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.