Vietnam 2/3: "The only reason I came to Vietnam..."

Asian airlines are amazing. Even a short domestic flight of no more than 2 and a half hours means you get a meal. Sure you sometimes are flying on used planes from other airlines that have been repainted but on the big names, like Eva Air or Vietnam Airlines, you have your own television screen, a remote that doubles as a telephone and all on a plane that still has that new plane scent.

I arrived at the Hanoi airport in the early morning, deciding to split a cab with a couple of girls, who I thought were from France, to the heart of the city. Turns out they were from Budapest, but one of them did live in Paris. We chatted for the hour long ride about Europe and Asia, their similarities and obvious differences and even delved, momentarily, into the subject of American politics. "Well, it's just difficult because you've got two parties that are constantly at opposite ends of the argument, constantly fighting over votes and it can seem like nothing is really getting done." "We pay attention to your political process closely because it has such a huge effect on our own, I only wish we were able to vote with you!"

The Hanoi airport is much further out of the city and it takes about an hour to get to the old town. After forty-five minutes you instantly recognize the hoof prints of city life as you begin passing the characteristically thin homes of Vietnam. They stack up like books on a shelf, some taller and some shorter, some well worn and others that have never been tilted off the rack. The reason for their diminutive width being that colonial law stated that people pay property taxes based on the amount of space their home took up along the street front. This led to a great number of homes that are no wider than an American SUV but go up for five stories and reach back a hundred or more feet.

We circled around and finally pulled up to the Central Backpackers Hostel, at the address that I'd given to the taxi driver. We split our bill and shook hands, parting with "Good luck with the rest of your trip" and "Have a great time!" The fast friends of travel never last long.

I walked up the earthy red tiles towards the entrance to the hostel and was happy to find a row of three computers on the right, each dutifully serving some western travelers as I passed. The man behind the counter beamed a smile at me and asked if I'd like a room, I said yes and he showed me upstairs. For $5 a night you were treated to a comfortable bed, air conditioning, free internet access, travel booking services, laundry service, free beer hour, and a courteous family staff who seemed to know everything you needed. I was amazed and felt immediately comfortable. The first thing I did was meet a man named Renee from Mexico who wanted to book a trip to Halong Bay, I mentioned that I'd be interested in the same and we followed the man who had shown me the room downstairs to book our trip. It was as simple as: "Two days or three? Two days means you sleep on the boat and return the next morning, three means you sleep on a private island the second night and return the third afternoon." It was a simple decision and only a $40 difference.

When our receipt was finished, Renee looked at me and said "You should keep this, if I'm in charge of it we'll never see it again." I laughed and felt honored that he trusted me with the only piece of paper that showed he'd just paid nearly two million dong for his trip. I dutifully folded it and tucked it into my travel folder and we went back upstairs to our eight bed room. I decided a nap was in order and set my alarm for an hour in the future, waking up moments later to the alarm signaling it was time to get up.

I didn't want to waste a minute, so I hopped out of bed and grabbed my camera before heading out into the street. Right outside the hostel was a beautiful old Catholic church which could do with some pressure washing but stood like a haunted relic above every other building in sight. I snapped a quick photo and meandered down the street, taking in the sights, the sounds, the smells and the feel of the ever churning, ever changing city.

Being Sunday, that night the church bells rang and the doors opened to reveal a beautiful hall that was just beginning to fill. I popped inside with my tripod, camera and voice recorder, hoping to get total coverage of the event. It had been over a decade since I'd stepped foot in a Catholic church and this time, purely as an observer, I felt like I was experiencing it for the first time as it was truly meant to exist. Listening to the passionate voices as they sang in unison and without books or sheet music, I found myself mesmerized by the feeling of being one with all those people, what they must feel like to be a member of that community, how their hearts and minds meet together for every mass, singing and breathing as one. I took some photos and recorded some music, being as reverent as I could while trying to stay on the periphery and bowed out to find that the steps outside the church had swelled with people, many lining up around the sides of the church where the open windows allowed them to connect just as well to the voices as those inside.

That night I slept deeply to the sound of church bells ringing out the hours.

The next morning I got up early to find that we received a free breakfast of french bread, butter and jam along with tea or coffee. I hungrily ate my portion and still felt the pangs of youthful gluttony in my stomach, so I wandered down to the street where i found another sandwich place which filled my roll this time with a fried egg, cucumber slices, tomato, what I believe was tofu and some mystery meat, all slathered with chili sauce and rolled up in a copied page of a Lonely Planet guide to Vietnam. Ironic, eh?

The bus ride out to Halong bay was inconsequential, but it did lead me to the place that I've been wanting visit since I was twelve years old. The moment I was nudged awake by Renee, who pointed out the window at the very beginnings of the fog shrouded humps of rock floating out in the ocean sitting serenely in mist, two places of my brain lit up. One, the section that spoke to my eyes and told me what I was seeing was true, and the other which held onto the catalog of the hundreds of photos and videos of the place that I was now for the first time encountering on my own. I felt a strange feeling of calm and couldn't help but feel the tug of my cheeks on the corners of my mouth. "This is it," I told myself, "this is Halong Bay."

No amount of tourist hubub or scheisty vendors could scratch the surface of my high as I hopped off the bus and bee lined toward the shore, looking out over the hundreds of wooden boats that had only existed in my dreams until this moment. There they were, with their ubiquitous triangular sails and multi-leveled elegance. There they were, the gorgeous humps of stone cast around the water by, as legend goes, a dragon which came down to help the Vietnamese people cast out the Chinese, spitting pearls down into the bay as it flew, creating the limestone monoliths that stand to this day. There it was, the styrofoam and diesel fuel floating along the surface like an oil slick. Wait. What was that last part?

I was shocked and hurt to see the amount of flotsam skulking about the edges of the harbor, floating into my mind like demons of truth, the truth that wherever you have enough humans gathered in one place, you have destruction and pollution. I tried not to let it get me down but as we made our way out to the boat that was to be our home for the night, I couldn't help but sigh as the plastic bottles and bags floated past, grim reminders of a reality my dreams couldn't bring to me. I knew too, that I was in part responsible for every piece of garbage in that bay, that it was people just like me, who were there to gawk and snap photos, who were polluting this water, creating the problem by being the problem.

Se la vie.

We boarded our magnificent boat, which looked a little worse for wear, and scrambled around it's partridges and planks until we all settled in deck chairs on the rooftop, ready to be whisked out into the magic of the bay. I grabbed a bamboo lounger and positioned it at the very front of the top deck, determined to squeeze every atom of life out of my time there, the time that I'd waited so long to use.

We chugged along into the bay, the distant shapes in the mist looking like crocodile teeth thrust out of the water and into a lushly vegetated ether. The humps began to take on layers as we got closer. First you could make out the individual rocks and trees that made up surface of islands, then you could glimpse, when there was space between the them, the third, fourth and a myriad more levels behind them, all retaining that elegant and peaceful presence with a mix of curve and pitch. Every degree of my view was a post card photo, every blink of an eye the shutter of a camera snapping another memory for the treasure banks in the deep recesses of my mind. I gawked while others chatted, sat silent while they caught up on each others plans and countries of origins. Two Dutch girls who had sat down next to me giggled as I sat, trance like, staring at the features before me like I could read them, that I could decipher their secret, that the years I'd spent waiting for this moment were enough to grant me access to their truth. I turned to them with a slack smile on my face, and could hear myself saying: "Isn't it amazing?"

We were called down to the second level for lunch at 1:00 and I stood up from my chair for the first time, shaky as I made my way down the steeply inclined stairs that led from the top to the middle deck. Our food, breakfast, lunch and dinner, was always impeccably prepared and laid out. The linen napkins were folded to resemble cranes sitting in the middle of our large white plates. The dishes came out, one by one, to each table and brought about a whole new round of conversation over their possible ingredients, taste, and always the worry that there wouldn't be enough. I ate my dragon fruit while staring out the window at the slowly passing scenery and noticed a butterfly keeping pace with the boat, wondering how on earth those fragile wings could keep up with all the man made machinery that kept us moving.

As we pulled into a semi secluded bay, flanked on all sides by high standing cliffs, some baring their gray rocky form where no tree or shrub could cling to the inclines, and parked ourselves alongside a few other boats, or Junks, as they were known. "Now we are going to be sea kayaking, but we must leave in our small boat to get to the sea kayaking. This way please." Our guide brought us down to the lowest level of the boat, where we hopped on to the skimmer that we'd been towing with us which would take us to the floating dock where the kayaks were tethered. As we coasted towards them, I thought that the lame looking tourists in their bright orange life preservers up around their chins looked silly and was not too enthused about the situation. However our guide told us that we didn't have to wear the preservers if we didn't want to, and we all hopped, unencumbered, into our two man boats.

Renee and I paddled out unceremoniously backward, bumping into multiple boats and splashing the people on the dock waiting their turn. "Sorry, ok, wait. No Renee you paddle on that side, wait. No, back again. Wait, this way, yeah, ok now just push off of that and we're good." We took to the open water more warmly and soon we were brave enough to pull out our cameras and take some photos as we glided through the calm water. We only had about forty-five minutes, but in that time we were able to see quite a bit, and got close enough to one fishing boat to capture some heart warming images of a small, smiling, baby as he reached out his hand to wave to us.

By the time we got back to the flotilla neither of us could say that we hadn't enjoyed it. Stepping out of the boat, I realized that Halong Bay had more tricks up it's sleeve than I'd imagined and despite the touristy nature of the trip, which I typically avoid, I was loving it.

Our next stop was a quick climb, up a few hundred steps, to a view of our bay within the bay that was enough to make you stop and smell the flowers, which stood at the entrance to a remarkable three chambered cave system. Another, "well would you look at this," moment for me, as I stepped into the hidden world of the cave, staring up at the golf ball style indentations in the ceiling, blown up to electron microscope size.

The caverns themselves were lit with different colored lights and it was unlike anything I'd encountered in the natural world. These kinds of formations were the territory of Disneyland, spray on cement and well balanced paint jobs, none of this could really exist in the wild. I was enthralled, and all the more drawn in by the fact that I'd never even known it was there, never heard of it's existence being so swallowed up by the majesty and magic that took place all around it. It's a testament to the magnificence of Halong Bay that such a place can be completely overlooked in all but the most thorough of travel brochures or vacation television shows, if it's even mentioned at all.

Renee, the Dutch girls (Carla and Erica, pronounced 'Herica' like you have a hairball in your throat) and I were the last ones to leave, pulling up the rear as we tried our hardest to soak in the surroundings to capacity. We ended up having to jog our way down the wooden planks to the boat so that we didn't get left behind, but it was worth the extra seconds in that place.

That night I watched the sun setting over the distant peaks of those pearl islands on the bow of our boat, as we cruised along to another bay within the bay to find a place to sleep.

In the morning I woke to the sound of rolling thunder and the drizzle of rain. I was nervous, believing the tropical storms that were causing turmoil in the strait between China and Taiwan had finally caught up to us, that our plans for a hike on Cat Ba would be rained out, or worse. Fortunately the thunder kept it's distance, as did the rain, and we were able to make it ashore to Cat Ba with no trouble at all.

Cat Ba is so synonymous with Halong that it garnered a whole new level of appreciation for me. Again, I couldn't believe that this was my life, that I was the one who was on Cat Ba island instead of the TV host, it was really me boarding the bus to the interior of the island where our trail lay in wait for my adventurous footsteps. We piled in, literally, and began a fast paced trip through the jungle scenery after being passed over to the capable hands of our new guide, Di. An instantly likable guy, his round face wore a big smile at all times, with bright eyes set beneath a smooth brown brow and short trimmed black hair. He told us all that we could choose one of two options, a hike to the top of the highest peak in Cat Ba, or a bike ride around part of the National Park and asked for a show of hands. We split from there into two groups at the gate to the park and I felt the itch of adventure in my bones, ready to conquer the mountain and demand it's views.

The hike was simply steep in the beginning, nothing wild, not a lot of mud or anything to complain about, but about halfway up began the rusted ladder system. Climbing up the wet boulders were rust eaten metal skeletons that were the rotting remains of what must once have been a very nice idea. We grasped onto wobbly, when available, railings as we climbed the muddy steps, some preferring to use hand and feet on the steps rather than risk themselves with the wholly unreliable hand rail. At times, the incline was so steep that using hand and feet was the only way, and with a strangers wet, sweating ass in your face you gritted your teeth and kept plugging away toward the top.

And what a top.

We were rewarded handsomely for our troubles and for those of us who were slightly more adventurous, there was even a fifty foot rusted out fire outlook that you could climb, the floor boards of the top leaving much to be desired. Only five people at a time could be at the top of the old lookout, for fear that the patchy wood that stood for the floor would collapse under any more weight and the rusty, creaking joints didn't provide much comfort either. Renee, Carla, Erica and I made a trip to the top, figuring we'd come too far not too, and stood in awe at the landscape. I know that I evoked the image of crocodile teeth for the islands before, but the only way to describe the way the peaks were piled inside this small island is to say that it looked like a swarm of Nile crocs thrashing about the water, fighting over a scrap of meat and frozen in time to become overgrown with foliage, mist covered streams gouging away at their seams. Hundreds of them poked out through the distant clouds, all fighting for space on their island home, fighting for rain to keep their gardens happy, fighting for room and crunching together, causing the rock of their bones to crumble down into the valleys.

We stood up there for a long time, what felt like a great while but was only a matter of twenty or thirty minutes, before heading down one or two at a time to let the next group in on the magic.

When we made it back down to the bus to catch up with the biking crew, mostly English, my shirt was see through with sweat. "Oh My Gawd. Is that swet? No! Did you jump in a riva? Is that truly swet? My gawd, that is foul!" Apparently the bike ride wasn't much of a workout, but all of us hikers were muddy, sweaty, and happy. I had a little more room on the crowded bus the second time around and a couple of the people behind me even ventured a poke at my shirt to see how damp it really was. It was all in good fun though, and these same people would later turn out to be very good friends by the end of the trip.

The bus took us across the island to another wharf where a small boat was waiting to whisk us away to our private island.

Monkey island.