Noa tried to slip away to her cabin but I interrupted her and made her come play uno. But I know she appreciated it.  Later on Noa introduced to some very good Hebrew music, very modern and good and I shall fetch the music as I have time. We talked about Israel, about life. It’s always good. At some point people were starting to be so hammered that card playing was not an option any more. I was relatively OK so I started taking some night pictures with Noa and Maik. Silja was already in her bed. But soon after it was time to retreat to bed after very good card games and decent talks and whatnot. Wake up was 07.30 a.m.

On the way back, when we had picked up some more ppl onboard because they had spent an extra night in an island, one of the guys chose to throw another guy’s t-shirt into the water. As they were quite wasted, the guy who lost his shirt jumped into the water from a moving boat and not long after the guy who threw it jumped as well. Our ship crew was quite angry about it . One of the small Vietnamese chaps, as we were closing on to the two castaways, started shouting “motherfuckers! Are you retarded?”. But later on this guy started to smile as well. All ended well. Some dramatics, but the most shittiest moment once again was to see Noa and Maik leave for the island to have some more fun, as Emilio&Sofia, Eric, Silja, Steven & Aaron came along with us to return to the hostel. It was a fun trip while it lasted and we had some good time in very special surroundings. I just hoped the kayaking would have lasted a bit longer.

On this Sunday we have just chilled in Hanoi, hanged out in a park, ate some ice-cream and watched people chill out. Tomorrow morning we will take a taxi with an old guy at 06.00 a.m., as our flight to Luang Prabang leaves at 08.55 a.m. Laos is going to be awesome. I’m thinking of renting a motorbike to see some further away places in Luang Prabang. From Luang Prabang it’s Vang Vieng with its famous tubing and caves. Vientiane’s going to be chilling out place (ok the other places as well).

Hanoi was good. The people are very friendly and smiling a lot, the food is good and very local, probably ethical as well. Everybody in the city seems to be either selling stuff, fixing something or then just sitting and waiting for..something. Not exactly western efficiency but it is their way and everything seems to work just fine. It’s actually quite fun to cross roads here when you always know they will avoid you (as opposed to e.g. Finland). Politics is out of sight in Hanoi, there are hardly anything else visible than flags. The communist party is in the background and does not seem to make people unhappy. Vice versa.