If you want to feel bad about yourself and your lack of accomplishments, go to vietnam and take a few tours and get your guide’s life story. I’m 24 and I have an okay job, no debts, went to college (which my parents paid for) and haven’t had any real hardships.

My tour guide Ba is one of 8 children, was sick twice with malaria (i think) and since he was so sick he coudln’t work in the fields so he had to leave home and go to Hanoi. His family was very poor so he had to leave since he coudln’t work and they coudln’t provide enough for all the children to eat. In Hanoi, he was allowed to study there and got a scholarship to university. Now he works as a tour guide but also owns his own company that has two boats that does private tours in the Halong Bay area (though not in Halong Bay but in Lan Ha Bay where his boat is the only one allowed to stay overnight). He has two more boats on the way.

Hai was my tour guide for our Mekong Delta trip. He is a veteran of the American/Vietnam War and was a first leuitenant in the South Veitnamese Army. He was drafted into the army when he turned 20 which means he’s now my parents age, still working, physically strong, speaks excellent english (which he learned from the american soldiers) and talks alot about the war with tourists. After the war he was put into a re-education camp for 3 years since he was an officer and it wasn’t until 1990 that he got his citizenship back (which means he coudln’t work or own anything).

Makes our lives seem pretty easy huh

continuing with my lists from last time, cool things: sampan ride along the river, happy children playing on a dusty road

uncool things: my mom fracturing her ankle (and is now in a cast), eating a tiny breakfast then strenuous exercise resulting in throwing up and almost fainting, missing great photo opp, locals harassing tourists to buy stuff from them, rice paddies being brown (and not nearly as cool looking as if they were green as in the photos)

Amazing beauty. I booked a 3 day/2 night trip as recommended by many travellers on the internet and I will say that I sure am glad that I did my research. A 2 day/1 night trip would not have been enough and a 4 day trip would’ve been too much. We were greeted at our hotel promptly at 7:45 even after we had been told by one of the women at the hotel that the tour operators usually don’t come until 8:30. After piling into the van and collecting a few other tour go-ers, we were on our way to Halong Bay. Half way through we stopped for a trip to the “happy room” (which I thought was some sort of joke, but is what they call the bathroom/toilet/wc) and the compulsory shopping which employed handicapped children and all proceeds were to go towards these children assimilate back into society. And if that wasn’t enough reason to buy these scammers whares, one of the signs also said that these children became handicapped through the American’s use of Agent Orange and other chemicals during the American (Vietnam) war.

I had been warned that I should book my tour ahead of time rather than just showing up at the Bai Chai Tourist Wharf where all the junks depart from. Boy were they right, the place was a madhouse and I had a tour guide leading us to our boat! We only had to jump aboard one other boat to get to ours on the way out which was nice as there were literally hundreds of boats but we weren’t so lucky on the way back as I had to step upon at least 6 other boats to get back to the pier.

When asked why we were still at the docks, our tour guide Ba told us we were waiting for paperwork and the police to give us the ok. On further inquiry about paperwork, I was told that the reason that we need a passport to sleep on a boat in the bay is “to keep out Osama Bin Laden”.

Once we got to cruising all I can say is wow! And pictures won’t even do the place justice, though I tried to capture its glory and will post them later.

Cool things I saw/did: huge karst formations, caverns, floating fishing villages, kayaking and almost getting lost because all the islands look the same, trekking in the forest, food, food, food, waking up and looking out the window to find a few other boats in the bay and a ridiculous view, beating the other boats to places and avoiding the crowds

Uncool things: pollution in the bay (by locals and tourists), dropping a spare camera battery in the bay, motion sickness, rock hard beds, cold showers

Firstly, damn you wordpress for your poor photo management and not recognizing valid HTML code. I apologize for the misaligned photos/captions but i blame it all on wordpress and I am too tired to fix it.

Hanoi Paradise Hotel where we were “upgraded” for free. Pretty sweet for $70/night. The people that work at the hotel are very friendly and helpful. They even invited us to eat (a 2nd) dinner with them tonight out on the street where we sat in tiny chairs and cooked our own food and drank alot of vodka.

The Sofitel in Hanoi. Lonely Planet likens it to the Raffles Hotel in Singapore. This is the view of the hotel from across the lake:

This is a game I like to call “where is the dead animal?” it follows similar rules to ‘Where’s Waldo?’. I might add that about 4 feet away were people fishing. I counted 3 plus a bag of chips and a cucumber slice.

Next up is “man with a thousand baskets”:

And finally cute kid eating on the street (the same streets that make me sick due to the amount of pollution in the air!):