We're on our last full day in Vegas, staying at my brother's place. The plan was to adjust to the timezone here and climb a bit at Red Rocks. Unfortunately, adjusting to the timezone has been much more difficult than we expected. If it weren't for blackjack, this trip would have been completely unnecessary. At least we're very good at breaking even!
Monday night: no sleep. Airplane hell.
Tuesday night: we slept 12 hours.
Wednesday night: we were wide awake from 4am-6am.
Thursday night: we slept 12 hours again (me, more like, 14).
Friday night: we went to bed at 11:30pm thinking we could get in a good night's rest to climb today. We had only gone out once and it wasn't very productive since we didn't get much sleep the night before and you have to be out climbing as early as possible, at 6:30am before the sun gets too brutal. We tried to climb mid-morning on Thursday and it was embarassing. For some reason, we BOTH woke up at 1am and for the next four hours, we struggled to get back to sleep. We did manage to pass out at 5am, and forced ourselves out of bed at 10.
I really hope this gets better soon. No naps allowed today (I'd give up ice cream for a year for a nap right now). Work is going to be so hard on Monday!
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Friday, September 12, 2008
Saigon day 1
We arrived in Saigon at around 7am after an expectedly rough time on the bus. The bus actually arrived at our hotel 10 minutes early, didn't see us, and left without us. They had to turn around after frantic phone calls from me. It's good to speak Vietnamese. The driver and his posse kept making cigarette stops, and even made us transfer to another bus in the middle of the night. They stuck us Western tourists at the back of the bus, and we had to try to sleep through a lot of noise/laughing/chatting. I'd say the worst part was that they made zero bathroom stops, so we had to either use their cigarette breaks to pee in the bushes (easier for men) or hold it until the morning (all the women).
Our first day was fairly productive, but unfortunately, we had a bit of a scare at dinner. We went to a nice restaurant and felt safe to order anything we wanted. I ordered an "apple filled chicken" dish, forgetting that apples in Vietnam are very bland and mushy. I decided to take out the apple filling for my last two pieces of chicken and eat just the meat, only to find out that about half of the final two pieces were completely raw. So raw it didn't even look like it touched heat, ever. So, I sent it back, they comped us the dish and dessert. I felt very ill (hypochondria!), ordered a Mai Tai hoping it would magically kill anything in my stomach and passed out at our hotel room immediately after we got back. I'm still worried that I'll die, but I think if I had gotten salmonella poisoning, I would have thrown up by now?
I got in touch with my uncle and the plan is to get picked up tomorrow morning and spend a night at the village with my family. When we get back, we're going to check into the very historic Hotel Continental for our final night in Vietnam. If you saw "The Quiet American", it's the beautiful hotel where Michael Caine witnessed the huge explosion. Honestly, we can't wait to be in Vegas and enjoy glorious amounts of uncooked vegetables. I mostly can't wait to be able to brush my teeth with tap water again.
The weather here is not too bad, it's warm but with only 75% of Hanoi's humidity.
-Ngoc
Our first day was fairly productive, but unfortunately, we had a bit of a scare at dinner. We went to a nice restaurant and felt safe to order anything we wanted. I ordered an "apple filled chicken" dish, forgetting that apples in Vietnam are very bland and mushy. I decided to take out the apple filling for my last two pieces of chicken and eat just the meat, only to find out that about half of the final two pieces were completely raw. So raw it didn't even look like it touched heat, ever. So, I sent it back, they comped us the dish and dessert. I felt very ill (hypochondria!), ordered a Mai Tai hoping it would magically kill anything in my stomach and passed out at our hotel room immediately after we got back. I'm still worried that I'll die, but I think if I had gotten salmonella poisoning, I would have thrown up by now?
I got in touch with my uncle and the plan is to get picked up tomorrow morning and spend a night at the village with my family. When we get back, we're going to check into the very historic Hotel Continental for our final night in Vietnam. If you saw "The Quiet American", it's the beautiful hotel where Michael Caine witnessed the huge explosion. Honestly, we can't wait to be in Vegas and enjoy glorious amounts of uncooked vegetables. I mostly can't wait to be able to brush my teeth with tap water again.
The weather here is not too bad, it's warm but with only 75% of Hanoi's humidity.
-Ngoc
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Nha Trang in a flash
It's funny: days in Vietnam are either really really good or plain awful. After a couple of really really good days, we were thrown for a loop with one of the worse days yet. It started with an innocent mishap. We made arrangements to get driven by a private car to the nearest train station 45 minutes from Hoi An to begin our train ride to Nha Trang. When a very clean and very nice Honda showed up, we were both a bit hesitant. What's going on here? This is too good to be true.
It was.
Halfway through the drive, our driver received a call from his frantic co-worker. He hadn't showed up yet to pick up his guests. Apparently, he had gotten confused and went to the wrong hotel just 10 minutes before our actual driver from another company did, and assumed we were his people. We had to turn around, back to town, to hop into a danky little minivan, and had to spend the next 45 minutes wondering if we would make our train.
Little did we know, we were signed up to get on the sloooooooooooowest train possible. It came late. And instead of getting to Nha Trang at around 9pm like we had originally hoped, and not at 11pm like we were later told, but midnight! Nha Trang, although lovely during the day, isn't the best place to be looking for a hotel after the sun sets. We arrived to a random hotel, woke up the staff who were sleeping in the lobby, and did manage to get a decent room that is almost all bug-free and stinky-free.
The train itself was rough. Our cabin door kept getting slammed open by a few cowboy kids who thought it was funny to slam our door. I think my question to Dave that day sums it up: Is this what prison feels like?
Anyhow. A few hours of sleep later, we did manage to have one of those "really really good" days again. Instead of trying to do any sight-seeing, we rented a couple of beach lounge chairs under our own umbrella and laid there for about 5 hours. We had to cut our Nha Trang stay short, however, when we decided at the last minute to try to make a trip to my family's village south of Saigon to say hello and to introduce my relatives to my new husband. My "rich" uncle in Canada decided to move back there, and he built a fairly large...mansion with A/C and all. Hopefully we can get in touch with him and he can send his SUV up to Saigon to pick us up. They're a bit far, so we need to get to Saigon a day earlier to make it happen. We'll be spending tonight on a 12 hour bus ride (how many 12 hour rides can this country have?!), but there will be beds on the bus, and hopefully...some air conditioning.
We've definitely been grateful for all the help that you (our friends and family) have given us to make this trip happen. Thanks again!
It was.
Halfway through the drive, our driver received a call from his frantic co-worker. He hadn't showed up yet to pick up his guests. Apparently, he had gotten confused and went to the wrong hotel just 10 minutes before our actual driver from another company did, and assumed we were his people. We had to turn around, back to town, to hop into a danky little minivan, and had to spend the next 45 minutes wondering if we would make our train.
Little did we know, we were signed up to get on the sloooooooooooowest train possible. It came late. And instead of getting to Nha Trang at around 9pm like we had originally hoped, and not at 11pm like we were later told, but midnight! Nha Trang, although lovely during the day, isn't the best place to be looking for a hotel after the sun sets. We arrived to a random hotel, woke up the staff who were sleeping in the lobby, and did manage to get a decent room that is almost all bug-free and stinky-free.
The train itself was rough. Our cabin door kept getting slammed open by a few cowboy kids who thought it was funny to slam our door. I think my question to Dave that day sums it up: Is this what prison feels like?
Anyhow. A few hours of sleep later, we did manage to have one of those "really really good" days again. Instead of trying to do any sight-seeing, we rented a couple of beach lounge chairs under our own umbrella and laid there for about 5 hours. We had to cut our Nha Trang stay short, however, when we decided at the last minute to try to make a trip to my family's village south of Saigon to say hello and to introduce my relatives to my new husband. My "rich" uncle in Canada decided to move back there, and he built a fairly large...mansion with A/C and all. Hopefully we can get in touch with him and he can send his SUV up to Saigon to pick us up. They're a bit far, so we need to get to Saigon a day earlier to make it happen. We'll be spending tonight on a 12 hour bus ride (how many 12 hour rides can this country have?!), but there will be beds on the bus, and hopefully...some air conditioning.
We've definitely been grateful for all the help that you (our friends and family) have given us to make this trip happen. Thanks again!
Tuesday, September 9, 2008
Shopping Heaven
After a 12 hour train ride out of Hanoi, Ngoc and I landed in Hue, Vietnam's ancient capital city. Since Hue was historically the seat of the emporer and his family, the city is chock full of historical architecture, most of which is housed in the 4 or so square kilometer walled "Citadel". I can't really do this description justice without posting the incredible pictures that I snapped (to follow!), but take my word for it, the sites were jaw dropping. Interestingly enough, half of the emporer's palace grounds seem completely razed by explosions and one could even imagine a firefight or two along the narrow corridors and alleyways...the other half preserved to perfection (or being rebuilt to resemble!). It's a strange dichotomy.
We also had a couple steaming hot bowls of Bun Bo Hue, in somewhat shady conditions (sitting in someone's house eating next to the family!), but our stomachs somehow survived, and it was delicious! We also ate at a Japanese restaurant called..."Japanese Restaurant".
So after Hue, and a short bus ride out of town, we arrive at our current destination, Hoi An. Oooh mama, this place is pure heat. Western bars and upscale restaurant, oceanside resorts with beach chair drink service, and oh yeah, lots and lots and LOTS of shopping. The name of the game here is clothing tailored to order. Wearing holes through your favorite pair of Jeans you bought at Guess for $90? Bring them here and get 10 exact replicas in under 24 hours for $15 each. Never been able to quite fit into an off-the-shelf suit/jacket/slacks/dress/jeans? I think I've been measures every which way possible time and time again over the last couple days, and everything I've had made has fit impeccably. Did I mention that you can even pick out your own fabric and create any design you want on the fly??
Ngoc and I, well, didn't exactly go "overboard" (although she might disagree), but we definitely spent more than we budgeted! A little more than $300 has netted us:
We also had a couple steaming hot bowls of Bun Bo Hue, in somewhat shady conditions (sitting in someone's house eating next to the family!), but our stomachs somehow survived, and it was delicious! We also ate at a Japanese restaurant called..."Japanese Restaurant".
So after Hue, and a short bus ride out of town, we arrive at our current destination, Hoi An. Oooh mama, this place is pure heat. Western bars and upscale restaurant, oceanside resorts with beach chair drink service, and oh yeah, lots and lots and LOTS of shopping. The name of the game here is clothing tailored to order. Wearing holes through your favorite pair of Jeans you bought at Guess for $90? Bring them here and get 10 exact replicas in under 24 hours for $15 each. Never been able to quite fit into an off-the-shelf suit/jacket/slacks/dress/jeans? I think I've been measures every which way possible time and time again over the last couple days, and everything I've had made has fit impeccably. Did I mention that you can even pick out your own fabric and create any design you want on the fly??
Ngoc and I, well, didn't exactly go "overboard" (although she might disagree), but we definitely spent more than we budgeted! A little more than $300 has netted us:
- One suit (trousers and jacket)
- One blazer
- 4 men's dress shirts
- One pair of corduroy slacks
- 3 dresses
- 2 skirts
- One women's winter coat
I think you can do the math and compare. If we can pull this off correctly, we should only need $500 and a plane ticket to Vietnam every couple of years to keep our wardrobes well stocked indefinitely.
Besides the whirlwind of shopping, we took an awesome little bike ride down the road (5km) to the beach today for some lunch (3 crabs), not-so-great coconut juice, and a nap in the shade on beach lounge chairs. It was the quintessential picture perfect white sand, palm tree'd, straw umbrella, tropical beach of every American's dreams. Don't you wish you were us???
Friday, September 5, 2008
Hanoi - final day
Ngoc here.
We love to hate on this town - it's hard to keep coming back here in between our mini-trips around the north. Fortunately, it's raining today so it's not to scorching yet (at 8am).
At 4:30am this morning, we arrived in Hanoi from our overnight train ride from hell. We were coming back from Sapa, near the border of China. We spent a magical two days there, and would have spent a few more days there.
Cool, breezy weather. A nice escape from the rest of Vietnam's heat. Hip restaurants, cafes, and bars. Incredible views. Everyone is friendly. Charming minority hilltribes. I visited Sapa in 2004 with three friends, and it was about 1/100th of the size it is today. It really has exploded! There is SO much more to do now, and everything looks is a million times more developed. I remember trekking down to a village four years ago and having to take a jeep back to town alongside the rocky muddy mountain cliffs and being afraid for my life. This time, the ride was in a nice SUV on completely paved road. I'm not too sure how I feel about tourism being a primary source of income for the tribes these days, but I suppose it's better than being eradicated completely (the area was wiped out for a while after multiple struggles with France and China, but was rebuilt and restored in 1990 by the Vietnamese government for tourism). Dave took a lot of fantastic shots with his camera, so we're excited to post them when we're back in the states.
Funny story! On our train ride to Sapa, we shared our 4-bunk cabin with a mother/son pair from Korea. I had taken a gnarly fall in Ha Long Bay during our epic climbing day, and sliced open one of my toes. I was changing out my bandaid on the train, and asked Dave to whip out our Neosporin. The Korean mother jumped out of her seat, looked at my wound, and said "I have something for you." She took out a kit with little incense sticks and some sort of thick beige paste.
Her son translated for us, letting us know that his mother is a professor of acupuncture in Korea and was going to heal me. I tried to fight back, insisting that I didn't need any special treatment and that my cut was just fine. Alas, she grabbed my foot, took a tiny bit of the paste, and wedged it inside my wound. Then, she took the incense stick, lit it on fire, and then lit the paste on fire with the stick. You can guess what happened next - the paste burned inside my wound, and she took her fingers and squeezed my cut to get the paste even deeper. She repeated this proces 5-6 more times. By then, I had already screamed a couple of times because having fire inside an open wound just did not feel good.
Today, a few days later, I'm not sure if the cut is better or worse. It doesn't hurt so it's probably better now, but I think this black burn mark on my toe is likely permanent.
-------
As for Sapa, it's probably in the top 5 of my favorite places in the world. Dave and I didn't try too hard to resist from the amazing shopping. He had a ball negotiating with the local H'mong tribe people and scored an authentic jacket for only 80,000 Vietnamese dollars! That's a little under 5 dollars. He also got a day bag and a cool shirt.
I got a beautiful new purse and some jewelry. It's a good thing our cash was slowly running out, and that we didn't have any ATM options. Otherwise, we may have gone for broke there.
We did have some trouble saying no to certain salespeople. They are either too cute or too sad to resist. We did a very long trek (from 10am - 2:30pm) yesterday, and had an army of tribe people following us all day. They helped us avoid falling down the cliffs during the more steep and difficult parts, and of course, at the end of it, begged us to buy some of their handcrafted merchandise. We each had one person who took care of us so we felt obligated to repay them somehow (and we definitely knew that this was their plan all along). Dave tried to give his woman some money for holding an umbrella over his head the entire trek to protect him from the sun, but she insisted on having him buy something. Their conversation was quite cute, she tried to teach him how "it all works":
Dave: I don't need that.
Tribe woman: 100,000!
Dave: That's too much, I really don't need it.
Tribe woman: 90,000!
Dave: No...
Tribe woman: 80,000
Dave: No, thank you
Tribe woman: No, you go down, I go up...50,000
Dave: No, no no
Tribe woman: You go down, I go up, you say 40,000
Dave: Uh....40,000?
Tribe woman: Good job!
Dave: But no, I don't want it
Obviously, Dave did give her the 40,000 for a pillow cover. I got ripped off and spent 50,000 on a belt, but my person felt bad and gave me a friendship bracelet for free! Also, Dave has developed a British accent for certain words. I hope it sticks, it's pretty fun to catch him accidentally sounding British.
We have a long long journey ahead of us. We need to find a hotel room to take a much needed nap so that we can hop on another overnight train this evening. Next stop, Hue, but we may try to go straight to Hoi An from there. Hue is nice and all, but I don't know if we have that extra night to spare since Saigon is still so very far away.
We love to hate on this town - it's hard to keep coming back here in between our mini-trips around the north. Fortunately, it's raining today so it's not to scorching yet (at 8am).
At 4:30am this morning, we arrived in Hanoi from our overnight train ride from hell. We were coming back from Sapa, near the border of China. We spent a magical two days there, and would have spent a few more days there.
Cool, breezy weather. A nice escape from the rest of Vietnam's heat. Hip restaurants, cafes, and bars. Incredible views. Everyone is friendly. Charming minority hilltribes. I visited Sapa in 2004 with three friends, and it was about 1/100th of the size it is today. It really has exploded! There is SO much more to do now, and everything looks is a million times more developed. I remember trekking down to a village four years ago and having to take a jeep back to town alongside the rocky muddy mountain cliffs and being afraid for my life. This time, the ride was in a nice SUV on completely paved road. I'm not too sure how I feel about tourism being a primary source of income for the tribes these days, but I suppose it's better than being eradicated completely (the area was wiped out for a while after multiple struggles with France and China, but was rebuilt and restored in 1990 by the Vietnamese government for tourism). Dave took a lot of fantastic shots with his camera, so we're excited to post them when we're back in the states.
Funny story! On our train ride to Sapa, we shared our 4-bunk cabin with a mother/son pair from Korea. I had taken a gnarly fall in Ha Long Bay during our epic climbing day, and sliced open one of my toes. I was changing out my bandaid on the train, and asked Dave to whip out our Neosporin. The Korean mother jumped out of her seat, looked at my wound, and said "I have something for you." She took out a kit with little incense sticks and some sort of thick beige paste.
Her son translated for us, letting us know that his mother is a professor of acupuncture in Korea and was going to heal me. I tried to fight back, insisting that I didn't need any special treatment and that my cut was just fine. Alas, she grabbed my foot, took a tiny bit of the paste, and wedged it inside my wound. Then, she took the incense stick, lit it on fire, and then lit the paste on fire with the stick. You can guess what happened next - the paste burned inside my wound, and she took her fingers and squeezed my cut to get the paste even deeper. She repeated this proces 5-6 more times. By then, I had already screamed a couple of times because having fire inside an open wound just did not feel good.
Today, a few days later, I'm not sure if the cut is better or worse. It doesn't hurt so it's probably better now, but I think this black burn mark on my toe is likely permanent.
-------
As for Sapa, it's probably in the top 5 of my favorite places in the world. Dave and I didn't try too hard to resist from the amazing shopping. He had a ball negotiating with the local H'mong tribe people and scored an authentic jacket for only 80,000 Vietnamese dollars! That's a little under 5 dollars. He also got a day bag and a cool shirt.
I got a beautiful new purse and some jewelry. It's a good thing our cash was slowly running out, and that we didn't have any ATM options. Otherwise, we may have gone for broke there.
We did have some trouble saying no to certain salespeople. They are either too cute or too sad to resist. We did a very long trek (from 10am - 2:30pm) yesterday, and had an army of tribe people following us all day. They helped us avoid falling down the cliffs during the more steep and difficult parts, and of course, at the end of it, begged us to buy some of their handcrafted merchandise. We each had one person who took care of us so we felt obligated to repay them somehow (and we definitely knew that this was their plan all along). Dave tried to give his woman some money for holding an umbrella over his head the entire trek to protect him from the sun, but she insisted on having him buy something. Their conversation was quite cute, she tried to teach him how "it all works":
Dave: I don't need that.
Tribe woman: 100,000!
Dave: That's too much, I really don't need it.
Tribe woman: 90,000!
Dave: No...
Tribe woman: 80,000
Dave: No, thank you
Tribe woman: No, you go down, I go up...50,000
Dave: No, no no
Tribe woman: You go down, I go up, you say 40,000
Dave: Uh....40,000?
Tribe woman: Good job!
Dave: But no, I don't want it
Obviously, Dave did give her the 40,000 for a pillow cover. I got ripped off and spent 50,000 on a belt, but my person felt bad and gave me a friendship bracelet for free! Also, Dave has developed a British accent for certain words. I hope it sticks, it's pretty fun to catch him accidentally sounding British.
We have a long long journey ahead of us. We need to find a hotel room to take a much needed nap so that we can hop on another overnight train this evening. Next stop, Hue, but we may try to go straight to Hoi An from there. Hue is nice and all, but I don't know if we have that extra night to spare since Saigon is still so very far away.
Wednesday, September 3, 2008
On our way to Sapa
A couple observations I've made over the past week. For those of you unfamiliar w/ Vietnam, it's a real trip, and, needless to say, totally different than back in the States. Great example...EVERYONE is trying to sell something. Imagine some quiet neighborhood street in, oh, Walnut Creek, or Laguna (for you Sacramento people). Now, imagine that ever single house's garage is open and all day long the entire family in that household is sitting in the garage surrounded by things they're trying to sell. On EVERY street in EVERY neighborhood. 50% of everyone here is selling the "golden three": bottled water, soda, and beer. The rest are trying to cook up meals for passerby's or, for a very select few, peddling nifty things like cell phone plans or fake CD's. On top of that, the population density here, especially in the cities, is so ridiculous that I'm not going to even bother trying to describe it to you.
On the bus ride back from Ha Long City to Hanoi today, where we are stopped over for a few hours waiting for our train to Sapa, Ngoc was pointing out a number of streetside shops that were advertising "Thit Cho", which is dog meat. Notwithstanding the general weirdness of eating man's best friend, this is creepy for two reasons. 1: there are dogs everywhere. As I mentioned before, the same mongrel breed of dog roams the streets dozens at a time. 2: the signs that advertise "Thit Cho" usually also include a nice photoshopped picture of Lassie or an obediently heeling golden retriever. OK, I doubt there are any pure bred dogs, much less a border collie or a golden retriever, anywhere in all of Vietnam. And if there is, would anyone really eat that??
Our last day in Cat Ba town was not too bad. Early morning cool weather that had us celebrating quickly turned into an afternoon scorcher, and I swear we were the only people on the street at around 1 when we went out to lunch. Ngoc spent the better part of the day with a stomach ache, which was unfortunate, because the night before we had what was probably our best meal in Vietnam thus far. We did in fact go bouldering in the late afternoon, but the problems were overall somewhat disappointing. All in all, Cat Ba was great, but I think we would both agree that the town in its entirety can really be wholly experienced in a day or two, and not more. Climbing was great, and would have been better if deep water soloing was an option (which it wasn't, due to the timing of tides), but bigger and better things await us! (hopefully!)
Off to Sapa for 3 nights, then south to Hue! You'll be hearing from us soon!
P.S. Shawn Reeder has some photos and a slideshow from our wedding up here! Click "Play" to view the slideshow.
On the bus ride back from Ha Long City to Hanoi today, where we are stopped over for a few hours waiting for our train to Sapa, Ngoc was pointing out a number of streetside shops that were advertising "Thit Cho", which is dog meat. Notwithstanding the general weirdness of eating man's best friend, this is creepy for two reasons. 1: there are dogs everywhere. As I mentioned before, the same mongrel breed of dog roams the streets dozens at a time. 2: the signs that advertise "Thit Cho" usually also include a nice photoshopped picture of Lassie or an obediently heeling golden retriever. OK, I doubt there are any pure bred dogs, much less a border collie or a golden retriever, anywhere in all of Vietnam. And if there is, would anyone really eat that??
Our last day in Cat Ba town was not too bad. Early morning cool weather that had us celebrating quickly turned into an afternoon scorcher, and I swear we were the only people on the street at around 1 when we went out to lunch. Ngoc spent the better part of the day with a stomach ache, which was unfortunate, because the night before we had what was probably our best meal in Vietnam thus far. We did in fact go bouldering in the late afternoon, but the problems were overall somewhat disappointing. All in all, Cat Ba was great, but I think we would both agree that the town in its entirety can really be wholly experienced in a day or two, and not more. Climbing was great, and would have been better if deep water soloing was an option (which it wasn't, due to the timing of tides), but bigger and better things await us! (hopefully!)
Off to Sapa for 3 nights, then south to Hue! You'll be hearing from us soon!
P.S. Shawn Reeder has some photos and a slideshow from our wedding up here! Click "Play" to view the slideshow.
Monday, September 1, 2008
Cat Ba antics, continued
Cat Ba town, where Ngoc and I have been staying for the past two nights, is this mysterious place where time seems to melt away unnoticed. Ngoc would disagree with me, but I could pass weeks here and not be able to tell you how long I'd been here nor what day of the week it was (I'm not sure I can even tell you right now? Tuesday? Monday?)
Ngoc and I spent the day after our tour from Ha Long City generally relaxing and "exploring", which is a loosely used term that includes frequent retreats back to our hotel room during the afternoon to suck in some much needed air conditioning. In between watching die hard 1 and 3 in the hotel room, we managed to get out on a tandem bike, take some pictures, and shop around unsuccessfully for a hotel room to replace the $45 a night tourist trap where we've been staying. Not so interesting.
Today, however, things took a total turn for the better, as we hooked up w/ Slopony Adventures and took some rented climbing gear out onto Ha Long Bay. We had a grand time with a couple new friends visiting from Poland, and managed to climb from 8:30 straight through the afternoon, accumulating something like 15 climbs between the four of us. Among all the day's epics, I'd have to count among the best climbing shirtless, soaked in sweat, and absolutely BAKING in 1,500% humidity weather and direct sunlight up a 5.10D, which I somehow managed to get to the top of on lead. Ngoc also scored her first 2 lead climbs outdoors, like, EVER. Big kudos to her. In between climbs were lots of dunks in the water, scavenging for cool sea shells, meeting random Boalt Hall law school graduates from the Bay Area, and slicing our feet on rotten coral. Go us! Interesting side note, while I'm talking about activities in Ha Long Bay. Most every trip involves a boat ride of some sort, and a half dozen Vietnamese boatmen to boot. These guys love rubbing my leg hair! Nothing over the top, just a good smile and a rub or two on my shin whenever I'm exiting or boarding a boat that involves a hefty step up onto or off of the deck. Hard to imagine that blonde, curly leg hair is so strange to them, but hey, I actually don't mind!
The verdict is pretty much that Cat Ba rocks at this point, even though not-so-upstanding women roam the oceanside after dark and we are still plagued by the same swarm of motorbike taxis as in Hanoi. Tomorrow we are going to get our hands on a crash pad and head down to Cat Co 2, or "Beach Number 2" (creative, these Vietnamese...) for some late afternoon/early evening bouldering. W00t.
Hope you all are enjoying fast times and having a few good laughs at our expense. More to follow soon!
Ngoc and I spent the day after our tour from Ha Long City generally relaxing and "exploring", which is a loosely used term that includes frequent retreats back to our hotel room during the afternoon to suck in some much needed air conditioning. In between watching die hard 1 and 3 in the hotel room, we managed to get out on a tandem bike, take some pictures, and shop around unsuccessfully for a hotel room to replace the $45 a night tourist trap where we've been staying. Not so interesting.
Today, however, things took a total turn for the better, as we hooked up w/ Slopony Adventures and took some rented climbing gear out onto Ha Long Bay. We had a grand time with a couple new friends visiting from Poland, and managed to climb from 8:30 straight through the afternoon, accumulating something like 15 climbs between the four of us. Among all the day's epics, I'd have to count among the best climbing shirtless, soaked in sweat, and absolutely BAKING in 1,500% humidity weather and direct sunlight up a 5.10D, which I somehow managed to get to the top of on lead. Ngoc also scored her first 2 lead climbs outdoors, like, EVER. Big kudos to her. In between climbs were lots of dunks in the water, scavenging for cool sea shells, meeting random Boalt Hall law school graduates from the Bay Area, and slicing our feet on rotten coral. Go us! Interesting side note, while I'm talking about activities in Ha Long Bay. Most every trip involves a boat ride of some sort, and a half dozen Vietnamese boatmen to boot. These guys love rubbing my leg hair! Nothing over the top, just a good smile and a rub or two on my shin whenever I'm exiting or boarding a boat that involves a hefty step up onto or off of the deck. Hard to imagine that blonde, curly leg hair is so strange to them, but hey, I actually don't mind!
The verdict is pretty much that Cat Ba rocks at this point, even though not-so-upstanding women roam the oceanside after dark and we are still plagued by the same swarm of motorbike taxis as in Hanoi. Tomorrow we are going to get our hands on a crash pad and head down to Cat Co 2, or "Beach Number 2" (creative, these Vietnamese...) for some late afternoon/early evening bouldering. W00t.
Hope you all are enjoying fast times and having a few good laughs at our expense. More to follow soon!
Saturday, August 30, 2008
Cat Ba - Day 1
Gr, power outages! Just lost a post. Here's the story again:
7 of us were standing around at the dock of this main island for our bus to pick us up. Dave had given up on wearing a shirt altogether, and a Korean tour bus approached us. A young man jumped out of the bus full of giggling girls, ran over straight to Dave and without looking at anyone else, said: "Excuse me, do you want to go with us? We have an extra bed in our hotel."
The rest of us felt a bit left out. What about us?!
7 of us were standing around at the dock of this main island for our bus to pick us up. Dave had given up on wearing a shirt altogether, and a Korean tour bus approached us. A young man jumped out of the bus full of giggling girls, ran over straight to Dave and without looking at anyone else, said: "Excuse me, do you want to go with us? We have an extra bed in our hotel."
The rest of us felt a bit left out. What about us?!
Ha Long Bay
We found out yesterday that we've been an hour ahead of everybody else here in Vietnam. It's not that we've been wrong, it's that the entire country doesn't care about daylight savings time, even though it's very much active here.
We spent two scorching days in Hanoi and were ready to hit the waters at the world famous Ha Long Bay.
After a 3 hour ride on a van with members of our tour group, we arrived at the port city of Haiphong, where we continued our journey to the bay on a huge boat. Much more luxurious than the first Ha Long bay trip I went on, but that doesn't say much, because when it's 200% humidity, and air conditioning won't get turned on until 8pm, nothing can be too comfortable. The first day was mostly about relaxing, but again, hard to relax when you are soaked in your own sweat and you have nowhere to hide. Dave took some cool pictures of our visit to the "Amazing Caves" (actual name), which I'd seen before but this time around, I got to experience a paradox - inside the cave was cool, as in, temperature, but we were more sweaty than we'd ever been. I didn't think you could sweat even more in a low-temperature area! 900% humidity, perhaps?
We were fortunate to have a great group of people onboard, in particular a couple from England that has been hilarious to hang out with - they have given us new perspective on how normal citizens of other countries see the United States: it's pretty easy to poke fun of us...
Other highlights:
We spent two scorching days in Hanoi and were ready to hit the waters at the world famous Ha Long Bay.
After a 3 hour ride on a van with members of our tour group, we arrived at the port city of Haiphong, where we continued our journey to the bay on a huge boat. Much more luxurious than the first Ha Long bay trip I went on, but that doesn't say much, because when it's 200% humidity, and air conditioning won't get turned on until 8pm, nothing can be too comfortable. The first day was mostly about relaxing, but again, hard to relax when you are soaked in your own sweat and you have nowhere to hide. Dave took some cool pictures of our visit to the "Amazing Caves" (actual name), which I'd seen before but this time around, I got to experience a paradox - inside the cave was cool, as in, temperature, but we were more sweaty than we'd ever been. I didn't think you could sweat even more in a low-temperature area! 900% humidity, perhaps?
We were fortunate to have a great group of people onboard, in particular a couple from England that has been hilarious to hang out with - they have given us new perspective on how normal citizens of other countries see the United States: it's pretty easy to poke fun of us...
Other highlights:
- Incredible seafood. It doesn't get much better than fresh crab, clams, and prawns.
- Kayaking the bay - being that close to the surface of the water, with nothing but huge limestone islands all around you is a memory we won't forget.
- Trekking the jungles - I didn't appreciate almost walking mouth-open into the biggest spider I've ever seen in the wild, but being scared for my life for a good 40 minutes was pretty cool.
- Cycling Cat Ba National Park - a bit rough at times on a single-gear mountain bike from 1920, but it was all part of the fun.
- Watching Dave and the other boys jump into the water from the top of the boat, and narrowly escaping jellyfish wrath every time. Don't worry mom! We hear these guys only "hurt horribly for about a minute", no actual neurological damage. But still. I can swim, maybe 30 seconds at a time, so I'm not sure I'd ever be able to survive getting hit by one of these guys (there are a TON of them everywhere you look this time of year). Getting a little nervous about "deep water soloing"...
- Sleeping on the boat was better than expected. You have to ignore the cockroaches a bit, and the fact that you have to shower over a toilet, but waking up to an early morning thunderstorm and realizing where you are is an incredibly peaceful experience.
Hanoi
Wow! After wrapping up our much anticipated and super-successful (I may be biased) wedding on the weekend of August 24th, Ngoc and I made the painful 24hr+ journey to Hanoi in northern Vietnam for the honeymoon. I say painful in light of the 4 hrs of sleep we were running on after we closed up shop on our wedding night at 4am after an awesome Monday morning of part-ay-ing.
The fun times started without delay, as we were picked up by our hotel, the Sofitel Metropole, by their car service. Fresh cold towels, purified mineral water, today's paper, and an ipod plugged into the stereo from which we could make our music selection for the ride back (we rocked out to Elton John and "Benny and the Jets", by the way).
Immediately the magnitude of just how different this country is from the States hit me. Traffic laws are basically non-existant. The lower class is essentially the entire country, and everyone is trying to sell ANYTHING they can just to make money for basic necessities...things sold on sidewalks and street corners range from bottled water to cages of ducks to packaged rice crispy treats to 750 ml bottles of liquor. Also, there must be 50,000 motorbike taxi drivers in Hanoi! At literally every corner, there would be 2-4 guys sitting on parked scooters calling out to us "hey! moto-bay-ek?!"
Our hotel was just about the opposite of all this. It was a good place to stay the first few nights while I made the transition out of my "comfort zone" and adjusted to crazy vietnamese life. The hotel manager had arranged for a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates, and a note for Ngoc and myself giving his sincerist wishes for our honeymoon. What a stand-up place, that Sofitel...even though they charge a ton for any sort of amenities beyond the standard set of services (we washed an armful of laundry and it cost us $46!)
Our time in Hanoi involved some basic sightseeing and eating, along with shopping around to book our Ha Long Bay tour on day 2. We would have tried to be more ambitious, if not for the jet-lagged sleeping at 8pm and waking up at 3am. If you're ever in Hanoi, eat at Club Opera and order the Lemongrass Chicken. It's this restaurant across from the Sofitel that is pretty much as classy as you can get in Vietnam, with excellent food, drinks, and service. Oh yeah, and did I mention your bill will not exceed $30? Besides Club Opera, I don't think we paid more than $10 combined for a meal while in Hanoi. Yay for the dollar!
Next up, Ha Long Bay and our trip to Cat Ba!
The fun times started without delay, as we were picked up by our hotel, the Sofitel Metropole, by their car service. Fresh cold towels, purified mineral water, today's paper, and an ipod plugged into the stereo from which we could make our music selection for the ride back (we rocked out to Elton John and "Benny and the Jets", by the way).
Immediately the magnitude of just how different this country is from the States hit me. Traffic laws are basically non-existant. The lower class is essentially the entire country, and everyone is trying to sell ANYTHING they can just to make money for basic necessities...things sold on sidewalks and street corners range from bottled water to cages of ducks to packaged rice crispy treats to 750 ml bottles of liquor. Also, there must be 50,000 motorbike taxi drivers in Hanoi! At literally every corner, there would be 2-4 guys sitting on parked scooters calling out to us "hey! moto-bay-ek?!"
Our hotel was just about the opposite of all this. It was a good place to stay the first few nights while I made the transition out of my "comfort zone" and adjusted to crazy vietnamese life. The hotel manager had arranged for a bouquet of flowers, a box of chocolates, and a note for Ngoc and myself giving his sincerist wishes for our honeymoon. What a stand-up place, that Sofitel...even though they charge a ton for any sort of amenities beyond the standard set of services (we washed an armful of laundry and it cost us $46!)
Our time in Hanoi involved some basic sightseeing and eating, along with shopping around to book our Ha Long Bay tour on day 2. We would have tried to be more ambitious, if not for the jet-lagged sleeping at 8pm and waking up at 3am. If you're ever in Hanoi, eat at Club Opera and order the Lemongrass Chicken. It's this restaurant across from the Sofitel that is pretty much as classy as you can get in Vietnam, with excellent food, drinks, and service. Oh yeah, and did I mention your bill will not exceed $30? Besides Club Opera, I don't think we paid more than $10 combined for a meal while in Hanoi. Yay for the dollar!
Next up, Ha Long Bay and our trip to Cat Ba!
Monday, August 25, 2008
Hello!
We're back from our big weekend! We hope you all had a wonderful fantastic amazing time with us up in Tahoe, and if you weren't able to be there with us, we'll be sure to post some pictures as soon as we have them.
We have four hours until we need to begin our journey to Vietnam and have about a million things to take care of first - but we wanted to start a new blog so any interested folks can stay in touch and see what we're up to the next 3 weeks.
Stay tuned!
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