Well-Deserved Luxury

Man, was it ever great to be back in civilization! Food of all types and flavours (no more rice or baguettes for me for a while, please), proper toilets, hot showers, the internet, and not a sack of rice or massacred dog in sight! Hooray! :-)

Hanoi is a really cool city, albeit a very loud one. It's the capital of Vietnam and is a unique mix of French colonial and Vietnamese architecture. Our guesthouse is in the Old Quarter - a really old neighbourhood full of small, twisty streets and alleys, (whose names change every two or three blocks), tree-lined roadways, lots of restaurants and cafes, and a billion and one motorbikes. There's about 4 million ppl in Hanoi, and my best estimate is that there are *at least* 40 million motorbikes! Seriously, I've never seen so many in my life, and it's a bit odd (although cool) to be in a city where cars are far, far outnumbered by motorbikes.

It means that there is an almost continual roar of motorbikes throughout this city nearly 24 hours a day, and that crossing the street is single-handedly the most dangerous thing you have ever done (and ever will) in your entire life. Traffic laws are...just a fun, non-existent mind concept...and most intersections don't even have traffic lights. The bikes race all around going full-throttle, winding between cars and each other, dodging frightened tourists and the tuk-tuks and street vendors and somehow, miraculously, seem to avoid killing each other en masse. Amazing!

The only way to cross the street here is with some faith, some hope for life "on the other side", many, many silent prayers to whatever deity pops into your head, and balls the size of bloated pumpkins. The trick is to do it very, very slowly, and let traffic avoid you, instead of the other way around. It feels completely wrong and doing so goes against all your better judgements and instincts as your mind screams "RUN YOU STUPID FOOL! RUN FOR YOU LIFE!" but it truly is the only way to make it across and live to tell the tale.

And you have to repeat this life-endangering/near-death/spiritual-awakening experience dozens of times a day as you make your way across Hanoi. Be still my frightened, panicked, rapidly-beating heart!

Hanoi does have a couple of small lakes inside the city surrounded by some lovely parkland, and they make for great escapes from the traffic and noise. (And also fantasticly convenient spots for kissing the ground/re-evaluating your life priorities/thanking your lucky stars that you made it across that street.) I spent the day browsing through various travel agencies searching for the perfect tour to Halong Bay.

And then I found it...leaving the next morning!

I found a really great (albeit expensive) travel agency called Handspan that had a plethora of fun tours around Northern Vietnam that seem both exciting and relaxing. I decided to splurge on myself (hey it was just my birthday, after all! and I deserve the break after those hellish three days on the bus, right???) and opt for a luxurious 3-day tour of Halong Bay that looked to be like paradise.

Halong Bay is a UNESCO World Natural Heritage Site (boy, I'm really racking up my list of visited World Heritage Sites, eh? The UN should really offer me a job at this point now) and is probably Vietnam's most beautiful and most popular tourist destination. It is a massive bay full of semi-submerged limestone karst terrain, creating a marine haven full of 3000 near-vertical islands that shelter several caves, grottoes, beaches, and forests. It truly is one of the most beautiful corners of the globe and the kind of place that you *wish* you would get lost in.

It's a 3.5 hour drive to get there and on the way I met my fellow passengers. There were 11 of us in total, and looking around I noticed that it was Scotty and....five couples... Oh lovely! So my luck! Story of my life! I'm always the token single guy at the party full of happy cuddly couples, and in these scenarios I always feel a bit like Bridget Jones in that it's a reminder that I'm very much single and therefore the odd duck out. Haha!

Actually everyone turned out to be really friendly, and from various corners of the globe. There were 2 Italians, 2 Spaniards, 2 Australians, 2 French, 2 Norweigians (sp?)...and lil Canadian me of course! Upon arrival we boarded our Chinese junk and it really was quite the fancy ship. We were greeted with a cold towel, glass of juice, and ushered into the great big dining area with white linens and fancy napkins that I'm never really sure whether I'm supposed to actually use to clean myself, or if they're 'just for looks' and that I really shouldn't soil them. One advantage of being the odd duck out is that I got my own cabin, and my own bathroom, which totally rocks!

The next three days were sheer paradise and true luxury. We toured caves and little coves, sailed between narrow openings of the Lord Of the Ringsesque giant rock islands, and were fed *incredible* meals every day. I'm talking like 7 or 8 courses, with delicous seafood like crab and tiger prawns and shrimp, and fresh fruit every time we came back from a swim. I really can't remember the last time I ate so well! The waters here are a deep emerald green and nearly bathwater warm and I took every opportunity I had to swim in them. Our first night was spent on the boat, and the second night in our own little private bungalows on a beach on a little uninhabited island. Oh man, I could soooo get used to living like this!

We spent the entire second day kayaking through coves in the bay near our beach, and it was magical. I've never kayaked before (other than when I just sat in the kayak on that flooded river in Vang Vieng) and I totally loved it. And hey the guide said I was really good at it! This is something I'd definitely like to do more of in the future. In a few places we could kayak under these giant rock overhangs that are exposed when the tide's low and it was freaky but cool to sail under them. Another fantastic lunch later on, and some more swimming too. What a great day!

That night I encountered a phenomenon that truly captivated my imagination and curiosity. The waters here have phosphorescence in them, which means that when you walk in or splash through the water at night it releases this...explosion...of bright little lights that glow in the water. It's like being Harry Potter and creating this magical glowing sparkling glitter in the water with your every touch. It was incredible! We took turns going out on the kayak in the bay and dragging our feet in the water. It was so cool, to see a trail of underwater dancing fireflies in your wake as your sailed through the liquid black. It's hard to explain unless you've seen it with your own eyes, but all I can say is 'Wow!'

Sailing back into harbour on the third day was quite sad actually. I had such an amazing time on the boat (and became good buddies with the Aussie couple, Jo and Damon) and did not want to go back to the city. Hanoi's cool and all, but come on...compared to spectacular scenery, great food, and fun in the sun in Halong Bay, which one you think will win out? Personally I'd love it if we could hijack this boat and sail all the way down the Vietnamese coast and onto Cambodia, Thailand, and beyond, but I don't think the crew would appreciate that!

All good things must come to an end, but what an amazing tour it was. Exactly what the doctor ordered, and I feel so relaxed and refreshed...and even a bit more tan!...than before. Oh, it's a rough life I lead I tell ya, full of nothing but pain and suffering and misery here on the road in Southeast Asia, but someone's gotta live it, right? ;-)