Hue was a beautiful little town with lots to see, but the most obnoxious touts yet. I saw some old tombs and reaffirmed my love for Texans. The weather, however, was blazing hot and I decided to head North to Hanoi.I took a 12-hour sleeper bus and this time I got put in the very pack, where they stacked five of us next to each other for a backpacker slumber party. We managed to talk a taxi into taking my British bed buddy and I to the right hostel.
In my time in Asia, I have seen all sorts of bootleg merchandise
from the obvious (DVDs, CDs, and T-shirts) to some new ones (books, oil painting reproductions and Legos). Hanoi, however, has a whole new level of fakery. They flat out take the names of reputable hotels and travel agencies and slap them on empty buildings. There are literally 50 Sinh Café Travel agencies that I have walked by and only one real one. They pay moto drivers to take you to these sham businesses and lie to you about the real ones.
This hostel is the most social place that I have stayed since Bangkok, so I caught up on some partying that I had been neglecting and then we booked a boat trip to Ha Long Bay.
It might be the most beautiful place that I have ever seen. There are 1,000’s of islands jutting out of the sea and a thick layer of fog to add some proper drama. We checked out some caves and went kayaking. As an added bonus, they had some monkeys. I like monkeys.
When we anchored our boat for the night, groups of Vietnamese women surrounded us on little boats with a convenience store’s worth of snacks and drinks, like floating 7-11’s. At night, we had some drinks and a middle aged French guy serenaded us on guitar. Then, he pulls out a French bagpipe and played that. A little later he pulled out a flute. This guy was carrying Sam Ash on his back.
No comments:
Post a Comment