macado's se asia adventure I may not have gone where I intended to go, but I think I have ended up where I needed to be.

Ha Long Bay and Hanoi

I'm currently in Hanoi but I haven't really spent much time here at all. This place is maddening.  Even though Saigon was much larger with a population of nearly 8 million people, Hanoi is just as congested and overrun though it has a distinct almost old world feel to it.  I'm staying in the Old District which is interesting because lots of the buildings here use French architecture.  Because it's the North Vietnam, the majority of the people here were never educated by the Americans like South Vietnamese during the war so it seems the older population doesn't speak English as well as they do in Ho Chi Minh City.  French however seems to be spoken at least by some of the older generation whereas the younger Vietnamese tend to speak or know basic English.

 I just got back from a 2 day boat trip tour to Ha Long Bay.  So far this has been the highlight of my Vietnam trip.  I'd go as far as saying the scenery in Ha Long Bay is some of the best in the world.  No words really can describe it but i'll try my worst to convey what it was like. The pictures can't really capture the magnitude of the bays and cliffs. The entire bay (scratch that), hundreds of individual bays are enclosed by huge towering limestone cliffs that completely encompass the surrounding emerald green waters providing for an extremely calm place for boats to dock and for visiting communities to live.

Besides the fanastic scenery, these bays are also home to many small fishing villages or floating towns on water.  From the looks of it people spend almost their entire lifes living in floating wooden shacks to fish.  Even in this place though, they're not without modern amenities.  Almost every shack has an electric generator, a radio and a television complete with Vietnamese karayoke which the every Vietnamese person seems to love.  I've got some really nice pictures of some of the floating houses and some of the little kids having water fights and being pushed off their boats by other kids.  It was pretty amusing to watch.

Our boat consisted of about 16 people. The trip included breakfast, lunch and dinner and a one night stay on the boat in basic but cramped rooms (exactly what you'd expect on a boat).  For our first day we sort of drifted around going in and out of the various bays taking pictures, later on we visited several massive limestone caves.  The caves are pretty unique because although they're existed for millions of years, they were only recently discovered in 1993. At night, a caravan of about 50 boats all docked in the same bay for people to sleep.  We had dinner there and later went on the roofs of our respective boats to relax and drink. The sight of about 50 boats all with lights enclosed in a bay surrounded by limestone cliffs with a crystal clear sky showing all the stars was also extremely impressive.

There's really not much else to report about Ha Long Bay.  It's probably one of the most beautiful places in the entire world (definitely south-east asia) and everyone should see it if they decide to go to Vietnam.  It would be an absolutely tragedy to miss it.  In the morning we went swimming and rented a kayak for 2 hours where me and another person discovered a small tiny island with a perfect beach. We..okay.. we didn't discover it butwe were the only two people adventerous and foolish enough to paddle to the island. It literally looked like something out of a Corona commercial.

I'm currently waitiing for my overnight sleeper train to leave for Sapa tonight. Sapa is one of the remote places in North Vietnam very close to the Chinese border.  It's very mountainous and is very highly elevated so the climate will be much colder than the rest of Vietnam, something i'm desperately looking forward to.  Can't wait to escape the humidity of Hanoi. The town like Ha Long Bay is also famous for it's breath taking views and colorful minority tribes which inhabit the area.  I will be staying in Sapa for two days for trekking until I go back to Hanoi on September 2nd which interestingly enough is Vietnamese Independence Day so I would imagine Hanoi will be a mad house.  Supposed to be lots of parades and Vietnamese people here on holiday to see Ho Chi Minh's tomb.  Just hope I can make it to the airport in time to catch my flight to Bangkok.  The next time you hear from me again I'll be back in smelly old Bangkok for a couple daying recouperating for my flight to Sydney, Australia!