Erik's Travels: Fri,Sat,Sun (hanoi, ha long bay, massage)

hanoi at night

I had an amazing weekend. Friday night 6 volunteers went and stayed the night at a hotel in downtown Hanoi. The city is incredible at night, so full of light, color and motion. We had dinner on a a second story balcony cafe. The dinner cost over a million dong (which isn't much in USD), but it is still cool to pay a million dollar bill. We spent most of the night on Bia corner, where tons of people sit in little colored plastic chairs and drink 20 cent beers. The people flow out into the street and you can find people from every where on earth sitting there. I spent some time talking with a group of Australians and then a crazy local guy who was selling guide books. He was very animated and spoke excellent english. If he came to the states he would be star. He kept trying to kiss the girl volunteers, he was hilarious. he looked about 14 but he showed me his id and he was 21! Every one in this country looks so much younger than they really are. After Bia corner we all went to a great after hours club called the dragonfly. They had awesome music on itunes so i picked a bunch of jams. It is technically illegal to be out in Vietnam after 11pm, but every seems to break the curfew so i did too.

ha long bay

a bus picked us up at our hotel Saturday morning and we headed out to ha long by which is about 3 hours away. when we got there we boarded a beautiful "junk boat" (an ancient Asian sail boat). The lunch on the boat was sea food, but since i'm a vegetarian they had nothing to give me. what they came up with was the absolute worst meal i have ever had. gooey, chewy corn patties, deep fried canned corn, and rice. it was disgusting. after that we took the boat to a beautiful cave and then went kyaking. the bay has almost 2000 mountainous islands and it we kyaked around a few of them. after that we swam by the side of the boat. the water was bath-water warm and very salty so you float like a cork. they played and sang some traditional music after dinner and then we all sat up and watched the sun set. i'm not sure if i have ever seen anything so beautiful. the entire night the landscape just didn't look real. i felt like i was inside a movie or a painting. even the pictures i took look to good to be real. at night the moon came out and you could see lighting from storms off in the distance. it was incredibly romantic, i wish sunni could have been there to share it with me.

sunday

more swimming sunday. i jumped off of the top of the two story boat into the water. it was great, there was a group of Australians cheering me on. one of the volunteers took a pic of me in mid air (i'll post it later). the bus trip back was very bumpy so i couldn't sleep very well. when we got back the girls i was with wanted to get pedicures in hanoi, so i went with them and got my first ever massage. it lasted for 1 hour and only cost 12 dollars!!!! i was so relaxed afterwards that i could barely move. after that we had dinner at a fancy indian restaurant and then made one last stop a Bia corner before heading back to peace house and calling it a night. the weekend felt a little touristy, but that didn't make it any less great. i have a few stories and pics that i'll post about teaching at the school in hanoi that i'll post tomorrow, so check back soon.

view from dinner