"Good morning, Vietnam!" Pete was threatening to say heading into the trip but never actually did. Very disappointing, really.
Our mornings started early (4:15 rooster call, anyone?) and were always followed by adventurous days.
We got into Hanoi at about 4 pm but since I needed a visa to enter we worked on that for about 30 minutes. Pete reminded me that since his country didn't invade Vietnam he just strolled right in with his UK passport. I had filled out my application in the US and here I needed to pay more money for a shiny sticker in my passport. Moving right along...
The Vietnamese dong is a bit of a calculating nightmare as it is $1 to 22300 dongs. We took out a couple million and were ready to leave the airport. With directions written for us in Vietnamese we got into a cab. As the meter ticked away in dongs the driver showed us his phone with a number 50 on it. As in that's how much money he wanted. No. He showed us 40. Hellooooo, the meter is on, we will be paying that. $16 later we unloaded ourselves with a couple of lessons ready to go. Always have local currency, know the conversion and use that meter. Also, they tried to screw us and we have been in the country for 5 minutes. Baaad Vietnam.
I had long been looking forward to staying in this place. A tree house. 30 meters up. Cool. So very cool. The house keepers took us to the wrong tree house (apparently that's possible) but with zero Vietnamese and pointing fingers I sorted it out. Since we were further from town than walking distance we decided to stay in the neighborhood and find some food. We got something that resembled tofu (or not, we don't know) and pickled bok choy. I ordered a coffee and fresh mango and got a mango smoothie brought to the table, no coffee. The joys of no language, flexibility and fresh fruit. Pete had a beer and our entire dinner with drinks cost us $3.
The next two days are hard to describe so I'll edit hundreds of pictures for proof. We were taken to Halong Bay, about a four hour drive from Hanoi. Its grandiose rock formations, perfectly still water and a ridiculously gorgeous ship made for a beautiful three day cruise in this part of the country. We visited a pearl farm, floating villages, had a BBQ on a beach and kayaked into caves. The serenity of this area is undescribable and having no wifi helped. Shutting it all off, surrounding yourself with beautiful water and birds chirping from the rocks is what it's all about.
Our last day in Vietnam was spent back in Hanoi, this time in the dead center of all the happenings for tourists and locals alike. Hanoi is steaming with nightlife, restaurants and scooters. One thing Hanoi doesn't have? Traffic rules. The pedestrians walk into oncoming traffic and assume the scooters and cars will go around them. We are rocking a 100% success rate on that one.
And so this awesome trip comes to an end. I've gotten new appreciation of pho, am totally tired of lemongrass and rice but so very happy to have explored a new part of the world. So much to see, so little time!
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