We arrived in Hanoi late one evening. Ngo Mihn Duc (a.k.a "Duc from Wietnam" - "Duc" rhymes with "took" or "book," not "duck" or "duke"), our Genral Sales Agency in SGN and HAN, picked us up from the airport and took us to eat yummy noodle soup (Pho). Duc just has very young children, so it was our honor and duty to teach him a few things about 6 year olds - - sometimes they lose their teeth! Christina lost her first front tooth at the restaurant - it was quite a show, blood and all.
The Vietnamese Tooth Fairy came that night and gave her about $150,000 VND (Vietnamese Dong, which trade for about 17,000 to 1 USD) AND let her keep the tooth! Wow. They do things differently in VN!
The next morning we set out on a long car drive to Halong Bay - a world UNESCO heritage site many times over. On the way, we stopped at some nice stone carving store - the stone carvings are done by handicapped people and are simply beautiful.
The gentleman to the right of Jessica (her left) was Son, our tour guide. He took super care of us all the way through.After the long ride, we reached Halong Bay and were taken on a ferry to our destination - the "Bahaya" cruise ship. I had been on this before during a team meeting and couldn't pass up a repeat for the kids. They have one and two night programs, and we did the one night one this time. Next time, we'll do two, for sure!
Onboard the Bayaha in Halong Bay.
There are 20 cabins so the whole thing has a very intimate and family feel about it.
We had such a fun and relaxed time...
We took a cooking class where we learned to cook egg rolls...
Outdoor massage in a private area of the deck didn't bother Jessica one bit! (Christina, Mark and I enjoyed this, of course, too!)
Christina learning about sails.We went via row boat to the floating village. Very primitive I suppose, until you see they have a bank! Cool!
Look even closer and you can see antennae for the TVs. It sure is quiet, though, and we saw the children coming home from school in the boats. Very different from our lifestyle.
We took a little ride to some caves and went exploring. Above is our "outing" guide.
The above speaks for itself, I think.
If you want to buy a snack, here's the floating 7-11!
Just a lovely view of the village surroundings and the water.
The scenery was just breath-taking, with the enormous limstone formations extruding from the water. Halong Bay has my heart!
Then we took a nature walk - Son, Jessica and Mark took the lead...We enjoyed some time on Catba Island at a resort, then back to Hanoi for some city exploring...
Touring the streets of Hanoi by "cyclo" - bicycle powered buggies - is a must. That way you can really get to know the energy and color of the city. Christina thought it was "crazy busy." Even more bustling than Hong Kong!
You can see why from the above...there are motorcycles everywhere. Being in a car (as we often were) was kind of a drag. They go too slow and can't dart in and out. Hanoi has no real public transportation system. A few busses, and that's about it. An underground train or subway system would really rock here!
The old mixes with the new.
Here's a great shot of infrastructure in Hanoi - this shot can ONLY be caught on every street corner in Hanoi.
More street life -
More infrastructure. All houses have water tanks on top. We were a little disappointed when we learned that they were not beer kegs. They have very narrow houses (which are often amazingly deep), because the taxes are levied based on the width of the house. On the right hand side of the house, you can see gray concrete. They don't paint the sides, only front. This is because soon enough someone will build a house joining yours.
By the time we left, we felt like locals! :-)
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