Ho Chi Minh City .... or is it Saigon?

After a week and a half in the country, we decided to navigate the airport taxis on our own. We were able to snag ourselves a legitimate cab (who used his meter) and made it to the hotel. We discovered from a local that people from the area are returning to calling the city Saigon. It started about 8 - 10 years ago.

Before arriving, we had decided that we would dedicate a day or 2 to day trips in the Saigon area. Our first day in the city we spent booking our trip, taking a walking tour of the city, and locating a market to buy Diet Coke (really important business to tend to).

On our day trip from the city we went to the Cao Dai Holy See. This is a religion that appears to draw from Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and its own prophets and was started in the 20th century. We arrived in time to watch one of their daily services. Monks and nuns dressed in their robes, sitting on their appropriate tiers (there are 9 tiers in the huge temple and the higher the teir on which you sit, the more holy you are). Although only 2 percent of the country's population is Cao Dai, there was a fairly good sized temple in many of the small villages through which we drove.

Later in the day we visited the Chu Chi tunnels. This is an area where during the French war and American War (what we know as the Vietnam War), Vietnamese in the area lived in tunnels. It was an interesting situation having a guide who had served in the Southern area (fighting on the side of the Americans) show us the area. It was clear that it was still difficult for him to be there and really feel comfortable with us.

I could not get over the size of the tunnels. They went three levels deep (10 meters) and had everything from kitchens to hospital wards. Sarah and I were able to go through one of the tunnels that had been "expanded for tourists," but it was still a stetch for me to get all the way throughwithout getting down on my hands and knees.

As has been mentioned, it is interesting to see areas and artifacts associated with the American War. The propaganda America's actions is still very alive. The videos we saw refernece all Vietnamese soldiers as heros, cleaver, intellegent, brave, and honorable, while America is evil.

We spent our final day in Saigon doing a couple different things. Alison hit the streets and went shopping while Sarah and I hit the pool and relaxed before our long journey to Croatia. It was good to leave Vietnam rested and ready to go.

Sarah & Margaret VS Croatia

We left Asia on Sunday night and sadly said goodbye to Alison, who headed back to the States to prepare for starting her new job.

Sarah and I arrived in Croatia on Monday. We have had a short stay, but a good one. While making our plans, we knew that we were not going to be able to see all that we wanted to and therefore would content ourselves with making another trip in the future.

We had a few bumps in the road, but took them in stride. We think that our time in Croatia might be best summarized as a competition. Therefore ....

Sarah & Margaret VS Croatia.

We arrived at the Zagreb airport, caught the bus to downtown. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We navigated the tram system with our luggage and found our hotel. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We discovered some good coffee. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We fed ourselves with traditional Croatian grilled meat. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We arrived on the Croatian equivalent of July 4th (the National Anti-Fascist Resistance Day). Hmmmmm. Just like in the States, nothing is open. (1 point Croatia)

On top of that Croatia also won a point for weather. We walked all over the city, looking for an open restaurant as it continued to rain, rain, rain. (1 point Croatia)

We got a deal at a hotel recommended by Lonely Planet. It was supposedly a 4 star, "designer" hotel with VERY odd decorations. Beware interior designers, if the trend of tossing a table cloth over a lamp and calling it designer ever becomes popular in the States, you will have a whole new set of competition. We were expecting to find DVDs to borrow at this "modern wonder" (due to comments in Lonely Planet) and we were sad to find none. After a long day of negotiating the city and travel, it was a disappointing blow. (1 point Croatia)

We had booked and automatic 4-door car with Budget at the Zagreb airport. We took the tram and then the bus back to the airport to pick-up the car, only to find an very unhelpful employee. Turns out - they had us down for a manual, mini-van. They had no other automatics, every other rental agency in the airport was double the price, and neither of us drive manual. Well, the "helpful" fellow found us an automatic at about the same price, back in town (which meant a bus ride and tram ride with our luggage, again). what else could we do. An hour and a half after leaving the airport Budget, we finally arrived at the rental. (1 point Croatia)

We navigated ourselves out of Zagreb and to our hotel near Plitvice Lakes without trouble (although we are not counting the brief stop in an internet cafe to check our directions). These navigation skills earn points due to the number of times we had to turn around while driving in Spain. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

After arriving in Plitvice Lakes, we ordered a pepperoni and mushroom pizza for dinner at the hotel restaurant. There were some language barriers and we ended up with crust, sauce, mushrooms, and peppercorn. Sarah went back to the waitress to see if we could get some cheese and meat added. Still some confusion later we ended up with 4 slices of deli-like ham with a tiny bit of grated cheese one top. (1 point Croatia)

We had 2 full days in the Plitvice area and we decided to take one of those days and drive to the coast. We had an amazing drive down to Pag Island. It was good fortune that we chose the day we did to drive to the coast as the next day that area had flash flooding. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We made some seriously good peanut butter and jam/honey sandwiches for 3 days. A jar of peanut butter and stolen bread, jam, and honey from our breakfast restaurant. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We arrived at Plitvice Lakes just after it opened. There were not many people as we wandered the park (for the first 3 hours), but by the time we left it was like a conveyor belt of tourists! We enjoyed an AMAZING park. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

The hotel in Plitvice was not the oddest place we stayed (by far), but it won some odd points with little to no housekeeping, no receptionist, and lack of English channels. (1 point Croatia)

Although we satellite TV, the only stations with English were Bloomberg and Queer Eye for the Straight Guy (granted this was better than the only show we could get in Zagreb was Paris Hilton's New BFF). (1 point Croatia)

We took the long route back to Zagreb on Friday. We drove all over the countryside and enjoyed Croatia's beautiful landscape of rolling hills, green fields, rocky mountains, and big skies. On top of all that good stuff - we did not get lost. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

We decided to try and visit a cemetery on our way back into Zagreb. It is rated as one of Europe's most beautiful on Trip Advisor. Good intentions, bad directions. We tried, but we failed to get there. That one will have to wait for the next trip to the country. (1 point Croatia)

We arrived back in Zagreb just in time drop our bags at our hotel and return the rental car. We delivered the car and made our way to the tram (it was about a 20 minute tram ride to the hotel). We just missed the tram we needed and looked up to seem threatening skies. the wind was getting cold and the sky was getting dark. We walked to the next stop up the line - and just in time. The rain let loose! Sideways torrents of rain, lightening and serious thunder pounded us. We made it back to the hotel safely, but very wet. (1 point Croatia)

We had read that Croatian taxi drivers tend to take advantage of tourists (especially charging nearly double for the fair to the airport). Our concierge saved us this morning when 2 taxi drivers started fighting over Sarah's bag (literally) and who would take us to the airport. Our concierge found us a good taxi, negotiated a price for us, and we made it to the airport with no troubles. (1 point Sarah & Margaret)

For the final total......
Sarah & Margaret 10
Croatia 9

Keeping track of the small victories help us over come some of the bigger bumps we hit earlier in the trip (which were the National Anti-Fascist Resistance Day and the rental car hubbub). Some may think that the vote was rigged, but all in all, we enjoyed Croatia and would totally come back again. Personally, I look forward to doing a tour of the coast one day.

Bad luck back in Hanoi

Our arrival in Hanoi was a little rocky. We got off the train at about 6 am, in search of cabs to take us to our hotel. I didn't realize I needed my train ticket to leave the train station, so I had to make a mad dash back to our sleeper cabin and dig through the trash to find it. Wouldn't have taken 20 minutes if the train hadn't moved and it wasn't locked once I found it!

Then we had a rough cab ride to the hotel. We negotiated a price of 5000 dong (about $0.50) to take us to the hotel, and when we went to pay the guy, he insisted we agreed to pay him 50,000 dong! We argued and argued, walked into the hotel, got the front desk guy involved in the arguement, then decided that for $5, we shouldn't get so worked up. So we paid him.

Checking in was no simple task either. We booked ourselves at the Lucky Hotel 1 for the nights on either end of the Halong Bay and Sapa excursions, and weren't happy when we were involuntarily moved to Lucky Hotel 2 for our first two nights in Hanoi. 'Lucky 2 is much nicer than Lucky 1' they kept telling us. That may be true, but the pictures on hotels.com don't tell that story. Plus, we didn't appreciate the cockroach in our bathroom at Lucky 2 the first time around. So we headed to Lucky 1, insisting they give us a room there and not send us back to Lucky 2. I guess the best form of persuasion is 'seeing is believing' because when they finally showed us the room we'd get at Lucky 1, we were happy to go back to Lucky 2. So we hauled our luggage down the street to Lucky 2, were given a temporary room. Our nerves were a little frazzled between the little sleep on the night train, the angry cab driver, and not feeling so lucky for staying in any Lucky hotel, so sleep was the best remedy. We slept off our frustration and restarted the day refreshed.

Each of us wanted to do a little something different in Hanoi on our last day, so we set out on our own. I wandered around the city all day. I call it 'my day of being lost.' From 11 am until 5:30 pm, I was lost.

I started by trying to visit the Hanoi Hilton, which I heard is ACTUALLY now a Hilton, but got a little confused with where to go without the guidebook. So I had coffee and used the internet at the Hilton, wondering where the museum might be, and never found the actual prison. I walked around the whole stupid hotel looking for some remnants of a prison, with no luck. I should have asked, the prison was down the street. Oh well.

So then I headed out to find the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex. Uncle Ho (seriously, that is how he is referred) was president of communist Northern Vietnam when we entered the war. He is still considered somewhat of a saint, and thus you can go visit his preserved body in a huge complex in Hanoi. Too bad it is only open in the morning the day I was there, so when I finally found it after being lost for a few hours, it was closed. Strike 2.

But in getting lost I stumbled across the Temple of Literature, aka Vietnam's first university. It was a wonderfully peaceful walled-in complex with lots of trees and perfectly preserved buildings to explore (it was constructed around 1070). My favorite part was the giant stone turtles carrying stone tablets on their backs. I have no idea what they meant or what was written on the tablets, but there were probably 100 of these things in perfect lines. The Vietnamese must have some sort of superstition about touching the turtles heads, because there was an assembly line of people touching every singe turtle head. Even though the signs clearly state not to. Or maybe just the English signs say not to...

Later that evening, we met back up and had dinner near our hotel with our train friend, Leoni. I learned at dinner that Margaret actually did make it to the Hanoi Hilton and Alison spent 2 hours talking with Vietnamese students (it was their assignment for the day; they had to find English speakers in the city and practice their English). That about wraps up the last day in Northern Vietnam. Tomorrow we head to Hoi An on the coast in central Vietnam.

Hoi An

Admittedly, I didn't read much about Hoi An's history and don't exactly know why it made it high enough on our list to dedicate a few days to it, but I'm glad it did.

Hoi An is considered one of Vietnam's most charming towns, partially because much of the French colonial architecture survived the Vietnam war. It was a fishing village the Chinese would visit each summer, so there's also a lot of Chinese influence. The streets aren't crazy busy like in Hanoi, and there are good restaurants and cute tourist shops all over. It is also in Vietnam's silk region, and we had hopes of finding good deals on silk. And because of the silk, every other store was a tailor willing to make custom clothes in about 2 days. Our guidebook said there were over 500 tailors in Hoi An!

Margaret found us a spectacular hotel for our three nights there. Everything seemed fresh and clean, all the staff were friendly and spoke good English, and the included breakfast buffet was delicious! Our room had a laptop with wi fi (which wasn't reliable, after all is said and done), TV and DVD player with DVDs! The DVD collection was pretty funny. Especially Angels and Demons. We figured with it being such a recent release, we were in for something special. We were right: this was a guy in a movie theatre with a camcorder video taping the movie! The best part was probably the first few minutes when he was trying to adjust the camera to the proper zoom setting, or maybe it was when someone got up to leave the theatre and walked in front of the camera and we lost the picture for a few seconds. It was fantastically hilarious. Sadly though, the DVD was too scratched to watch the whole thing, so I'll probably have to catch it at home.

The hotel provides free bicycles to go around town, but we enjoyed the hotel so much that we didn't spend much time exploring. I ventured out on a bicycle the last day, glad I had that refresher ride in Halong Bay before I did. I didn't have any really close calls, just some regular close calls.

Our second morning there, we went to My Son, a temple complex built in the 4th century (and destroyed and rebuilt in the 6th) and occupied until the 14th century. We were able to visit 3 portions of the complex. The fourth was reserved as an archaeological dig and two others hadn't been swept for land mines yet. Note to self - stay on the path! Our guide told us that there was a complete sweep of the area we were exploring in 1988, however there was a huge shell found just two years ago (we saw it, it was about as tall as me). This area was heavily bombed in the war because some of the structures were tall enough to stand above the trees. We did see several impressive craters.

On the way back, we stopped at a silk producer to learn about the process. It was incredibly interesting!
Step 1) Place lots of silk worms in a basket and give them a lot of food.
Step 2) Keep giving them food for 18 days and watch them grow.
Step 3) On day 18, give the worms a place to start building a cocoon.
Step 4) When the worm becomes a pupa, place the cocoon in nearly boiling water. That allows you to pull a thread from it. One cocoon gives one kilometer of silk thread!

Once the thread was pulled, we saw every step until it became fabric except for the dying part. Of course there was a sales pitch for buying silk after our education, but it was very interesting!

By 10 am, we were back at the hotel and happy we woke up for such an early tour because it was already too hot to enjoy being outside. So we read, watched some bootleg DVDs, and Margaret and I finally planned the Croatia part of the trip.

In addition to getting clothes made, another popular activity in Hoi An is to take a cooking class. Sadly, Alison wasn't feeling well enough to go, so it was just Margaret and me. It really was too bad, our foodie who is also the best cook had to sit out!

The class was fantastic!!! The day began with a coffee at a restaurant in town, where we met the other person in our class. Kathy was a 50 something anesthesiologist from Frankfurt and was a delight. She was bubbly but not annoying, talkative but not too much so. We really enjoyed her company during the class.

When we finished our welcome beverage, we headed out with our first guide, Gnoc, to the spice fields for a tour. He explained land ownership, farming techniques, and the fresh spices we passed. We saw old familiars like Thai Basil (though it isn't called Thai basil in Vietnam!), sesame seeds, and lemongrass, as well as a myriad of new spices. I was suprised to learn how labor intensive some of the crops were; many required special mixes of sand and topsoil and had to be replanted several times in different types of soil before they were mature enough to use. Some of the plants needed partial shade to grow and we saw the new school and old school ways of shading. The old school way is to place a long dried palm frond over the row of plants. The new school way is to place a gauzy fabric on poles, high in the air. Gnoc explained that the government built the large new school shade area we saw, but that all the old people couldn't use that area because they couldn't reach the gauze to remove it at the proper growing stage.

While in the fileds, we stopped by a local lady's place for her special cool drink. It was water with basil, lemongrass, and some tadpole looking seeds with the consistency of jelly in the bottom. It was quite nice. Gnoc explained that her house was the only place to get such a drink and that she won't share the recipe with anyone else.

After an education in the fields, we went to the market to purchase the necessary ingredients for cooking. Gnoc gave us each a mesh plastic bag and we followed him around while he bought fresh spices from the merchants. We bought tumeric, rice paper (looked like a dried tortilla), basil, lemongrass, while onions, bean sprouts, shallots, green papaya, and several others. Off to the class!

The cooking school was on the river on an idyllic stretch of land overlooking huge suspended fishing nets. We cooked in an open air kitchen, which was really just a charcoal grill, two large wooden tables, and a gas camping-like stove. We learned to make Pho (beef noodle soup with rice noodles), Cha Ca (fish cooked in a clay pot), Tom Nuong La Chuoi (lemongrass shrimp grilled in banana leaves), and Goi Hoa Chuoi Ga Nuong (grilled chicken and banana flower salad).

We did everything from preparing the broth for the Pho to chopping all the vegetables for the salad to preparing all the sauces from scratch. It was a wonderful way to learn more about Vietnamese cooking. I was suprised by the amount of sugar we put in everything - we even marinated the chicken with sugar. I'd like to think that I can cook some of these dishes at home, but in truth, they were very labor intensive! We worked pretty hard for the seemingly simple meal. But it was all delicious. Sadly, we had way too much food and couldn't eat everything! Margaret and I took food back for Alison and for dinner, but we still weren't hungry by the time we went to sleep.

The other wonderful part of the cooking school was their new pool. It was a welcome reprieve from the heat. We took a short dip between some of the cooking activity to allow one part of our meal settle before moving on to eat the rest. I wish we could have stayed in the pool for a few more hours.

When the class was done, we went back to Hoi An by boat. We slowly threaded our way through the suspended fishing nets for about 20 minutes before arriving back in town. What a great way to spend a day!

We spend the rest of our time in Hoi An trying to stay dry (both from the occational pouring rain and from sweat) and trying not to over exert ourselves. This was a relaxing place so we found it fitting to go with the flow.

3 reasons I like Vietnam Airlines

1) Their tray tables have cup holders in the bottom of them, so it isn't necessary to put the whole tray table down to have a place for your beverage.

2) The plane has a camera mounted under the nose and they show takeoff and landing on overhead screens. It was just like what you'd see if you were playing a video game.

3) Their overhead bins have mirrors mounted on the inside so you can see if you've left anything in them.

Its the little things...

Sapa

After our day of travel back to the Hanoi, we had a few hours to kill before getting on an overnight train to Sapa. Kevin and Marie told us that their travel agency arranged a place for them to shower between the two (they had the same itinerary as us), so we decided to hit up our travel agency and ask for the same deal. They said it would cost $6, and I think we were willing to pay $50. We were pretty hot and gross. They gave us a map and directed us to a hotel. Great! We thought we were getting a hotel room for a few hours. Not quite. We got to use the bathroom that all the apartments behind the hotel share. Whether we left the shower cleaner than when we arrived is debatable.

After the shower, we had a reunion with our Halong travel mates at a Western restaurant. Everyone had burgers, fries, and milkshakes. It was heaven. Not that the food in Vietnam has been bad, we just really liked having a taste of home. In fact, we've been saying that it has been easier to eat well in Vietnam than in Spain. In Spain, we had a hard time finding food during the day that wasn't served on bread (like jamon y queso) and it was impossible to eat dinner before 9 pm. Vitenam, however, has excellent fresh fruit and vegetables and serves generous portions of meat (generally identifiable) with their entrees.

On to the train station. We decided to spring for a sleeper cabin, knowing we'd regret it if we tried to sleep in a regular seat all night. Since there's three of us and four beds to a cabin, we hoped and prayed that the fourth bed would go unoccupied. And if we did get a roommate, please don't let it be a smelly boy. We did end up with a roommate, and it was a boy, but we considered ourselves lucky. Craig was a graphic artist from London who decided that instead of buying a flat, he'd travel Southeast Asia. And he didn't smell. He reminded me of the character in "There's something about Mary" that pretends to be British to impress Mary. He had a very gentle airy voice and everything was "lovely" and "brilliant."

We arrived in Lao Chi at about 4:30 am, and took a bus for another hour to get to Sapa. Once there, we had some breakfast and set out on a hike. We had a local guide, probably the best of our trip. Her name was Say, she was 20, and a Black Hmong. Her English was excellent, again, probably the best on our trip. She learned it from talking with tourists and had no formal English education. She was unmarried, though she did say she's had several proposals.

She greeted us in the hotel, and as soon as we set out for our hike, we had an enterouge of 6 more Black Hmong girls following us. "Hello, Hello, Hello, what's your name?" "How old are you?" "Do you have any brothers and sisters?" were the most popular questions. The six girls had somehow assigned themselves to us so that we each had a girl to our left and right. It was kind of fun to talk with them, though their English wasn't as good as Say's. Once we got close to a village, they left us behind because they were only allowed to go into Sapa town and their own village. As soon as we left the village, however, our enterouge was back and asking us to buy things from them.

While in the village, we watched a dance performance. I was most struck by how beautiful the girls were. They all had perfectly white straight teeth and wore make up. I hadn't seen such good oral hygiene since the States! It was a little out of place considering where we were. Alison noted that the girls looked like they had some formal training, noting that their pointed toes were perfect ballet points. Perhaps a remnant of French occupation? We don't know.

After the hike, we went back to the main gathering hotel for lunch and to get transferred to our real hotel. (We couldn't check in when at 6 am when we arrived in Sapa, so we were taken to a 'holding' hotel.) We thought that when we booked our travel package and transfers were included, it meant that we'd get transferred in some sort of car, taxi, or van. Not motorcycle. We still had all our luggage with us which totals 3 large rolling/backpack suitcases and 2 smaller bags each. How exactly were we supposed to get on a motorcycle with our luggage? In the end, we didn't, but it was pretty funny to see two guys on a motorcycle with 2 of our huge bags between them, riding off down the hill to our mysterious other hotel. Alison was annoyed and refused to let anyone help her with her bag, so she rolled it all the way to the other hotel. (about 1/2 mile down a steep hill and up a steep hill) Definitely a moment where we look back and laugh, but didn't laugh at the time. Actually, I'm not sure if Alison is laughing yet.

We had two wonderful nights at the Victoria Hotel. The only room they had that would accomadate the three of us was the family suite, so our room had one king bed and three twin beds, a dining table, and nice big patio. After sleeping in the hole I got us in Hanoi, and the tiny cabins on the junk, and the sleeper cabin on the train, it was wonderful to have so much space!

That night, we went back to the gathering hotel for dinner (our meals were included if we ate there) and were serenaded by a huge group of drunk karaoke lovers. There must have been 80 of them. Seemed like they took a shot about every 6 or 7 minutes. Their favorite songs were love ballads, and the men who sang them looked like they were pouring their hearts out to the audience. We might have stayed longer to enjoy the show but the microphone was set on reverb (not that we could understand thae language in which they were singing) and the mosquitos came out.

The next day we went out for another hike with Say. We had an entirely different enterouge this time. I guess yesterday's girls realized we were a lost cause. We went to two different villages, one with just Black Hmong (Say's village) and another with several different kinds of people living together: Red Dzao, Black Hmong, and Tay (I think). We thought we were going to get to visit Say's family, but we ran out of time. Would have been fun. When we were leaving Say's village, our original enterouge was back and both enterouges were asking us to buy from them. Margaret and I didn't buy anything but Alison got some souveniers for home. She also got a hug, and Margaret and I didn't even get a goodbye.

The hike was great. It was all downhill, about 7 km. We were mainly on gravel trails, but sometimes wove through rice paddies and crossed rivers. There weren't bridges to help us along, but our enterouge helped us across. We'd step from stone to stone (often wobbly) and they'd hold our hands on either side and walk through the calf deep water. I don't know how their feet survived. We were hiking in tennis shoes and hiking shoes, they were hiking in jelly sandals! We've got some great pictures of the hike and scenery and will try to post them when we fix our photo issues.

Our last full day in Sapa was devoted to down time. We spent all day relaxing in our hotel, enjoying the swimming pool, the spa, the hotels vacantness. We felt like the only ones there and it was wonderful.

That night, we hopped back on the night train to Hanoi. Again, we hoped for no smelly boys. Our roommate this time was Leoni, a Dutch girl who also just graduated from business school. She was essentially on the same Vietnam trip as us, but in reverse, so we picked her brain about all the places we were headed.

And so ends our Sapa trip. So far, this has been among my favorite experiences. We've got one more day and night in Hanoi before spending 3 days in Hoi An. More in the next post.

Halong Bay

And we thought Hanoi was hot! With Lua's help, we booked a 3 day 2 night cruise on Halong Bay, considered a "must do" for travelers in Northern Vietnam. The trip included one night on the junk (a boat with a very appropriate name), and one night on Cat Ba island.

Our trip to Halong Bay began with a 3 hour van ride from Hanoi to the ocean. Once we made it to the bay, the cattle call began. The port had at least 50 junks, all which looked exactly alike, and hundreds of eager tourits trying to figure out where they needed to be. Us included. It was about a million degrees with a thousand percent humidity, with didn't contribute to our happiness. After about an hour of standing around and getting shuffled from here to there, we were directed to our junk and climbed aboard.

I was relieved to see that all our traveling companions were about our age, and everyone spoke pretty good English. There was German (Herrrrrrrman) from Argentina, Kitty from Holland, Naomi and Lydia from France, Greg from Switzerland, and Kevin and Marie from Canada.

Once on board and fed, we cruised around the bay with the other 50 junks. Not quite as serene as I was hoping, but it was beautiful. Halong Bay has hundreds of limestone towers stretching up out of the ocean, all about 100 feet tall. Legend has it that a dragon lived here and the limestone towers were his body (there was much more to the story, but a lot was lost in translation). Most are covered with trees and shrubs, and a few have caves inside. We went inside Suprise Cave for a look (looked just like a cave should), named so because there is one big room that suprisingly reveals itself as you walk though the cave system.

Throughout Halong Bay, we saw several floating houses. There are people there who essentially live on top of thier fish farm and row to the mainland when they want to sell their fish. Their fish farm looks like a grid of plastic gasoline tanks with nets strung between them to keep their fish in the water, and their house is just off to one side, supported by additional tanks. We rented kayaks from one of the more entrepeneurial floating houses to cruise around the bay. We kayaked through a tunnel into a huge lagoon and Margaret went for a swim.

Back on the boat, we watched the sunset, had some dinner, and tried squid fishing. Question for the readers: Is it correct to call it "squid fishing" or is it just "squidding?" We don't know. One thing I know its not called is "catching." After dark, the crew pointed a spotlight into the water and handed us a bamboo rod with a lure that looked like somewhat like a treble hook with some neon plastic. They demonstrated that the proper way to fish is to let the lure free fall in the water then jerk it up slightly and repeat.

I gave up after about 5 minutes. Others tried for much longer with the same sad result. I have a suspicion that the crew knew we wouldn't catch a thing and that it was just an activity to keep us from asking for stuff.

The next day we switched boats to a smaller junk. Day two was much more interesting. We weren't surrounded by other junks and we seemed to visit places that were a little further off the tourist track. We went for a morning bike ride on one of the islands and stopped in a village for a refreshing drink. This was also our first exposure to snake wine. Snake wine is literally a whole snake in a jar with rice wine. Oh, and birds, too. Feathers on and everything. Thank goodness it is considered a men's drink. We've got some pretty funny pictures of Greg and German trying it. Didn't look pleasent.

Then we had an excellent beach cookout for lunch on a sliver of sand protected by limestone walls. By the time the sun went behind the cliff, the temperature was a probably a cool 95 degrees. It was the first time I hadn't sweat in nearly 24 hours. Our last stop before Cat Ba island was Monkey island, sa named for the monkey inhabitants. Our guidebook says something like, "be careful of the monkeys because they bite. The bite probably won't be that serious, but the closest place for a rabies shot is back in Hanoi" Great. Why are we going here?

We stayed on Monkey Island for about 10 minutes partially because there were too many people for the small beach, partly because there was no shade and the temperature was easily over 100, and partially because we didn't want rabies. Onward to Cat Ba Island.

I guess I didn't read the guidebook closely enough before I formed an expectation of Cat Ba Island. I thought it was a national park with just a few park operated hotels. I thought it might finally be the peaceful beach experience I expected of the whole Halong Bay experience. Wrong. It was like the Cancun of Vietnam. But I'm not complaining because our hotel had AIR CONDITIONING! It was really difficult to leave the a/c to go to dinner.

Dinner was nothing to write home about, but the bar afterward provided good material. We sat at a sidewalk table which made us prime targets for people selling stuff. The most entertaining had to be the guy selling massages. We didn't indulge, but Greg, German, and Kitty did. My favorite part was when the small Vitenamese guy tried to pick up German (about 6 foot 2, probably 190 lbs) to crack his back. I thought we were going to see one squished Vietnamese guy.

The next day was just a travel day back to Hanoi. The junk picked us up in the morning, we had a 3 hour trip back to the mainland, then a 3 hour trip back to Hanoi. Later that night, we boarded a night train to Sapa. More on Sapa in the next post.