The Vacation - Part 1 (Hanoi and Halong Bay)

Bergie and I just finished the vacation of our lives (thus far) - 24 days, 2 countries, 7 cities, 12 different modes of transportation, and a ton of great memories. In Vietnam, we visited Hanoi, Halong Bay, Cat Ba Island, Hoi An, and Hue. In Thailand we went to Ko Samui, Bangkok, and Chiang Mai. It was truly amazing. Over the next several blog entries, I'll try to describe the trip.

The trip began on December 22, in Hanoi, Vietnam, where we met up with our Minnesota travel buddies, Clint, Jackie, Juggy, and Becca, to begin our Southeast Asian adventure. Hanoi provided an excellent introduction to the craziness we would encounter on the trip. This town is nuts. The streets are jam packed with cars, pedicabs, and countless mopeds. There are no crosswalks. And there are very few traffic lights. So, to cross the street, you just have to take a deep breath, put yourself in front of oncoming traffic, and slowly move across the road - scary as hell at first, but the system works, the traffic avoids you, and eventually you get across the street.

That first night we crossed the street a few times for fun, grabbed dinner, and went to bed. The Minnesota crew had been traveling for more than 24 hours straight, and they urgently needed some rest. Plus, early the next day we would begin our 3-day adventure in Halong Bay.

We booked a 3-day, 2-night Halong Bay Junk Cruise, Kayaking and Cat-Ba Island adventure through Handspan Adventure Travel (Highly Recommended). A junk is a boat - it sort of looks like a pirate ship, but they are essentially small cruise boats that are used to take people like us around Halong Bay. Ours was called the Aloha Junk, and it was fantastic. The rooms were comfy and the food was great.

Halong Bay's beauty is difficult to describe - I've seen no other place like it. So, I'll include a bunch of pics. Essentially, it is a large bay that has a ton of steep limestone karsts scattered all over the place. It's stunningly beautiful - an absolute must see if you ever visit Vietnam. According to legend, the islands were created by jewels that fell from the mouths of dragons who were defending the bay from potential Chinese invasion. (Take that China). I guess it actually has something to do with shifting tectonic plates, but I like the dragon theory better.

Our Junk trip was great. Day one essentially involved transporting us to the Junk and feeding us a fantastic seafood dinner. On the second day, we went visited a small fishing village, where we all jumped in these tiny row boats and were rowed around the village by some local girls. It was pretty amazing to realize that these families lived in these tiny shacks floating on the water. Apparently, a boat from the village regularly goes to the mainland for supplies, but the vast majority of the villagers spend their entire lives living and working on the water.

After the tour of the fishing village, we went kayaking - a definite highlight of the trip for me. Seeing Halong Bay from the junk was great, but getting in the water and paddling ourselves around was truly amazing.

After Kayaking, it was time to transfer off the Junk to Cat-ba island - the biggest, and only settled island in Halong Bay. We were spending one night in a hotel on the island. We had no idea until we arrived just how nice our hotel was going to be. It was all sorts of fancy - huge rooms, right on the beach, with an amazing view from every room. The girls immediately took advantage of the hotel spa and the guys started drinking. We sort of tied one on that night, as we knew the following night was going to be a bit less luxurious (an overnight train from Hanoi to Danang).

The next day, we decided to rent motorbikes and tour the island. It was funny how different renting an automobile in Vietnam is from the States. At home, they'd want your license, and they'd have you sign some sort of waiver. In Vietnam, they take your money and hand over the keys.

I had trouble immediately. I started my motorbike, put it in gear, and proceeded to drive it into a curb and crash. Juggy, Clint, and Bergie all enjoyed that a little too much. Luckily, I wasn't hurt. I did jack my motorbike up a bit, but we quickly got it fixed, and we were off on our tour. Unfortunately, 10 minutes into our ride, I had another problem - this time I had a flat tire.

Our guidebook had warned us about this sort of thing. It said that we should beware of motorbike scams - that they will rent you a bike that will break down, and then someone will come by out of the blue to "help you," only to completely rip you off. So, when a Vietnamese man came out of nowhere to help me, I was very skeptical. He began motioning me to follow him. He kept pointing at my tire and then pointing at someplace far off in the distance, and he was trying to get me to go with him. I was skeptical, though, because he was directing me to go away from the direction of my hotel - the direction I wanted to go. But, against my better judgment, I followed him. The man guided me through a small town. As I pushed my bike down the street, the villagers would yell something at the man, he'd point at my tire and yell back, and then they'd all nod at me and point in the direction I was heading as if to say, "Yep - just keep going." I felt like they were all in on the scam, but I kept going. Eventually we reached the end of the town, and at the top of a hill, we came to a house with a sign that had an old tire on it and some Vietnamese writing that I can only assume said "Fully Licensed Tire Repair Shop."

This little mishap actually turned out to be pretty cool. While the tire repairman (and about 10 of his friends) attempted to repair my tire, a group of 15 or so school children came up to us and started practicing their English. The girls were especially fond of Juggy - one of them told him she loved him, to which he responded "No you don't." (Why won't you accept love, Juggy?) One of the boys was laying it on pretty thick with Bergie, too. His pick-up line was, "Mother, father, farmer." I'm sure if she wasn't already married, that line just might have worked.

The tire repair was proving quite the challenge, so as we waited, one of the mechanics brought out a papaya for us to eat. That act pretty much confirmed for me that we were not being scammed - that these people were genuinely being helpful. In fact, that's basically what we found throughout Vietnam. The guidebook had us scared that the Vietnamese would try to screw us every chance they got, but we never saw that. The Vietnamese were nothing but friendly and helpful. (Thailand, however - that's another story).

Eventually they fixed my tire. Apparently, I had run over a nail. With everything fixed, we drove back, returned the bikes, hopped on a ferry, and returned to Hanoi so we could begin the next leg of our adventure - Hoi An.