Hai Phong and Cat Ba

So couchsurfing is my saving grace, but it doesn't always work out as planned. We were supposed to stay with Mai, an 18-year-old high school student who lives with her parents, who initially were cool with letting strange American girls into their home.  Unfortunately, they got cold feet and Mai met us at the bus station with many apologies and promises to help find us a cheap hotel. 

Hai Phong is the fifth largest city in Vietnam, which means it's pretty small.  It has a cute central square with lots of lights and sculpted trees and flowers plus an opera house, no Vietnamese city is complete without one, apparently. 

 There are many paintings of Ho Chi Minh and the streets are lined with cafes.  Again, motorbikes are abundant, but the traffic is more laid back than the capital.  We found a centrally located hotel, with a bit of a creepy feel, but it was only for one night, and i'm pretty sure we were the only guests.  We walked around the city looking for Banh My but due to the holiday many shops were closed.  We ended up getting the next best thing though, a woman selling both cigarettes and sandwiches under an umbrella stand on the corner.  They were soft baguettes with fried eggs, MSG and a home made hot sauce squirted out of a water bottle

 with a hole drilled in the lid.  i had two.

Mai had to leave us, so we met up with Cuong who agreed to lead us to the beach.  Do So beach is a popular summer haunt, but in January it was pretty much deserted.  The sky was overcast so we just walked along the sand looking for tiny crabs who duck and scurry into the sand after the tide goes out.  Cuong told us that the beach has a reputation of being really dirty, and it did look an unpleasant brown for the ocean, but it's supposedly caused by the way the sand and silt builds up in this cul de sac of the sea.  WE had a pleasant walk and i procured some sand for a certain friend who has a collection of sand from around the world.  Then we took the long bus back.  On the way back into the city the bus was filled with a colorful assortment of people. 

 A young army officer gave some children on the bus candy; a family boarded the bus and the parents tried desperately to encourage their two boys to speak to us in English.  

The boys resolutely refused, and frankly they could do whatever they pleased for they were sporting very glittery cowboy hats!  i noted a peculiar fashion trend on the bus though, many men tend to wear complete suits with the shirt button all the way to the neck.  They don't seem to be business men, closer to migrant workers, but they want to look their best.  Maybe it was for the holiday, but i appreciated it nonetheless. One such clad gentleman struck up a conversation with me, the usual: where am i from, what do i do, do i like Viet Nam?  i enjoyed talking to him, and he seemed very pleased to be able to practice some English.

After we got back to the city we said goodbye and thank you to Cuong and made our way to the hotel and some pho.  We met Mai later int he evening to go to a grocery store.  Mai let us borrow her bicycle and she rode on the back of her friends.  i pedaled and Ashley was on back, along for the ride.  i have to say that since my days in France, when the whole having another person sit on the back of my bicycle thing was quite daunting, i have now mastered it.  it is a very common mode of transport and we did fine until we got stopped at a red light and lost our guides.  We went to far, ended up at a carnival where people tried to make us pay to park the bike and had to turn around and hope that Mai had realized we were not behind them.  

We eventually found them and then proceeded to enter the saddest grocery store i have ever been in.  It had hardly any vegetables, the only fruit were brown and bruised pomelos, 

and for a place where baguettes are very common place this store had no bread to speak of.  We were disappointed royally.  Returning with our meager cup of noodle and cookies we resolved to wake up early and catch the 6:30 am ferry to Cat Ba island.  

The next day did not start out on the best foot.  First of all, we were locked into the hotel and had to yell and physically shake the guy sleeping on a cot in the lobby to wake him. We waited at the bus stop for 20 minutes and then had a man tell us that despite the sign that clearly stated our destination, that bus would not come. So we walked for awhile.  We found the egg sandwich lady and decided to make the most of being late and ate breakfast. We asked her where to catch to bus to the ferry pier, she showed us and we watched as the bus pulled away from the bus stop. So we had a coffee.  When the bus finally came we rode it for, seriously, two minutes and realized we could have just walked the whole way!  

Since we missed the morning ferry we would have to wait 'til noon for the next slow ferry or pay double to take the hydrofoil.  We payed double, this was a theme in Viet Nam.  Viet Nam, and for that matter most of Southeast Asia, has a well known two tier system.  

Blatantly posted on the sign for the ferry are two prices: one for locals and one for foreigners. Haggling is of no use.  So we pay the higher price, but what really adds insult to

 injury is the fact that they then try to swindle more money out of us.  We ask them if there is an ATM near by, they say there isn't.  It's very far, at least 4 km, we should take a motorbike.  We ask if there is one on the island, no there is none is the reply.  We say we will just walk and they warn us that if we're not back in time our ticket will be invalid and we will have to pay again.  We walk, literally, for 5 minutes before we find an ATM.  i want to shake my fists at the ferry ladies on the way back.  i know they need money and that even though i don't have a lot when i am in the US, i have do have a lot here.  But why do they have to lie to me to try to get more money out of me?  i guess this is just the global market economy biting us (or me) in the ass.

Cat Ba island is the largest of a large cluster of islands in Ha Long bay.  We have decided not to do an organized tour to save money, but if time is money than it might have evened out.  We are staying in an adorable hotel near the marina and we decide to rent a motorbike for the day to explore the island a little.  Neither of us has ever driven a motorbike, and yet no one asks us if we have, or how old we are, or for a deposit or collateral.  A man who has been trolling around on his scooter simply lends us his for the day, we are supposed to return it to him when

 we are done and in the meantime he is sans motorbike.  i drive.  

it was supposed to be automatic, it is not.  

We got up the hill and find Cat Co beach, very quiet, surrounded by limestone cliffs and virtually deserted.  The wind is a bit strong, but the water is warm.  i bury my legs in the sand and later take a stroll in the South China Sea.  A lot of the rocks near the cliffs are covered in pretty, but razor sharp seashells.  Later, i discover i cut my foot on one of these lovely shells, it is painful to walk for a day, but it was worth it.

When we leave the beach a small crowd of Vietnamese has gathered in the parking lot, how fortunate!  Just in time to see the two foreign girls stalled on their motorbike.  For the life of me, we could not get it started and three different people came over to help, while others just laughed.  It was embarrassing, especially amidst this scooter culture where they probably know how to ride since birth, 

but i hope it was a highlight for them and something to chuckle about to for some time to come.

We decided to leave Cat Ba, reluctantly, the next morning at 5:45 so we would make it in time for the famous water puppet show back in Hanoi.  After dinner we just strolled around.  Near to our hotel we could hear loud music coming from somewhere, the real draw was that it was the Cure!  As we wondered where it was coming from, two Australian guys came up the road and told us there was a bar on the seventh floor and we should come up for a drink.  It was early so we thought, why not?  i proceeded to get drunker and subsequently sicker than i've ever been in my life!  The guys had been on the island for five days (it's a small island, that's a long time) and had developed a good report with the bartender so they were now privy to free drinks all night long, this was my downfall.  i have now made a decision to never drink more than five (5) drinks at one time from now until eternity! We stayed in the bar at first playing pool, and later (for me) puking in the bathroom until we had to leave for the ferry. Ashley basically held my hand the whole way, as i was still very much drunk into the next day.  i was so sick! i even missed the water puppet show, opting instead to pay for a night's stay in our hostel just so i could lay down!

Later that night we boarded, yet another, overnight train to the border town of Lao Cai where we would stay to visit Sapa, a mountainous, rice terraced town within walking distance of many, many a village.  After more sleep i felt much better... but soon the other kind of sickness (Chinese cold) would set in.

Viet Nam: land of pho, land of many, many motorbikes

As we all know, Pho,Vietnamese beef noodle soup, is like liquid magic, it heals the sick and allows the stumbling drunk to walk straight once more.  My one—most important—goal on this trip was to come to Viet Nam to eat this life giving broth, but being vegetarian did pose a slight obstacle for me, but no mind, success will be mine!

Arriving once more in a new city at the butt-crack of dawn, Ashley and i could already tell we would love our stay; even in the darkness of the pre-dawn we could see the quaint architecture of squished, colorful building with balconies, presumably a la style Française. We did have a bit of difficulty in hiring a taxi to our hostel at the wee hour of 6:30am, and ended up paying way too much because the currency conversion is a little ridiculous- 17,500 Vietnamese Dong to $1 US, or 2,500 Vietnamese Dong to 1 RMB.  Often in Viet Nam you can pay in US dollars but as we have been being paid for teaching in RMB this was not very helpful and a lot more expensive for us than we had anticipated.  Anyway, we made it to the Bodega Hotel (highly recommend them) and waited around in the restaurant upstairs ‘til we could get into our room and have a much needed shower! Once we were freshened up we went out walking with plans to eat some Pho, sadly we found some other sort of Vietnamese street soup, good, but not Pho good.

We tried to go to the Museum of Revolutionary Vietnam, but it was closed for Tet, as were many things, as we would soon learn…so we went to the History Museum across the way.  It was very interesting to see ancient artifacts and to see how closely related and influenced Vietnam has been by China.  We walked around Hoan Kiem lake in the old quarter and got a coffee.  Vietnamese ca fe is so delicious! Ashley and i have vowed to buy condensed milk in bulk when we get home.  Later that night we hit up some bars and cafes and we got a little tipsy and lost but we had a pretty good time, despite the fact that the linchpin of our plan for the evening, the Funky Monkey, was not at all funky!

The next morning after some discussion and deep soul searching we decided to change our return route into China and avoid Nanning altogether, instead going north into Yunnan province and stopping in some local Vietnamese villages along the way.  With this in mind we were headed to the train station to buy tickets for the border town of Lao Cai.  On the way to the train station we stopped for lunch at an amazing restaurant called KOTO, Know One Teach One.  An Australian-born Vietnamese man created a training program for street kids in Hanoi to help give them skills to find jobs in the food and service sector.  It started as a small sandwich shop and now it's a phenomenon, it's world renown, it has great food! i bought a cook book from the restaurant after my fantastic green papaya salad, so be prepared for me to try to cook some Vietnamese delicacies in a kitchen near you!

We also went to the Temple of Literature which was right around the corner from the restaurant, mostly in honor of my mom.  It turns out that there isn't a whole lot of literature in this particular temple, but it was still interesting.  It's a Confucius temple and the site of the first university in Viet Nam, but sadly the actual university was destroyed by the French.  The place was crawling with local tourists and everyone cramming into the inner courtyard to offer up incense and prayers for the new year. The outer courtyard is filled with hundreds of steles mounted on the backs of stone tortoises, each one has the biography of a great scholar carved into it. We rubbed the tortoise heads for good luck, as is customary.

Now, the train station.  Tet is the Spring Festival of Viet Nam and it was in full swing while we were there.  The train we wanted to take was an 8 hour overnight, and all the sleepers were sold out so we had to take seats, at least there were soft! So we booked our train and thought it should be smooth sailing from there on out, sadly this was not the case... you shall see.  But the rest of our evening in Hanoi was great.  We met a couchsurfer for drinks and Pho, hooray, at last! Manh is a local artist and he took us on our first motorbike ride in the land of motorbikes. 

sidenote: upon arrival to Viet Nam the first thing you will undoubtedly notice is the sheer number of motorbikes, scooters, what have you.  They's everywhere! They're on the sidewalk, the street, trying steadily to run you over, or at the very least, to get you to hop on so they can overcharge you to take you somewhere that you could have walked to in 5 min.  Hanoi is a really navigable city and i can't imagine anything being really outside a 20-30 min. walk, but no matter everyone, from school girls to grandpas, has a motorbike!  And the best part about it all is that while you need a driver's license to drive a car, you definitely do not need one for a motorbike, and we took advantage of this lax policy later...

Manh took us to his friend's bar, creatively named 1/2 Man 1/2 Noodle.  We hung out with his British girlfriend and some other foreigners, as well as his friend Truong.  Upon entry into the room where we were all drinking and some playing pool the girls in the room openly warned us that "Truong is crazy."  And this could not have been more true!  Within five minutes he proposed marriage to me and alternated yelling out and beating his fists on the table with trying to get me to drink his beer.  We also learned that he had recently broken his collar bone because he fell asleep while driving his motorbike home from a bar!  We finished the night at Red Mao bar, said goodnight to Manh and Lana and wished them luck for their weekend trip into the countryside to paint water buffalo for Manh's upcoming art exhibit!  

We got Pho in the morning and headed out with a day pack to catch a bus on the side of the freeway to the seaside city of Hai Phong.  It is common practice all over Asia for long distance buses to drive slowly out of town with the controller hanging out the door yelling the name of the destination in desperate hope of filling up the bus before they get out on the road.  It works well for the traveler who doesn't want to go all the way to the bus station!  Two and a half hours later we were in Hai Phong with no place to stay!

Xin Nian Kuai Le! and the splendors of Guilin

January 26, 2009 was the mark of the new lunar year, or Spring Festival, as it is known in mainland China.  This year marks the triumphant return of the year of the Ox, coincidentally my Chinese zodiac sign, thus fate has brought me to China!  For the new year i was in Guilin, located in the south west-ish Guangxi province.  This is the place where Chinese artists and poets have come for thousands of years to draw inspiration from the natural beauty of the limestone peaks all around this region.  We arrived at 4am sautrday, when we thought that we would get in closer to 10am, but were drastically misinformed about the length of our overnight bus journey. It was too early to reasonably call our host, so we hightailed it to McDonalds.

 

At home i have little but loathing for this establishment, except for the spicy mustard dipping sauce for the McNuggets, i could breath that stuff… but in China the golden arches have become somewhat of a beacon of light and hope. At 4am, having been abruptly awaken with techno music after sleeping in cots on the bumpiest and squeakiest bus ride of my life, i was in desperate need of somewhere to sit in warmth, put my stuff down and go pee.  McDonalds is somewhere you can do all of these things, and for the latter, it generally has toilet paper.  There were other people with the same mind set, thus when we walked in there were some people sleeping at tables and a crew playing a lively card game and eating cheeseburgers!  We waited out for a more godly hour and then called our couchsurfing host, Alex, and took a taxi to his house on the East bank of the Li Jiang (river).  

We freshened up a bit at his apartment and then he came out with us to tour Qi Xing Gong Yuan (seven star park) to view the aforementioned limestone peaks peppering the country side.

Very beautiful, though the weather was quite cold and it even hailed a little while we were walking around.  We also went into seven star cave, which has an impressive array of stalagmite and stalactite formations all cleverly named and lit with colorful lights.  i especially enjoyed “Lion looking back at Sheep”.  We walked all through the park, including a mini-zoo, with a small menagerie with flamingos, herons and peacocks, oh my!  Guilin has also just received some Giant Pandas, and they have Red Pandas too.  The red ones look like a cross between a raccoon and a bear, too cute. 

We ate some great food with Alex: local Guilin noodles, Ni Zi Gao (lotus flower cake), and of course some hot bubble tea to help warm us up as we walked around the night market that takes up one half of the main street in the central district.

The next morning we got up early to go to the train station to buy tickets to Nanning (from where we would head on to Viet Nam), then we hopped on a bus in the parking lot to go to a town called Yangshuo, about an hour away.  Yangshuo is really amazing looking.  The peaks are within walking distance and they just spring out of nowhere.  The land all around them is as flat as anything and then there are these giant limestone points in every direction, they’re like nature’s skyscrapers.  We took a river raft in the rain for about 30 RMB, though a great way to see the scenery, it was really freezing on the water.  For lunch we had the famous local dish, Pi Jiu Yu (beer fish) 

and it was delicious, spicy with green onions and a really nice sauce… (just for clarification i am still vegetarian but i have eaten fish about 6 times for sake of convenience when eating at people’s houses and trying new dishes that i might not otherwise get to eat).  

Since it was the eve of the new year shops and restaurants were all closing up early so Ashley and i got on the bus back to Guilin to eat some dinner with our host and buy some fireworks!  The only thing open past 8 ‘o clock that evening were fireworks stands, so we all bought some, big and small and multi-colored.  Even before the sun went down that night people were setting off all over the city.  The most popular seemed to be this long winding role of red, really noisy fire crackers.  They made a flash of light, similar to a gunshot and so much noise that car alarms were going off all over the place.  Once it was dark enough we went out to the courtyard and had a blast: we had these wands that you light and they shoot sparks off, kind of like a magic wand, and we also had these spinning, hoping little sparkly things.  The night air was so filled with smoke that it almost looked like daytime… and midnight was amazing, giant fireworks went off all over the city and we could see a good portion of them from Alex’s balcony.  We had to catch a train the next morning at 8am so we went to bed to the sound of cracks and pops…even at 6am when we were leaving the apartment people were still lighting up there leftovers!

We took a five hour train to Nanning and tried to buy a ticket to Hanoi, Viet Nam, but came to find that they wouldn’t sell the international ticket on New Year’s day so we had to spend the night in Nanning.  Perhaps we were just cranky from the train trip, or faced with the realization that we would have to go another 48 hours without pho we turned on the city, but i hated being in Nanning!  All over China i have had my likes and dislikes, but Nanning just plain sucked.  It was dirty and crowded and we couldn’t find any bubble tea, or a proper grocery store, but our hotel was cheap, clean and close to the train station so we just chilled for a large portion of the time.  Finally, we boarded the overnight train bound for Hanoi at 6:15pm on January 27.  It was the nicest train i’ve ever been on and we shared our soft sleeper cabin with a cute, funny Chinese couple, Peter and Nana, who we got along with great! Other than being rudely awakened for the Vietnamese customs crossing it was a really pleasant traveling experience!