Catching Up: Sapa, Hanoi & Halong Bay

*Some new pics added to this, "Night Train" and "Good Evening Vietnam" blogs below.

So Sapa came and went, the collective feeling being "I bet this place is really beautiful when it's not typhoon-ing," and "How long does it take to dry sneakers with a hairdryer?" The two-day experience is best summed up by Don's videos below, the fact that we had to check in to our hotel under the name Tommy (Tommy, if you're out there, we're sorry), and the following exchange between me and our tour guide, a 4-foot-nothing firecracker from the local hill tribe and self proclaimed "Mountain Girl."

Me: [Taking a picture of a pig sheltering itself from the rain].
Mountain Girl: "You will buy me this pig."
Me: "Huh?"
MG: "This pig. You will buy it for me."
Me: "I cannot afford this pig. It is very expensive, I think."
MG: "But the pig does not like the rain."
Me: "I also do not like the rain. There is much rain here. (Joking...) I think Sapa hates me."
MG: (Not joking...) "Sapa hates you."

We vowed to return to Sapa under non-typhoon conditions, at which point both we and the pig will rejoice in our freedom. Until then, we moved on.

A one-day stop in Hanoi brought a trip to the famed prison "Hanoi Hilton," a Temple of Literature and a lunch of stir-fried crocodile. (It kills me to write this, but it really does taste like chicken). At night - 45 cent beers at a balcony cafe where we watched the Saturday night motorbike commute and bet on the biggest number of people on one bike (I won with 5). After a late night run-in with the Israelis from the night train during which we recited our 3 inside jokes and quickly tired of one another, we made a glorious return to the beefsteak omelete place which was even better at the illegal commerce hour of 12:30am. After paying a motorbike driver to use his cell phone and beg our way inside our chain-locked hotel door, we crashed and awaited our 9:30am bus to Halong Bay. (Which was actually at 8am. Sorry Don.)

Sidebar: Halong Bay is a mysterious land three hours from Hanoi that consists of over 2,000 towering limestone islands jutting out of the otherwise peaceful Gulf of Tonkin. Halong translates as "where the dragon decends," and legends has it that the islands were caused by a massive and possibly intoxicated dragon cutting through a vast area of land while in flight and thus creating the jagged rock structures seen today.


Our 8am bus went through the seemingly traditional SouthEast Asian regimen of picking us up, driving two miles toward our destination, pulling over and idling at the side of the road for 20 minutes, moving one more mile while the same two guys board and exit the bus three or four times, and then stopping for the driver's breakfast before hitting the road one hour behind schedule.

And that was when the real weird stuff began. Like a scene out of Saved by the Bell: The College Years, a thus-far silent Vietnamese girl stood up from the back of the bus and introduced herself as our tour guide. Whacking Don on the shoulder and awakening him from a peaceful sleep, she commanded that we all announce our name and country and retain eye-contact with her while she rattled off random trivia questions about Vietnam, including:

Tour Guide: "What does Vietnam mean?"
Guy #1: "I don't know..." (Undertone - "Is she joking?")
TG: "How many islands are in Halong Bay?"
Girl #4: "I don't know..." (Undertone - "I'm kinda scared.")
TG: "How many religions are there in Vietnam?"
Me: (wild guess) "11?"
TG: "Yes!"
(Applause and a massive release of tension within the group)
TG: "Now name them!"

The rest of the 3.5 hour ride moved at roughly the same pace, with Tour Guide calling upon Don to muscle our driver out of a rest stop and henceforth referring to him as "Superman," a nickname he would at first be confounded by but would ultimately live up to. We piled out of the bus and on to a harbor, at which point we boarded a boat and watched as about 20 other boats left port while we held anchor for one solid hour so our captain could "write down all of our names in case the police come." We didn't ask.

Our first stop was a massive natural cavern made tragically un-natural by a paved stone walkway and Disneyland style lighting throughout. Still, it managed to be impressive as hell. (The picture on the left may or may not be upside down, but I can't really tell. That's how freakin trippy it was maaan!) Tour Guide accompanied us, heavily enforcing our 40-minute "in cavern" time limit, despite the fact that it was 2pm and the only other thing on our schedule for the day was "Dinner - 7pm." Tour Guide encouraged us to use our imagination when looking at the rock structures (a la Walt Disney in Arizona with a 1/2lb of peyote). She pointed out a particular structure and asked what my imagination saw.

Me: "I see an old man's face."
Tour Guide: "No. You don't."
Me: "Yea, look - there's his eyes, his nose, his beard..."
TG: "No. You see a lion with an open mouth."
Me: "Maybe you do, but you told me to use my imagination."
TG: "You must see the lion. There is his open mouth. We only have 40 minutes. (Sternly) You see the lion?"
Me: "I see the lion."

My imagination safely stowed in the overhead compartment, we pressed on, and Tour Guide did allow Superman and I a moment of reprieve with a structure called the "Big Mama Breast." (An image better left off to your imagination. Plus Tour Guide took the picture sideways and the computer won't let me rotate it.)

After being harshly reprimanded for breaking our 3:12 curfew while getting lost inside the next cave, we were on the boat for the rest of the day for mindblowing scenery and a visit to a really for real fish market, where Tour Guide and the boat crew bought about 10lbs of fresh jumbo prawns which they feasted on lavishly while we dined on rice and onion salad. We capped off the evening with 25-foot jumps off the top of the boat and a late-night (8pm) rooftop chill session where a suddenly tranquil Tour Guide sang us old Vietnamese folk songs acapella, and Don improvised a few numbers including "Passive Aggressive Song (Give Me Some Shrimp)", and "Ode to the Dragon of Halong Bay" which brought the fuckin house down.

As the Bay rocked itself to sleep, we sat with a Dutch couple and mulled over pirate pillaging the champagne and caviar boat next door, before retiring to our sweltering hot, above the engine-room quarters where Don instantly passed out and I drew swords with insomnia and lost, as usual.

Day Two brought sleep-deprived kayaking and a quest to find a secret cave on a map that Tour Guide drew for us on a napkin. We didn't find the cave. After a long, sweaty ride back to Hanoi, we grabbed a couple beers and some hamburgers that may have been made of pork, and crashed for our early morning airport pickup.

On the way to Bangkok for a night, then off to Macau for the world's biggest casinos and the world's most expensive youth hostels. Imminent disaster awaits.