Roughly a week before Caleb and I had planned on getting to the Vietnamese Capitol City of Hanoi, I had received a call from my lifelong friend Keith Williams. Some life events had recently manifested and after speaking with his company, he’d been able to secure an extended period of time off. Keith is one of pretty much two people I consistently stay in contact with from my hometown at a minimum of a bi-monthly basis, the other being Kyle Green. He’d been following along the blog and also I’d spoken to him a few times throughout my travels. The day finally came when he said “Where can I meet you” and I couldn’t have been more excited, UNLESS, with our combined power of persuasion, we could some how get our good friend Kyle, fresh off a 3-month Bering Sea fishing adventure, to join in as well! Within about an hour of the phone call between Keith and I ending, I had an email with both the one-way ticket confirmations of two of my greatest friends!
Caleb and I once again opted for a plane flight instead of a
train ticket. We’ve pretty much decided
that the trains are best suited for the young kids not us old folks. We were able to grab an early flight and arrived
at Hanoi International airport within 90-minutes of departure (sure beats an
18-hour train ride) at 9:30 AM. I had
complete faith Keith would surely make it safe and sound, but with Kyle, you
just never, never know. Within about 45
minutes, we all managed to find each other and soon jumped in a taxi destined
for the Hanoi Backpackers Hotel I’d already booked in advance.
Thirty sphincter clinching minutes later, we miraculously
arrived in one piece and only managed to see one person killed on a moped. The traffic in Hanoi is out of control. Keith, Kyle, Caleb and I settled into our
12-person mixed dorm and headed out for a walk around the city to get our
bearings. We stopped off at the top of a
5 story building in the center of town for a bite to each where we had an
excellent viewpoint of the chaotic congestion on the streets below. Judging by the expressions on both Keith and
Kyle, I knew the ridiculously high paced traffic, in your face street people,
and the general insanity that is Hanoi was going to take a little adjusting to,
rightfully so. After we finished eating,
we decided to take a walk over to Ho Chi Minh’s (former President of Vietnam
who was in power during the war) palace where he lived up until his death in
1969. The complex was huge and much of
it displayed a sharp contrast to the poverty surrounding it. We spent the next hour or so touring the
grounds and reading about the various historical buildings and their
significance. Instead of taking a taxi
ride home for the four of us, I thought it’d be a great idea to flag down four
moped drivers and have each of the guys hop on the back of one. I laughed the entire 20-minute ride home as
Keith and Kyle quenched their butt cheeks as the drivers zigzagged through the
heavy, heavy traffic. I loved it!
I had been in contact with Aman and Angela, our New York
friends, since my departure from Hue and we had set up a time to meet for
drinks later on in the evening. It gave
me both the opportunity to introduce Keith and Kyle to them as well as spend
one last evening together before we went our separate ways. We met them at a street side bar around 9:00
PM and sat down to enjoy a few cocktails.
We shared a ton of laughs over the remainder of the evening and it gave
the new guys an opportunity to ease their way into their vacation!
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| Having drinks with Aman and Angela! |
Wednesday morning, the 28th came absurdly early
for all of us as we struggled to get the day started. I had a bunch of catching up to do with the
blog, Caleb was getting some emails out of the way, and both Keith and Kyle
decided to meander around the city some more.
We met up in the late afternoon and were trying to decide where we
wanted to go and grab some food. Caleb
had apparently heard through some other travelers about a place called Snake Village
where they actually prepare a variety of reptiles including Bamboo snakes, lizards,
and even Cobras. I don’t think we were
planning on really eating much but we decided it was something we had to
see. We hopped into a taxi and headed
the 25-minutes away to a back alley in a particularly ghetto-like area. We were shown upstairs to what turned out to
be a really fancy looking, white linen restaurant. Our hostess was a young man probably in his
mid teens who I presumed to be the son of the owner that we shortly met
afterwards. We sat down at the table and
he asked us what we’d like. I told him
we’d be interested in discussing the options for some Cobra. His English wasn’t the best and within a few
moments he returned with a green mesh bag containing a live 5-foot Cobra! What transpired next can only be explained in
the YouTube link below as I pretty much blacked it out from shock.
Part 1-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXhGXLUnv7A&feature=g-upl&context=G277b761AUAAAAAAACAA
Part 2-
After settling our bill and removing ourselves silently from
the premises in complete disbelief over what had just transpired, we headed
back to a bar next to our hotel where they were serving free drinks to attempt
in wiping the memories surely engrained in our minds forever. We ended up
meeting a group of 16 Swedish girls all traveling together on the balcony and
quickly joined their table. It’s
difficult enough traveling with one person for an extended duration of time but
after speaking with them, it seemed as if some of them were destined to kill
each other after the planned few months they were going to spend together,
probably not the best idea! We chilled
at the free drink bar until the stopped serving free drinks and moved down the
street to another cozy little spot.
Quick side note: Hanoi
is above the cloud in terms of cities with the most amount of street peddling,
it is absolutely relentless.
On the walk between bars, Keith was maybe 30 yards behind
the group when a little Vietnamese man ran up to him, started humping his leg
and yelling, “You want Boom Boom?!?”
Keith fended the man off and carried on his way. About a minute or so later, he yelled,
“You’ve got to be shitting me” which snagged my attention. Somehow, during the humping motion, the
Vietnamese man managed to pull his recently purchased IPhone 4s from his
shorts. The guy was good. Although pissed, Keith wasn’t going to let
the sizeable dent to his pocket book interfere with the joy we managed to have
the remainder of the evening. A true
sport!
The next morning we had to be in the lobby ready to go at
7:30 AM for a 2 night, 3-day trip we’d previously booked to Halong Bay. Halong Bay is a series of over 2,000 karst islands
roughly a four hours drive from Hanoi located in the South China Sea. According to any Vietnamese literature
though, there are exactly 1,969 islands, coincidently the same amount as the
year their beloved leader Ho Chi Minh died.
The minibus ride there was less than favorable as it was
cramped and hot however the anticipation for what lay ahead over compensated
for it. We arrived at the main Halong
Bay port and soon made our way to a dilapidated looking boat appropriately
named the Jolly Roger. We soon
discovered our German friends, whom I’d met multiple times throughout the past
weeks, were also on the same venture. We
were soon given room assignments and Keith and I were sent to one, Kyle and
Caleb to another. After our bags were
unpacked, we were told to make our way upstairs to get a rundown on what the
next 48 hours were going to look like along with meeting the rest of our 20
fellow passengers.
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| The Jolly Roger |
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| Having our orientation with our tour guide Rusty |
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| Keith caught holding drinking his beer in his right hand (a sin apparently), the punishment being getting written on. Swaffle is a foreign term for something not very nice.... |
Our tour guide on the boat was a mid twenties guy from
England named Rusty and at the end of the day, I’ve never met a more crazy SOB
in my entire life. He was definitely one
of those people who filled the role of booze cruise captain to perfection. He was a raging alcoholic and reeked of
sweat, sex, and shame. Following the
overview of the trip, we had a decent lunch prepared by the boat staff and relaxed
in the sunshine on the roof while we made the 2-hour trek to our destination
for the evening. After dropping the
anchor, Rusty made everyone pair off into a guy/girl mix and jump into a
two-person kayak, mandating that each man grab a bagful of drinks to ensure the
party didn’t slow down while we paddled the hole ridden vessel through many a
karst limestone cliff and a series of caves.
We beached our kayaks at the end in a large stalactite filled cave and
listened to another tour guide give a history lesson about Halong Bay and the
indigenous population that lived there.
As seen in the pictures below, the local people spent their entire life,
from birth to death, living on these small floating villages. They made money from fishing as well as more
recently, paddling up to large tourist ships in their small wooden boats and
selling alcohol and other assorted goods to people such as myself. The floating villages were tiny and according
to our tour guide, up to 7 people lived in each small floating hut. One of the wilder stories I pulled from the
history lesson was when a female member is about to give birth, one week prior,
the rest of the village locks the full term girl below the deck of their
boat. There, alone, she must give birth
to the child, with no medical attention what so ever and survive a solid month
on with minimal assistance. Their belief
is that since their way of life is so meager and difficult, only the strong
will survive, thus the aforementioned process.
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This Karst looks like its about to fall any day!
|
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| Typical floating home |
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Grabbing a couple of beers from the floating grocery store!
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After kayaking, we headed back to the boat for a little down
time before all congregating for dinner.
We finished our meal and our tour guide Rusty forced us into a night of
pure chaos, Kyle being my source of constant entertainment throughout.
The following morning we were forced from our beds at 7:30
AM, why they pick that time, I have no idea.
The group was being divided as some people had paid only for a one-night
trip and the rest two nights, including us.
Once everything had been sorted out, we went for another 2-hour cruise
until we reached a private island being leased by the tour company. Once there, we were greeted by a Canadian
roughly our age, who had been on the less than 1/4th square mile
island for nearly a month and a small Vietnamese family who acted as the
staff. The group had been reduced to
about 15 and we spent the day playing beach volleyball, rock climbing and even
got a chance to go wakeboarding amongst the incredible karsts rising up over
1,000 feet from the sea. Right as we
were heading out to go wakeboarding, the engine wouldn’t start. The Vietnamese boat driver just continued to
crank the starter until I had to physically remove his hand from the ignition
as to prevent the battery from dying.
Our tour guides thought all was lost until I summoned the one and only
Kyle Green to the rescue, being the marine mechanic. He set down the drinks in either hand and
swam out to the wakeboard boat. Within a
matter of minutes, the engine fired and Kyle solidified his place in Castaway
Island folklore as the savior. The
evening time was much more relaxed from the previous night as we spent the
majority of the time getting to know one another and enjoying simple
conversation, however we still managed to have a somewhat wild time.
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| Amazing place to ride! |
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| What happens when Kyle "fell asleep early" and your good friend Alex has a flashlight along with your tour guide having a pen! |
Caleb wiping out:
The next morning we boarded the mother ship and headed back
to the mainland. Halong Bay had been an
incredible experience and one of only three places on Earth where such
limestone formations existed. Once
again, I felt truly blessed to have done what we did.
A 2-hour boat ride along with a 4-hour car ride later, we
arrived back at our hostel in Hanoi. After
a quick nap, the guys and I discussed what our next course of action should
be. Caleb wanted to head up North near
the Chinese border to a place called Sa Pa for three days, a city renowned for
it’s breathtaking scenery and relaxed lifestyle. On more of a time crunch and a much less
desire to see the area as I had seen similar sights on my motorcycle ride,
Keith, Kyle and myself decided to buy plane tickets for the following morning
to the city of Luang Prabang (pronounced Pha-bang), Laos. Caleb and I had been traveling together for
nearly two months, spending nearly every waking minute with one another and
this provided an opportunity for us to recharge our batteries and we agreed to
meet in about a week in the southern part of Laos. The next day, Keith, Kyle and I said our
goodbyes to Caleb and hailed a cab destined for the airport, excited for our
next destination in a new country. Hanoi
had a population of more than 8 million while Luang Prabang, Laos had less that
70,000. Our anticipation grew for the
small riverside village. Off we go!!!!
Quick note: I
couldn’t find a place to include this part within the body of the current post
but I wanted to add that while I sit here, writing this, I find myself at
almost a loss for words how to describe how privileged I feel. Not for the opportunity to take a trip like
this, which I am thankful for, but for the quality of friendship that I’ve had
with so many people in my life. I’ve
known Keith and Kyle since I was a small child and even though life has taken us
to different universities, different professions, different cities and our
personalities are unique, the three of us have consistently managed to stay
apart of each others lives over the years even when we haven’t had a chance to
see each other. I’m truly grateful to
know that if I were stuck in the middle of a foreign country in need of help
and I gave either of them a call, the first words out of their mouth would be
“I’m on the next flight”…….
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