jforbess.org

I arrived in Sydney at 8am, and departed at 11:15am for Melbourne. I
wouldn’t have wanted to have less time between flights. It took an
hour to get through Immigration, Customs and Quarantine. I really hate
the Sydney Quarantine line. They don’t have enough space allocated to
lines, so the lines are backed up into the baggage claim room from one
side to the other, twisting back on themselves. I was so tempted to
just merge in early. The most demoralizing thing about Quarantine was
that when I got to the front of the line where a woman was directing
people towards x-ray machines, I was sent on through without a
check. The woman saw my US passport, and that I wasn’t declaring any
fruit, and that I had just been in rural places, and probably assumed
I was entering from the US, rather than Vietnam, where I had
definitely walked through chicken poo with my hiking boots. Good thing
I had made an attempt to clean them off. I don’t want to be the one
bringing bird flu to Australia.

The short bus ride to the Domestic Terminal cost $5. I don’t know why
it bothered me so much to have to pay to transfer between terminals at
the airport, but it did. It seemed as though it should be free.

Everyone in the airport looked so attractive. I think it was partly
that there were so many surfers, and that everyone had more stylish
clothing than we generally saw in Vietnam.

I called Ehren before boarding the plane to Melbourne. Our travel
plans had vacillated so many times, I wanted to make sure he was in
Melbourne before actually getting on the plane. But not to worry,
everything went shockingly smoothly.

We headed out of town directly from the airport. Ehren’s friend Sean
was out in the Grampians rock climbing with some friends already. We
would join them there, and do some hiking Sunday before roadtripping
back to Sydney on Monday and Tuesday.

I was wondering how much of an Australian experience I was going to
get in my five days. Not much, I figured. So it was a giggle-inducing
shock to sit down at the campsite and watch kangaroos hopping
around. There were a surprising number so near so many people. Sean’s
friend Cat from Melbourne said that they had come south to
civilization because of the extreme drought to the north.

Ehren and I sat around the campsite and his claim that his plans had
changed so many times because of his friend Sean slowly acquired more
weight. We had brought the water and the beer. The other car of people
had the food. They were out rock climbing, and as the sun set, the
moon rose, and we got hungrier and hungrier, we wondered how late they
could possibly have stayed up on the rocks. Luckily we had duty-free
rum and chocolate and kangaroos to distract us.

After a small dinner of couscous and steamed veggies, the consensus
was that we wanted a fire. Despite a serious drought, people around
the campground were having fires. Despite a serious drought, we found
a fire ring that was still full of intense embers and a few flames,
though its owners had gone to bed. So we added a log and sat around it
until it was too hard to keep our eyes open.

So much packing. Our box might be more packing tape than box. Pho for
breakfast. A few pain au chocolat for the road. We found ourselves
ready to head to the airport about forty-five minutes early, but the
taxi the hotel had arranged couldn’t show up early, so we sat in the
hotel lobby on the sofa, the one place the proprietor could sit. Both
of us were a bit sick, a bit grumpy, and generally not feeling like
moving.

Death’s flight was four hours after mine, but he wasn’t inclined to
hang around Hanoi killing time, so we got to share the taxi to the
airport. Aieeee. The taxi driver might have been the worst one we’d
had. He honked when the road was perfectly clear. And he was heavy
handed on the honking. After the ride from Haiphong the day before,
when our driver was polite, and didn’t pass slow trucks on the right,
this driver was hard to take.

Poor Death. When we got to the airport we discovered that they only
checked people in two hours before the flight was due to depart. So
Death had to sit and wait in the ticketing lobby for four hours. I had
to wait about half an hour before they opened check in for me,
even. We found him a place out of the crush of humanity, but with no
chairs. I asked if he wanted me to entertain him instead of heading
straight for security, and he affirmed that he did. Sadly, I had no
monkey and I can’t tap dance, so we played cards standing at an empty
Baggage Wrapping Service desk.

I headed to security a little early, because I couldn’t see the line,
and I know how slow those lines can move. And because I had to go
through Immigration where they might give me a hard time about visas
or something. I was glad I had, because the line in Immigration was
quite slow-moving, considering how little consideration they needed to
give me to leave the country. They did stamp my passport, my visa, and
my boarding pass, though.

As I sat at my gate I heard them calling ‘Final boarding for the
Aeroflot flight to Moscow’ at least seven times. It was supposed to
have left before I went through security. While playing cards we sat
next to wicker furniture that was supposed to be on that flight as
well. Maybe they thought the wicker was going to board itself.

The flight to Kuala Lumpur was unremarkable, though I did freak out a
bit when I thought we were flying towards Indonesia and the Indian
Ocean instead of over the Gulf of Thailand to the Malay
Peninsula. About twenty minutes after we landed the skies opened up
and all of the moisture that had been building up for the past month
came down in sheets and buckets. Plus there was thunder and
lightning. I had just been dreaming of a good old Midwestern
thunderstorm, and here it was in Southeast Asia.

I thought I was going to splurge on some Godiva chocolate, but when I
found out it was going to cost $4 USD per truffle I decided it wasn’t
worth it.

I watched four new episodes of Scrubs while I waited for my flight to
be called. Ahhhhh. Pure indulgence.

Sadly, I was completely unable to sleep on the plane. I watched
Arrested Development and some crappy romantic comedy instead.

Our last full day in Vietnam. We pulled ourselves out of bed at
quarter to eight so as not to miss breakfast. Of course, it was just
muesli and fruit, so we could have been late. Sigh. I don’t know why
I’m so tired these days. Those overnight trains seem to have destroyed
me.

After breakfast we sat on the balcony and I blogged while Death
read. We waited for the power to come on to shower, but sadly, it
never did. Death braved a potentially cold shower in the dark, while I
preferred to wait for our hotel in Hanoi. I think the resort turns off
the power so guests don’t waste it, but the window in the bathroom
isn’t big enough for useful natural light.

We watched the fog come in, which was pretty, until Death commented he
hoped the fog didn’t thicken enough so that the bay was
unnavigable. Not being able to return to Hanoi today would be very
paranoia making. If I got the first boat out of Cat Ba tomorrow I
would probably be able to make my flight, but it would be close. I’m
betting we’ll just be forced to go slower, not stopped altogether. But
I was still nervous.

In fact, the fog didn’t slow anything down, but we had been
misinformed about the likely time of arrival in Hanoi. We arrived in
Hanoi at 6:30pm, and they dropped off the other people at their hotel
first, so Death had to sprint to get to his tailors in time to pick up
his suits. And then the Prince Hotel had no room for us, so they
wanted to shuttle us off to the Prince III. Which pissed me off. I’ve
heard that tourists shouldn’t be too angry about the way hotels lose
reservations here, because they have no collateral if the tourist
flakes. And the Prince at least booked a new hotel and paid for the
taxi there. But after traveling for a day, it’s nice to know that when
you walk into a hotel you have a room. And wifi. Luckily the Prince
III was close to an open wifi net, even if they didn’t provide it
themselves.

We walked across the street to the nearest restaurant for
dinner. Death wanted pho to stave off his cold. I wanted greens and
garlic. They provided both nicely, plus apricot tea for Death. Lovely.

The Ocean Tour delivered a good experience, but it had bad
communication throughout.

The road from Haiphong (third biggest city in Vietnam, major container
port) was lined with factories. Clothing, Ford cars, steel, etc. Not
too many large trucks on the road. Perhaps they only travel at night,
or perhaps there is a back road?

I have lost patience winding my way through the motorbike traffic in
the streets, now that I only have a day left. It’s not an interesting
cultural challenge, it’s just a pain in the ass.

I think I finally got nine hours of sleep. Unfortunately I was still
dead sleepy all day. I even took a short nap once we’d finally gotten
to the beach resort.

On the boat transfer to the beach resort, one of the locals made a
joke about sharks. I was amused, since I’d made a similar joke when I
was whinging about my period the day before. Once we’d kayaked around
the island, we were looking for things to do, so I said we could go
over and swim off the diving platform. Death thought I was serious,
and we headed over. I only stopped when it was time to struggle out of
the kayak onto the platform. At dinner, someone’s comment about sharks
made me ask, “Are there sharks in the middle of the diving platform?”
The other guests looked at me, and laughed. It wasn’t a diving
platform, it was a shark pen.

The limestone formations around the island are interesting, but Death
didn’t realize how fast he was paddling, so we cruised by them rather
quickly. Also, there were no dry bags for his camera, so his keen eye
for aesthetics wasn’t motivated. I was sad I couldn’t instruct Death
in the finer points of kayaking, but the equipment wasn’t as nice or
as feature-full as the equipment I’d used in New Zealand, and Death
seemed more inclined to power through the stroke rather than finesse
it anyway.

The tide was coming in as we went around the island, so that one
channel through the island was rocky the first time around, but barely
passable the second time, so we did a miniloop for fun. Death’s GPS
worked nicely, and our track was plainly visible on his Treo.

Dinner was “a barbeque on the beach.” At this resort, this meant a
twelve course meal with an opening cocktail, possibly a Singapore
Sling. (Fruity, but with gin?!) My stomach was acting up, so though I
ate more than I expected, I skipped a lot of the meat, including what
might have been a shark fin.

Nothing like waking up to find you need to buy a plane ticket before
breakfast. My Australian interlude was finally being planned, and it
involved flying directly from Sydney to Melbourne and roadtripping
back.

With that taken care of, it was time to board the minibus to Halong
Bay. A caravan of us left Hanoi and drove about 60 km towards the
coast. There was an obligatory rest stop after an hour for no apparent
reason. It was kind of shocking to see so many white people wandering
around in one place. I availed myself of the toilets (flush!) and
looked at the snack counter to see if there was anything better than
Pringles. The jackfruit chips sounded interesting, since we had just
been told by Thế that the jackfruit was a marvelous
fruit. Nothing like the durian. And yes, the jackfruit chips were
marvelous. Death and I both agreed on that, which is almost unheard
of. We have very different taste in food. I ended up getting a second
packet, and then, at one of the snack boats by the cave in Halong Bay
we picked up another two packets and ate them by the end of the
evening. Really good. Almost strawberry. I described the chips as
tasting like really good freeze-dried strawberry ice cream, and Death
looked at me funny.

Our minibus arrived at the tourist boat dock, and our non-English
speaking driver got us out, and unloaded our luggage, and then we all
just stood around, wondering what next. There were at least twenty
similar-looking junk boats and accompanying minibuses, and no guide
seemed to be appearing to guide us to our boat.

Finally we were guided to our boat. It was fitted out fairly poshly,
to the point where I thought of the Orient Express, and what murder
mystery one would set on a junk in Halong Bay. We were served a very
nice lunch, though they set the tables for five so we were forced to
mix with the other guests! Talking to strangers over a meal? How
odd.

After lunch we wound our way to the amazing and spectacular cave that
has been declared a UNESCO Heritage site for both aesthetics and
geology. It was pretty spectacular, though very touristy. Coloured
lights, paved pathways, that sort of thing. I entertained Death by
pointing out various hairstyles in the formations. Glam rock,
dreadlock and anime were the three I spotted.

Our boat moored alongside a number of others, the nearest one pumping
out the worst techno I’ve ever heard. We looked at each other in
dismay, realizing that this was the horror story we’d read about on
travelfish. All of the boats mooring together with the diesel
generators and music blaring all night long. I started charging my
iPod in defense.

Luckily, that tightly packed formation was just for the kayaking, and
we drifted apart after. It was too cloudy to see the sunset, but we
did get to see darkness fall across the land. I mean, water.

Our train didn’t arrive two hours late this time. In fact, the train
attendent stood over us as we packed up our things, whistling
impatiently. The hotel at the train station we’d hoped to crash at was
full. The taxi we hired to take us to our hotel for the upcoming night
got lost. We finally told him we’d walk. Once we’d found our hotel
(not very hard), we looked at the closed gate and wondered if it was
worth waking up the staff so we could stash our bags. Since we had
nothing else to do afterwards, we decided to just sit on the steps of
the well-lit hotel nextdoor and read for an hour or two until they
opened. I bought two pastries off of a woman who claimed they had
chocolate inside. They didn’t. And they were overpriced. I wouldn’t
have minded one or the other, but both kind of pissed me off. Luckily
I was too tired to be really angry.

We stashed our luggage at 7am and went to Baguettes and Chocolat, the
place with good pastries and food staffed by street kids in training.
I had a coffee. Mistake. I ended up crashing hard later that morning,
and swore to give up coffee forever. I wonder how long that will last.

We ran a few errands separately during the afternoon, and I was amused
to discover someone trying to chat me up about 30 seconds after I
parted company with Death. Ah, the conversations I could have had
traveling alone.

After a pho dinner, we stopped by a place for some bia hoi. The first
glass was good, but after my first sip of the second glass my head
felt funny. I commented on it to Death, and took another
sip. Wooziness. One sip more, and I gave up. Death didn’t think the
beer was particularly strong. He suggested I was having a reaction to
something about the fresh beer process. Odd. A little scary.

Though our day started at 4am, and we’d gotten perhaps six hours of
sleep the night before, neither of us were sleepy at 9pm. Or 10pm. I
must be getting old, having insomnia.

Breakfast at 6:30am. A 50 km drive through the highest pass in
Vietnam, at 2100 m, to Bình Lư, where a small Sunday
market was being held. Most of the tourists go to Bac Ha for a big
Sunday market, but I was feeling grumpy about following the tourist
path so strictly, and when our guide from the previous day told us
their company knew of other markets, I wanted to go.

This market was visited by Red Dao, Black Dao, Giay, Thai, and Lu
(from Lao). After one turn around the market we were set upon by Black
Dao, trying to sell us hats, which we ended buying. Then we wandered
out to the main street, where Death was offered a Black Dao shirt of
the type he really liked. He had bought one yesterday after many
attempts to find one that fit him. But this shirt fit and was
of a much better quality. So Death spent the extra $12 and got it.

And then I was swarmed by Lu and Black Dao women. I was fitted with a
jacket, a skirt, a hat, a necklace, bracelets, and a belt. Death
photographed the event, but he didn’t capture my outfit, because the
women were too tightly packed around me. I ended up returning
everything except the skirt. But a few of the women wouldn’t leave me
alone, and hounded me to buy their jewelery, their belts and their
hats.

After the market we walked out through the rice paddies to visit a
Thai village. Well watered rice paddies are the perfect shade of
green. Nothing could be more alive and full of chlorophyll than
that. The paddies were dotted with farmers weeding, mostly women in
cone hats, though some with their traditional headwraps. We walked
past people fishing with nets, people picking green tea, and dogs
barking.

Our guide took us into a traditional stilt house where we could see it
was fairly empty, with bare, unfinished plank walls and floor. It was
large, about 30 feet by 40 feet and had a TV, stereo and a DVD player
complete with the blue LED accent. Seeing that next to the woman
preparing her dinner on a brazier over coals on the floor was
peculiar.

The woman poured us some tea, but the guide didn’t want to drink it,
because he was concerned about the cleanliness of the dishes. I
thought it was a bit insulting not to drink a bit of tea after it was
poured, but when the local guide is worried about bacteria, it’s
probably wise to listen.

After the Thai village we walked through a Giay village, up a road
along a swiftly running irrigation ditch lined with cement that fed
the rice paddies on either side of the road. I think Thế said
there was a dam up in the mountains that kept the valley
supplied. I wondered if the water being used for irrigation could
power microturbines in the ditch, or if there was already a turbine at
the dam.

The high road we walked along, looking over the valley full of rice
paddies, seemed to be where the opium users hung out. Apparently two
were around when we reached the road, though I managed to miss seeing
them. There were also a number of syringes discarded along the
side. According to Thế, first they smoke the opium, then they
start injecting it, then they die. A few of the Black Hmong in Sapa
had asked if we wanted marijuana, hash or opium after we turned down
their handicrafts, particularly after the sun went down on Saturday
night.

We had lunch at the best place in Bình Lư according to
Thế. We were inclined to agree with him after the meal. The
pork was full of ginger and garlic, the beef was flavorful, the greens
were well cooked, and full of garlic and the tofu was ok. Even in the
restaurant, Thế handed us tissues and told us to wipe out our
bowls before serving ourselves.

We sat between two volleyball teams who had just finished a tournament
at the school. Thế said they were probably teams of teachers at
the school rather than students, looking at their faces. One of the
teams was rather loud in their discussions, which I assumed meant they
lost and they were trying to dissect the play to avoid the same
mistakes.

After lunch it was time for a walk through a Lu or Lao village. It was
further from Bình Lư and much less well irrigated. This
valley was one of the hottest places in Vietnam, while just on the
other side of the pass, Sapa was one of the coolest places in
Vietnam. The Lu village looked much less prosperous than the other two
villages, as many of the rice paddies were barren, and some of the
rice paddies that were planted were yellow with lack of water.

We visited a Lu house, and saw the stacks of rolled blankets in the
attic woven as dowery for one of the girls of the house. I don’t think
we saw her, though we did see a girl around 15 who was married, as
indicated by her black teeth. I’m not sure if the man we drank tea
with was her husband, or the husband of the older woman. The tea was
very smoky, and again, I could tell Thế wasn’t excited about
drinking out of the glassware, but we all had a few sips for
politeness. The man offered us a smoke out of his water pipe, but we
all declined. He then asked to have his picture taken by Death, and
hoped it was a Polaroid so he could have a copy. Death will just email a
copy to Handspan, though later in the day he realized that it would be
easier for him to burn a DVD with the image, and while that was
slightly ridiculous, the idea that it would be possible for this man
to view the DVD was even more so.

Then it was time to bump our way back to Sapa so we could make our way
to Lao Cai and the train. The way up the pass reminded me of the road
from Queenstown to Wanaka, though I think this was a longer climb. The
peaks in the distance reminded me of the Remarkables, but I think much
of the resemblance comes from the fact that both ranges were hidden in
fog and clouds, making their silhouettes that much more tantalizing.

We arranged our ride from Sapa to Lao Cai through the hotel, and were
offered minibus seats at $3 each or a taxi for $25. I had been feeling
guilty about all of our driving in a Russian jeep today already, so
when Death asked if the taxi was too decadent, I said yes. Five
minutes into the minibus ride, when the extra two locals had piled in,
sitting on Death’s lap in the process, I regretted it. When we piled
out in Lao Cai, I told him I’d do whatever it took to repay him for
that trip.

Sadly, our bad luck was still in effect once we got to Lao Cai. We
managed to find the tour agency to pick up our tickets, but when we
discovered they were not only standard sleepers, not posh tourist
sleepers, and they were on the local train, not the fast train, we
were angry at the tour agency who’d booked them for us without
mentioning any of those facts. Ah, Vietnam travel. Death was a bit
mollified when he realized that since we were in the soft sleeper
section at least it was unlikely people would be coming and going all
night in our compartment or even car.

Then we got some food. Except the restaurant adjoining the tour agency
was oversubscribed. And they moved us from our table to share with
another couple after we’d ordered. And we were grumpy. And the Chinese
beer I’d ordered was sweet like barleywine.

We walked back to the train station and ran into the couple that we’d
shared a compartment with on the way up. They had done a homestay, and
had had a great time. Apparently the rice wine flowed freely.

Our train was supposed to board at 7:05pm. We saw people moving into
the train station and went over. Unfortunately, it was just people
packing in to be ready to board. We stood in a jostling crowd for at
least 15 minutes, weighed down by our souvenirs. Can you tell we’re
getting a little travelled out? Once we got to our room, we collapsed
and slept.

Today we took the Ethnic Minority Village Tour Lite. (We found out we
were on the Lite version when we filled out our customer satisfaction
survey.) According to Death’s GPS, it was about an 8 km walk. But it
was over terrain. We descended from the road running along the middle
of the hill to the river below, walking past terraces where rice is
grown in June. They were full of ducks and pigs and water buffalo at
the moment. The view ranged from tremendous, when the clouds pulled
back from the mountain tops and reminded us why the terrain we were in
was so steep, to subdued, when the cloud layer dropped to our level or
below, and only a few terraces were visible. We wound our way through
three villages, populated by the Black Hmong, the Red Dao and the
Giay.

Our guide, Thê was disparaging of the Black Hmong, who haven’t
taken advantage of the schools that the Vietnamese government has
built, and who marry young, around 14 or 15. He advised us not to buy
anything from the kids along the path, because they were skipping
school to try to make money. They were working in the fields, and
caring for their baby siblings as well. We saw some hoeing the side of
the hill, turning it into more terraces.

We spoke about the difficulties of bringing in teachers to such a
rural community, and how the teachers who volunteer to come teach
often get demoralized and leave. I talked about my sister, Julia, who
had a similar difficult teaching experience in New York City.

It was a beautiful day for a walk. Cloudy enough to be cool, but with
enough breaks in the clouds for the beautiful scenery to shine. We saw
a hydropowered turbine from China that supplied approximately 300
watts, according to our guide. I asked what they used it for, since
you can’t do much with 300 watts, as far as I know. He said, “A few
lightbulbs, and a TV, if they turn off all of the lights.”

The bigger village (Lai Chao?), further down the valley, was connected
to the national grid, and those guys had satellite tv. Crazy. And our
guide had cellphone coverage on much of our walk. So much for being in
the middle of nowhere.

According to Thê, the Giay have embraced education and other
help from the Vietnamese government, and look more to the future. They
also avoid wearing their traditional garb when they head out to
market, because they don’t like being a spectacle. In their own
villages they wear bright colors. Very bright colors. Kelly green,
pink, orange. Yowza. Needless to say, Death thought the Black Hmong
had the best taste.

So it was too bad that it was a Red Dao who started chatting with me
to see if I was married to Death, and when she found out I wasn’t, she
started chatting with Death to see what he was looking for in a
wife. Because she knew some girls. I thought it was
hysterical. Apparently Death looks very good for 30.

After Death helped support the local community by buying pillow covers
at the recommended shop, we headed back to Sapa to really spend
money. Between us, we spent over 1.25 million dong on various handmade
goods. Over dinner the night before, I had tried to convince Death to
buy one of the wicker basket backpacks that the Hmong women wore to
carry their goods. I personally coveted a set of wicker saddlebags for
my bicycle. However, I also let slip that I thought the wicker
backpacks were cool. So Death made sure to point them out in the
market, and lo and behold, I bought one. Only after Death promised
he’d help me figure out how to deal with getting it back to the
States. It’s awesome. I still can’t believe I bought it.

It’s one of the few items that is commonly used by local people that’s
not actually commonly bought by tourists. People who saw me wandering
the market with it would smile, and pat it, and ask me how much I paid
for it. Death and I weren’t sure if they were wondering how much I was
willing to overpay for things, and therefore how much they should ask
if I wanted to buy something of theirs, or if they were wondering if
it would be worth buying or making and trying to resell to other crazy
tourists.

I ended up buying more than I thought I would. Death is a bad
influence. I was overwhelmed by the end. A few random gifts. A Hmong
marketeur costume for the next time I have to dress up.

Today was the first time I was ever happy that a train was two hours
late. Because it meant we got two hours extra sleep. We were supposed
to arrivea at 5am, but arrived at 7am instead. I suspect the delay was
from the intense fog.

It was a madhouse at the station, as usual. We had booked with our
hotel to pick us up, and that was nice. Except that they jammed us in
a minibus. And it was hard to see out the windows, and everyone
smelled from their overnight on the train. I was close to getting
carsick as the van wound its way up the mountain curves to Sapa. The
clouds were so low that the promised mountain views were laughably
obscure. Luckily, the 35 km road was good enough (improved in the last
ten years because of all the tourists) that it only took 45 minutes to
get to Sapa.

We were so beat that we agreed we’d pay an extra day if we had to, to
check in immediately and shower and nap. When we booked our room, we’d
thought that checkin wouldn’t be until 2pm. Somehow that wasn’t the
case, and we immediately went to our room for the shower and nap. Our
balcony was disappointing, but our view wasn’t. Well, our theoretical
view wasn’t disappointing. The actual view varied widely from ‘barely
seeing the hotel across the street’ to ‘wow, look at those terraces of
rice paddies spilling down the mountainside’.

Soon Death was too hungry to sleep and we walked up the hill across
town to Baguettes and Chocolat, where we had lovely chocolat
chaud with our breakfast. Afterwards we wandered the market where
Death bought some pillowcovers, and then decided to wander up the
trail marked in our guidebook as Ham Rong, the hill with the radio
tower. It turned out to be more than that, with everything from an
orchid garden that wasn’t blooming much, to a number of paths through
limestone formations, to a beautiful little gazebo with a thatched
roof and a view. Also, there was a 30,000 dong fee. So it goes. The
map that we were handed was inexplicably confusing. More so because I
read it wrong to begin with, and took us around on a side non-touristy
path.

I was totally exhausted at the end of the walk, though later I
realized it wasn’t the hike as much as the heat and the sleep
deprivation. We retreated to the cool hotel bar where we played our
first card games of the trip and enjoyed the best french fries of the
trip.

Huzzah! Our train tickets to Sapa came through. After being told there
were none available by the tour agent in Saigon, we were cautiously
optimistic we would still be able to track some down the day
before. And so I am writing this from the berth above berth 22 on a
swaying train.

Our morning was full of errands. Pick up train tickets, arrange tour
to Halong Bay (overnight on a ship, but not on a junk with sails), buy
bag for Death’s souvenirs, pack and check out.

The rain through the morning petered out into a thick haze, and we
decided a walking tour was a fine way to spend the afternoon. I spent
lunch doodling my initials for a chop. The way that I write them fast
has often struck me as similar to the charater for ‘I’ in Chinese, so
it seemed a good thing to have made into a chop.

The walking tour took us from the pagoda in the middle of the lake
through numerous shops in the Old Quarter. The names of the streets
indicate what was sold on them historically. Today, they sometimes
match and sometimes don’t, but the shops still clump together by the
items they sell, sometimes a very limited set. The most limited store
I observed was probably tape. Duct tape, electrical tape, masking
tape. Others included snack stores, liquid adhesive stores, and party
decoration stores. There were metalworkers spraying sparks on the
street. Sadly, I lost track of the Lonely Planet’s route, and we
skipped the leather and PVC stores.

We took a bunch of snack stops this afternoon. First we terrorized a
panda cupcake and its good buddy the…um….owl? cupcake. Then we
headed to Fanny’s for exotic flavored ice cream. Death got ginger and
young green rice. I had to extend my durian experiment, and got one
scoop of durian in a separate bowl from the mango and green tea. The
durian tasted of Worcestershire sauce and raw onions, but not corpses
or gasoline. Death thought it was disgusting while I thought it was
just weird. I finished it for the hardcoreness factor more than
because I really liked it, though. I will have to try some real fruit,
but given how closely the other flavors of ice cream matched the real
thing, I suspect it will just be odd rather than gross. Why am I
missing that gross taste receptor? Is it genetic? Is it learned?

Dinner was at Restaurant 22. It had been recommended for its duck, and
after the debacle of the night before, I was ready for some good
duck. It was pretty good. I think one of the reasons I like duck is
because it is usually served with a sweet sauce, because I feel gypped
when it is lacking. I tried to make up for the lack of sweetness by
ordering a bananas flambeé, which was served flaming, but
wasn’t allowed to burn long enough; the remaining (non-rum) alcohol
made my tongue feel fuzzy.

We got to the train an hour and a half early, because that’s what our
tickets said, and because we had nothing better to do. We walked
through the hotel that arranged our train, and wound our way to the
proper car, passing sleeping cars much posher than those from Saigon
to Danang, cars a little posher, and the same standard railway beds we
had, before getting to our car, where we found our compartment
finished in wood laminate, a nice lamp on the table and our beds
made. I was happy to have paid $13 more for the private car just to
have my bed made. Especially since I was in the top
bunk. Unfortunately, we discovered that they had locked the toilets
and we both had to pee. It was a long enough walk back to the hotel
that we both decided to wait the hour and a half. In case anyone was
wondering how lazy we were.

The other couple in our room was from Mountain View. One of them was
of Vietnamese ancestry with a decent knowledge of the language, so they
had had an easier time with
communication in Vietnam. They were looking forward to their next leg,
which was Austria, Hungary and Istanbul. Apparently they were sick of
eating Asian food, which horrified both of them, but they couldn’t
help themselves.