Cody In Asia

Another earlier than usual morning for us. Breakfast was bread with jam, not really going to keep us going too long… but oh well. We then drove back to the boat, and there was a whole new group of people on it. At this point, we had kind of been exhausted of constantly meeting new people and just sort of sat there and played cards. At one point, the boat came along another floating village and we had an opportunity to kayak (for $2.50) a couple of caves. We went for it, figuring “when would we get an opportunity to kayak caves in Ha Long Bay again.”

Luckily for us, only our small group of four and one other couple did it. The caves are more like short tunnels which lead to a huge enclosed bay. The mountains of the island around you formed a circle and there were flower petals on the water. With only 3 boats in there it was a really special experience. Word is some Jackie Chan movie had a scene filmed in one of them but I couldn’t really understand the guide and I couldn’t find it myself. Then it was food and travel back to The Drift. There was this big deal with the tour guide at the end. Another case were some one got themselves out of a tip. We are a little out of the old core, so I guess they didn’t want to drop us off at the hostel, even though that is part of the package, and everyone else on the bus was dropped off. He was just losing it, and the bus driver was screaming too. We just stayed calm and told him he could drop us off at the train station or the hostel, either is fine with us, but we were not getting off until that was done, and eventually it was done. He was never happy about it though. It is really funny because all the guide books talk about how you should never lose your temper in Asian countries as after you lose face (freak out), they will lose respect for you, and you will get no where… but they lost it and then some.

We headed off to get train tickets out of Hanoi. We couldn’t get sleeper seats for the 14 hour ride, but we got some soft seats, which should be enough for us. We are used to long travels at this point. We had some dinner at the place that we were trying to find the first night in Hanoi and it was nice. Then we headed back for an earlier night so we could wake up early enough to see the Ho Chi Min Mausoleum tomorrow. We also met up with Alex (who was the girl on the boat with us) who said she would like to come as well.