Muddy Fool (Hanoi, Vietnam)

For the sake of me putting down in words what I've done in the last while I'll just spit out some stuff. Then I'll tell a few tales.

Hanoi, Vietnam's capital; big and polluted. Lovely place though, with lots of lakes and expensive (in Vietnamese terms) restaurants. Watched a water puppet show, puppets dancing around on the water, got a free fan and cassette tape for going. It was about 1 hour... I'd say it was about 45 minutes too long.

Went to Ha Long Bay, a renowned World Heritage Sight! Lots of big grottoes, saw them by boat. Entered two different caves, gigantic ones! Full of stagalite formations that, with lots of imagination and 3D poster type concentration, make up lions, dragon heads, fairies, a woman's breast, and a man's penis. Went kayaking, went into a secluded lagoon surrounded by grottoes, loud echoes! Went up a small mountain to see the view of the grottoes, lots of slippery rocks to climb. Weird guide brought us to the top of the mountain, he sang a song for us at the top then laughed and screamed a lot, what was he smoking?

Just got back from Bac Ha, where Jeremy and I did a three day trek through the terraced mountains. Fell 4 times due to tonnes of squishy squashy mud that's been created by all the rain. (In case you don't know there's been a typhoon in Eastern Asia, lots of flooding in the south, only a light daily rain in the north). Slept overnight in different villages with different ethnic minorities. They wear really, really colorful clothing. Hung out with our two guides who didn't speak much english and tried to teach them card games, (that was challenging) and they tried to get us drunk by shooting glasses rice wine.


Ripped off!

So now its 11:39am, 7hrs 39 mins ago we got off our overnight train that arrived in Hanoi at 4am. In order for us to get to the train station we had to sit on the back of a Motobike for 1.5hrs, I'm not complaining about that though. The bike ride was nice through the mountains at sunset. In about 7 more hours we'll be boarding a 22hr bus ride into Vientienne, Laos. I'm sure I'll have a few grumbles about that.

Anyway, we actually had an option to take a local bus to the train station or the motobike. The bus takes 3 hours though and we took the bus on the way up so we said forget it. Getting on that bus was a huge struggle! Not with our luggage, but because I had to argue with 3 locals at the train station at 6:15 in the bloody morning the other day when we first arrived. I hate these touts who try to take us for all we've got, they take advantage of your disorientation. First of all its early in the morning and I've just awaken and secondly, I have no idea exactly how to get to Bac Ha due to its lack of tourism. There were many other tourists at the station but were all going to a place called Sapa, we decided to take an alternate route for once. Its nice to do so, but makes things a little more complicated.

In my guide book it says a bus should cost 35,000 VND, the bastards at the station were telling me 70,000 VND per person! Bullshit! These guys don't work at the station mind you, they're just trying to earn a buck by either getting you to go to a hotel where they earn commission or use their mode of transportation, etc. Of course, if you go into the ticket office and ask for some help not a single person says a word, they just look at you and point to the touts. You know that in their heads they're thinking, 'oh you poor bastard, sorry I'd like to help but then the touts will hate me'. Or maybe its possible they're thinking 'You rich foreigner, you'll have to survive those touts... haha'. Anyway, I went on with these guys for about 15mins, back and forth

• No, I'll only pay 35 thousand!
• No, you're wrong, guidebooks are wrong. You better hurry, the bus leaves at 6:30am.
• That lady just said 50,000...
• She's wrong, she doesn't know anything at all, she only works for the trains, not the buses...
• Ok fine, I'll pay 80,000 for the both of us! Ok, let's go!
• No, no, no, that's not the price...
• Ok fine, I'll pay the correct price of 35 thousand each
• Hahaha.... you might aswell walk for that price.... goodbye.
• Ok, 100,000 VND, let's go!
• No, price is 140. Quickly, the bus is leaving soon.
• C'mon, we've been good friends now for 10 minutes, give me a good discount will ya?
• Ok, ok, 130 thousand Dong... hurry, the bus is leaving!

Back and forth, back and forth. They kept threatening the bus will leave soon, told lies like the driver is his brother, its much, much farther than Sapa and therefor the price is more expensive... those bastards. The second we got on the dodgy, tattered bus a man comes up to us pretending to be the ticket/money collector says, please pay now. I give him 150,000 and he says to me "You give me 160." I almost shouted back 130. Then he goes to the actual bus worker and gets change for me, hands it over and gets off the bus so it can depart. Jeremy says he remembers seeing him at the beginning of the conversation when we first arrived off the train platform. So what happened is he paid for our fares and then him and his friends divide the rest of the change leftover. We don't know exaclty what the real price was but we know that its no where close to 65,000 VND each, maybe only like 20,000 or so.

The sad thing is that in Vietnam, there's a double pricing system for foreigners. It happens all accross the country and not much can be done about it. The only real thing that you can do is shrug your shoulders and say "Oh well." When it comes down to the conversion 35,000 VND = $2.33 USD and 65,000 VND = $4.33 USD, so I only lost out on $2. Its the principle, not the fact, I know. The fact is, or as I'd like to think: I'm helping to feed someone and his/her family.

Daily Excercise

I'd like to say that this is about me, but no. One of the greatest things I've experienced here in Hanoi is this lake right in the middle of the city surrounded by a park with benches. Each day the locals get up early in the morning (we watched them at 4:30am today) to do their daily workout. Lots of them just stand by a post or a tree and wave around their arms and legs frantically in the air, its their version of stretching perhaps. Some do tai-chi in big groups, others do an organized aerobics class, or dance with a large red fan. Others will run or do these intense sit-ups. Some walk slowly, some walk quickly. Some wear shorts, other wear dress pants. Some of them stand there and do something completley out of the ordinary, perhaps thinking the weirder they look the more effective it will be. For example, we saw this one man with his arms to stretched staight out to his sides and spinning around endlessly as if he were mimicking a tornado. Umm, I believe that works out your equilibrium, maybe he's trying to strengthen his balance?

Jaded

After a nice correspondence with a dear friend from back home (you know who you are), I've been able to label what I've been feeling latley, jaded. After travelling for so long I'm at the point where I haven't yet been there, but I've already done that. I don't know if I can sit through another conversation that fellow backpackers have about the 'crazy traffic' here in S.E. Asia. I know I'm not ready to go home, but I'm ready to experience new things. I'm trying. Hence going to Bac Ha as opposed to Sapa, it was a bit of a challenge and I enjoyed it, even the arguing with the touts!

When I was in New Zealand I discovered a symbol that the native Maori people use in their life. Basically its a spiral or the shoot from a fern tree, symbolizing new growth and prosperity. I'm going to use this as an inspiration to keep growing as I travel and find different things that will be more meaningful to me. I've only got 3 months left on my trip and I want to make them worth it.

Speaking of change... I'm learning to do new things on my blog. Hope you like it. Soon there'll be pictures too! For example... here's a link! Koru Symbol

Talk to you from Laos.