Today, well...first let me tell you how mad I am that I haven't been keeping up with this. I refuse to be one of those I'm-going-abroad-I'm-gonna-make-this-awesome-blog-but-only-write-4-entries-before-I-get-too-lazy kind of people, so fear not. I'm officially back.
It seems weird to go all the way back to Vietnam when I'm writing this almost THREE weeks into Berlin (holy balls), but as I said before, the last few days of that trip were absolutely mind blowing. Last I wrote, the typhoon came along pushing our trip to Ha Long Bay back a day, much to the dismay of the group and our especially our hangovers from Mao's. But the delay was WELL worth it. I can safely say that Ha Long Bay is one of the best places in the entire world (besides Oktoberfest, but oh maaaaaan we will get to that later). For those of you who don't know Ha Long Bay (which I had no idea existed until I got there), my words and pictures will never do it justice. If you ever stumble into North Vietnam, this should be at the top of your list. Let me explain...
After a 3.5 hour bus ride, including a craft shop of disabled workers and "fast food" combination where a "bread and cheese" is melted cheese on bread and butter, we deliriously arrived at the port, gave our passports to the captain of our traditional Junk Boat (ironic, because junk is exactly the opposite of what we were about to experience), and were immediately transported into fantasy land a la DD's Woodstock party. Our boat (see pictures below) was a three story palace of dark wood, cute little sleeping quarters, a common room/bar area equipped with none other than SCRABBLE, two decks at the back of the boat and a top floor paradise with tables, umbrellas and lounge chairs for soaking up the hot Nam sun and incredible views. Speaking of views, the reason Ha Long Bay is such a unique natural wonder is that it is made of over 3,000 little caves and islands of limestone erosion, making each massive structure unique and incredible. The only boats that go through the bay are the Junk boats and women on row boats selling you a convenient store on water (so typical), but it really makes you feel like your not in real life. Kind of like our 8 course seafood lunch, napping on the deck, the trip through the limestone caves, swimming at the beach and climbing to the top of Cat Ba island, night squid fishing and cheap Vodka drinking on the back of the boat, culminating with epic jumps/dives off of the top floor of the boat into the bay. For those of you that underestimate my swimming abilities (which you obviously should), you'll be pleasantly surprised to find that after one 45 minute freak out, I jumped off...TWICE.
Coming back to the mainland, I knew I would have some serious withdrawal. Luckily, a few days before all of pooled some extra money together to buy pens/rulers/scissors and other school supplies for some schoolkids outside of the main Ha Noi city. Cong woke us up, yelling to quickly get off the bus, pointed at the direction of a random alley, shoved a box of colored pens in our hands and said GO HURRY THIS WAY. Okay...I thought, and blindly followed his directions like I always do. "Um, Mr. Cong? Do they know we are coming?" "ehhhh!! just GO!". And so we did. What we discovered behind the gate was about 500 Vietnamese elementary schoolers, SCREAMING with joy, yelling (in Vietnamese) "THE WESTERNERS ARE HERE! THE WESTERNERS ARE HERE!". The most tragic part about our entire trip was that no one had a camera at that moment, because this was literally the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. I was crying from laughing so hard and being so in love with little Asian kids. Needless to say, it was exactly what could have made the journey home from Ha Long paradise possible for everyone. MLIA.
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