Hanoi, Vietnam

(10.5.30.08 Noble House, Room #305. Cat Ba, Vietnam 11:30pm)

After an over night bus ride I showed up to Hanoi the following morning (9.24.08). I called Bethany, my CS host in Hanoi and she told me to catch a cab to her house. I showed the cab driver the address and told him 40,000 VND he laughed and said it was metered. 120,000 VND later on the meter and I called Bethany to tell her I thought I was being given a tour of the city at my expense. She talked to the cabby who explained it was 9,000 per kilometer. Basically I got robbed by taking the wrong kind of taxi. Anyways I finally arrived at Bethany’s house 200,000 VND later and dropped my bags. She had several meetings lined up for work but she took me her favorite lil breakfast bakery. She gave me a map of the city and suggested a few places to go. I made my way to rent a moto bike and then headed to Hanoi Backpacker Hostel. It’s probably the sickest hostel I’ve seen. I hung out there looking for someone to explore the city with but wasn’t able to find any solo travelers, plus it was raining. I used the free internet at the hostel to stay dry from the Monsoon that was on its way. While in Nha Trang Lisanne told me she use to work for Slopony Adventures on the island of Cat Ba in Ha Long Bay. She bartended there in trade for lodging, food and free rock climbing. She put me in contact with Onslo, “Slo”, one of the owners. I had been in contact with him for the past few days and he told me we’d see if we could work some kind of work trade out while I was out on the island. He suggested that I just come out rather than take a tour. I called him and he told me there was no power on the island but other than that everything was cool. I decided to catch a bus out there the following morning. I eventually found someone that was willing to weather the storm and explore the city so we headed out into the rain on the motorbike. It was actually a refreshing feeling to have the cool rain running all over me. We had no agenda; we just drove and turned from street to street. We eventually made it to a huge wall with armed guards; I tried to drive right in but was quickly stopped at gunpoint and turned around. We drove by a huge park with a lake, in the pond we saw Goose shaped peddle boats and decided to go for it!! Keep in mind its pouring rain, we are soaking wet and no one is in the park but us. We found the office and told the man we wanted to rent a peddle boat. He walked us outside and pointed to a regular, non goose shaped boat. I shook my head no and pointed at the goose boat. He said no and motioned with his hands that they were unstable/tipsy. I explained it didn’t mind getting wet and I was a really good swimmer but he refused to let us have the goose boat. I kept on asking, at least a half dozen times, but made no head way. We later found out that he wouldn’t let us take it because we were too big, and that’s what he meant with his hand signals about it being unstable. They are made for smaller, Asian, people. As we peddled along we came across a naked man bathing on the side of the lake. He had no shame; he just kept washing as if we weren’t even there. I don’t understand why he was bathing in the lake, when it was raining, because the lake water was absolutely disgusting. In the middle of the lake was a small island which we decided to explore. The only problem was that there was no dock rope to tie our boat to. Instead we took a large branch and laid it across our boat, hoping that it was heavy enough to hold it while we walked around. Otherwise I would have to send her to swim after it. In the middle of the island was a temple and we lit incense and sent our intentions up then headed back to our boat which was still there. We peddled back to the office, when we showed the guy our tourist map and asked where we were and pointed to where we wanted to go, he laugh and shook his head. Apparently we had driven a lot further than we thought. When we finally made it back to the hostel we attended the Australian BBQ they were having on the roof. At the BBQ I ran into to girls I met in Chiang Mai and hung out with them for a while. I returned to Bethany’s house where her and some friends were having band practice. Next morning (9.25.08) we again went to her breakfast place and she followed me to return my motorbike and then drop me off at Hanoi backpacker. I found a girl to join me in exploring the city. It was still raining so we took ponchos and headed out. Our first stop was an art museum with artifacts dating back all the way to several thousands of years B.C. the problem is the titles simply said things like “animal sculpture” and didn’t tell what it was used for or its significance. In another room there were large Buddha sculptures and I found out that the Nazi swastika sign was for many years a sign of peace in Buddhism. The Germans simply turned the sign backwards. I found out halfway thru the museum that camera’s weren’t allowed. Oops! Our next stop was the Temple of Literature, which in the pouring rain wasn’t as impressive as it was an out door garden setting. It was interesting to know that many of the Eastern great minds were taught there, starting with Confucius. We walked back to the hostel and Bethany picked me up for dinner at a great lil Indian restaurant. Next morning (9.26.08) Bethany took me to breakfast one last time and dropped me off at the bus station for the 9am bus. The problem was, there was no 9am bus, and the next bus wasn’t til 11am. This gave me time to update my blog while I waited. Four and half hours later I arrived at Cat Ba town on Cat Ba Island!!