A Day of Rest...
Trip Start
Nov 12, 2008
1
15
17
Trip End
Dec 02, 2008
Cat Ba,
Vietnam
Saturday, November 29, 2008
Once we got through the cluster of junk boats dropping people off and picking people up, and settled on our junk boat we ate a lunch that involved almost every type of FRESH seafood you can imagine. Crab, prawns, clams, squid, and a big fat fish. Some of that may have been mixed with our seafood dinner but you get the idea. After lunch was one of my favorite parts of the day. Having been reunited with our rat bags, we were able to change our clothes and shower. When we went to Sapa, we packed for three days of hiking and cold weather. At night we basically layered almost everything we had in our bags (new purchases of local crafts made to thank the super-troopers who helped us across the rice paddies and up and down the mountains not included), and then we had to dress for the train both ways. Given the ten minute warning from the time they woke us up to the time they shut off all electricity on the train on our way to Sapa, we were taking no chances and slept in our clothes on the train so we could wake up and jump off. Which explains why a hot shower (taken in the typical bathroom that has a shower head in it so you can do everything in the same space) and a new change of clothes may possibly have been my favorite part of yesterday.
The change of clothes and shower meant we were ready to join the rest of the people on the boat for a trip over to be paddled around a small floating village. This one seemed almost luxurious compared to the poverty filled floating village we saw in Cambodia. But being paddled around was cool, especially after a few of us tried it and realized it was more difficult than it first appeared. We returned to the junk boat just as the sun was setting so after the required kodak moments we went inside and played Yahtzee, drank some wine and mourned the loss of Vicki's camera. After almost three weeks of traveling, Vicki's camera fell into the bay as she was leaning over to give her paddling person a tip. A moment of silence please. Vicki had been taking pictures a lot of time when none of the rest of us were - on the narrow rice paddy paths, as we crossed the scary bamboo bridges that went over big rocks and rushing water (I know! I can't believe we did it either!), on the motorbikes with our luggage, and overall generously trying to take pictures that she knew we'd all appreciate later. She and Jen have been fabulous at capturing the essence of our trip. At least all of us have been taking pictures but last night after dinner we found ourselves looking at the cameras and talking about the pictures that only Vicki had.
This morning though, this morning was a different kind of morning. Well after our relatively early breakfast and our quick packing up to change boats, we were given a short lesson on how to paddle a kayak and helped into kayaks. There was one couple who were with the five of us and we kayaked around amongst the many limestone islands. Our guide, Anh said there was one island that had monkeys on it but we didn't get to see any which I found highly disappointing, for about a minute when I turned my head and was struck once again by the beauty of the land and sea around me - and the fact that our group were the only people in the area (except for a few fishermen who paddled by).
We returned after kayaking for almost two hours surprisingly hungry which was convenient since they served us lunch almost immediately upon our return. We were supposed to go out kayaking again after lunch but Anh only managed to convince the couple to go while the rest of us took advantage of our first real rest since Cambodia. And Cambodia feels like it was forever ago so the rest was perfect. Until Jen and Vicki started to get too hot on the roof of the boat so the next thing we knew, they are cannonballing off the side of the boat and swimming to the island beach that wasn't far away. It only took one call back to me once they reached the beach and I followed - how many times can one say that they swam in Halong Bay? It wasn't as cold as I had thought originally and the swim felt great. The island's small beach was covered with shells and rocks so after a very little while (and the appearance of a very large scary waspy-bee-hummingbird sized thing) we quickly left and swam back to the boat.
Which pretty much takes us to now. Where we had the latter part of this afternoon (around sunset) to shower (yeah hot showers not taken over/next to a toilet!) and relax. We just finished dinner and our crazy days have truly led to early nights. It's now 9pm and I am alone in the hotel lobby as the others have head to bed already, or at least in that direction. I can hear the very small waves crashing outside and our room overlooks the pool and the resort's private beach. 60 minute massages are $12 and are part of the plan for the morning. I wish we had an extra day at the resort after all our running from place to place it would be nice to just truly finish relaxing before we return. Of course the flip side of that is tomorrow we are here in the morning and then we head back to Hanoi for our last night in Vietnam. We have a half day tour of Hanoi, a few free hours and then we head to the airport. We've seen a lot of the country and every part we've seen has been unbelievably unique from the day before. The older British man sitting on the computer next to me (who just told me to stop showing off by typing so fast and so much) asked if we went to Cambodia to see the temples that were made starting in the 1100's. Yes we did and it was incredibly amazing. I can talk about it because I was there, I touched the rocks that formed the temples.
The images from all of these places, the food we've ate, the smells we've smelled (including ourselves after the three day hiking trip), and the people we've met are all combined in my brain. Hopefully as we start to think about them and return home to our daily lives, they will sort themselves out. Right now it is all a big blur that just leaves me smiling. I think if I say one more thing is "fantastic", "amazing", or "unbelievable" I may have to ban these words from my vocabulary but what else can you say when every day there's constantly a new surprise, a new adventure and a new thing to try that you never thought you'd try before. And the thing about traveling with friends is that they push each other to do more, to be more and to climb through dark tunnels (hypothetically speaking) which may scare you to no end (still hypothetically speaking) because you know they did it and there's no chance in the world that you'd be left behind. There's still two days left and I'm not ending it early. It's just the ability to relax and take it all in, to savor it and appreciate it while we're still here is something that I won't be able to do again.
XOXO.
