New Friends in Halong Bay

I’m coming to you live (via tape delay) from the bus on our way back from Halong Bay to Hanoi. Our stay on the Dragon’s Pearl for the last two days was fabulous. The bus picked us up from our hotel yesterday morning a little late but we were lucky because we were the last pickup so we headed straight to the bay (with one stop at a market half-way—I’m sure the tour company gets a commission for taking us there for 20 mins).

There was a group of 3 couples on our bus that are MBA students (and their wives) from INSEAD, a highly ranked MBA program in France. One couple is from Nigeria, but now live in Germany, another is from Brazil, and one is from Peru. They all moved to France to go to INSEAD and are currently on a 2 month exchange in Singapore so they have been traveling Southeast Asia on the weekends.

During our 3 and a half hour bus ride to the boat, the Brazilian guy (who reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld) posed this riddle to the group: You are the King of a nation that is made up of 10 states. These states are required to pay a yearly tax of 10 kilograms of gold. Each state pays the tax by sending in 10 gold ingots of 1 kilogram each. The ingots are marked with the stamp of the state that sent them but other than that each looks exactly the same. However, you have a spy that tells you that one of your states is cheating you and only sending in 9 kilograms of gold—10 ingots of 900 grams each. To the human eye and touch all of the ingots look the same so you must use your digital scale to determine which state is cheating you. The catch is you can only make one weighing. How do you determine the state that is stealing from you?

I finally figured out the answer after about 20 minutes and it turns out this was a great ice breaker between us and our new friends. If you want to play the game too (especially all those aspiring consultants out there) you can email me what you think the answer is and I will let you know if you are right.

Once we were on the boat we spent most of the time hanging out with our new found friends. It was really interesting to learn more about each of their countries, and their travels in SEA. It was also nice to have some other people to talk to at meals as Kendall and I have really only talked to each other and some locals in the past few weeks.

The bay was absolutely gorgeous, and contains over 3000 small islands protruding from the water. Halong translates to “where the dragon descends into the sea.” Legend has it that the islands of Halong Bay were created by a great dragon that lived in the mountains. As it ran towards the coast, its flailing tail gouged out valleys and crevasses; as it plunged into the sea, the areas dug up by his tail were filled with water, leaving only the high land visible.

When we boarded the Dragon’s Pearl around 12:30 on Saturday the weather was still overcast and pretty cold, about 65 degrees. We sat down to a great seafood lunch—all the meals had set menus of local favorites so you could try some of everything—of prawns, fish, squid and vegetables. There were about 8 courses and it seem like lunch went on forever as I was anxious to get outside and see the bay as we made our way through the islands. Kendall and I even left lunch a little early to go up to the sun deck on top of the boat to enjoy the wonderful scenery. Around 4 we stopped at an island mountain with a small beach and a path to the top. I climbed up to take some pictures while Kendall hung out with the INSEAD girls below.

In front of our boat while stopped on the island

Me on top of the island

We cruised for a little longer and passed through an area with a large floating village, of people who live on and fish the bay everyday. Then we stopped for the night in a protected area with a bunch of other boats. We sat and had drinks on the deck and watched the sunset before dinner, which was another feast.

Best of all the bed on the boat was the most comfortable we have had all trip. We slept like rocks and woke up around 7:45 to a wonderfully sunny day. We went up for a quick breakfast of some fruit, toast, and juice as the boat pulled up to another island that is home to one of the largest caves in Halong

The 3000 islands have over 300 caves that were first discovered by the French back in the early 1900s. After Vietnam became independent again in the 1970s many fishing villages formed in the caves and the one that we visited was transformed into a hospital. The area was made into a national forest and the government kicked all of the village people out of the caves. The “cavemen” decided to stay on the bay and create small floating villages so they could continue to fish. These floating villages have gotten so large that the government has even erected floating schools for the kids.

Floating village below the cave

We climbed through the cave for about an hour before we retuned to the boat and cruised a short time to a spot were we could get off and swim. The water was absolutely freezing, about 60 degrees, but I decided to get in anyway. Kendall stayed on the boat to get sun and take some pictures.

The cruise ended with a big buffet lunch and a few last minutes on the sun deck to enjoy the best weather we have had all trip.

Back on the bus we met another couple from Germany who had been on another boat owned by the same company. They just happen to be on the same train as we are tonight on our way to Hue so we may have found our friends for the next leg of our trip.

We are about to arrive back at our hotel in Hanoi that was kind enough to store one of our bags and do some laundry for us while we were on the boat. We have a few hours there to walk around, eat some dinner, and buy some snacks before our 11 hour train to Hue leaves tonight at 11pm.

Pray for our safe passage, and that all of our luggage is still with us when we wake up in the morning. There is a small problem with petty theft on the Vietnamese trains, but we have locks for our bags and a cable lock to secure them to our bunks so we should be fine.

Remember, you can only make one weighing in order to find the state that is cheating you.

Video fixed below

Check it out.

Out of pocket

This morning we are off to Halong Bay to stay on the Dragon's Pearl Junk for the night and then headed back to Hanoi to get on the overnight train to Hue. This means no Internet connection for a few days but we will be sure to update you just as soon as we can.

Walking today in Hanoi

Last night Will and I continued using our new travel Bible, Lonely Planet and went to this amazing little hole in the wall restaurant Little Hanoi. We both had big dinners and drinks for again around a total of $10. I have to say the food here is incredible. I was a bit worried when we started this trip with the food in Taipei but now I couldn't be happier and the great thing is you get amazing food at a great price. Next we had planned on heading to Bar Labrinyth when we realized that it had been replaced with another bar. We decided to check it out anyway and it was actually really cool. We hung out there are had a few Tiger Beers before heading home.


Today we slept in which was nice since from about 6-7 am there is a public service announcement spread through the loud speakers across town and of course our "sound proof" windows don't block that noise out, or most of the other common street noises, so being able to go back to sleep after that was great. Today we had decided to take it easy and do some shopping since we had seen most of the sights the day before. We needed up going to this market that was 2 blocks wide and 6 stories high. It was un-like anything I've ever seen in my life. It would be like North Park full of street vendors instead of stores. And every area of this market was categorized perfectly. They had the food area, the shoes area, the fabric area, the dishware area, etc. They had everything.

After this we went to the Ngoc Son Temple, the one we were supposed to see the day before, and it was very cool. It's set in the middle of the lake and it was so weird walking over that bridge and being met with silence. It seemed that all of the honks and traffic noise disappeared. Inside of the Temple there was a Tortoise display about these huge Tortoises, yes Sherill bigger than Spot, that supposedly live in the lake. And if you see one of these guys you will have good luck. We also walked around the lake and at the other end is a small pagoda on it's on little island.

Before we headed out today I had decided that I wanted to buy some art work so throughout our walk I made Will stop in pretty much every little gallery we saw. The artwork here is very cool and there are a lot of aspiring painters.

After lunch at the Kangaroo Cafe we headed to one of the main attractions here in the Old Quarter, the Water Puppet Show. It was a 45 minute little show with 17 different scenes of these little puppets doing stuff on the water. It was definitely a type of puppet show I had never experienced before and I really enjoyed it. It's a MUST SEE if you come to Hanoi, and oddly enough it is quite hard to get tickets to see these little things.




After the show it was more shopping. We walked and walked and it was kind of disappointing when we realized that we were seeing the same paintings over and over again at every street gallery. It was like the all used the same pictures to create their art. We finally found a unique little place where I got to small oil paintings.

Then it was back to the hotel to rest before dinner. We ended up going to a place that was called El Cyclo and all of their seats are old cyclo chairs which was a very clever idea. We are back at home now and headed to bed. We are up early in the morning on our way to Halong Bay. I am so excited about this and am just praying that we have some nice weather. I can't imagine getting into the water when it's 65 and cloudy outside. Then we are back in Hanoi on Sunday before we board our over night train to Hue. Believe me we will be blogging about that experience. So if you don't here from us over the weekend no need to be alarmed. Hope you have a great Friday and a wonderful weekend.



Pictures of all of the motos and the crazy traffic. No rules at all.

Vietnam Highs and Lows

We arrived in Hanoi from Hong Kong around 6pm local time on Wednesday and got checked into our hotel. As you may have noticed we made another mid-course correction with hotels as Kendall decided she did not like the pictures of the $15/night Fortuan and preferred the $40/night Hotel Elegance 2. I have to say that I am pretty glad we made the switch as well. Our room is pretty nice and I think we even got upgraded to the best room in the house. We are on on the top floor and have the only room with a balcony as far as we can tell. This does mean that we have a good amount of street noise, especially around 6am rush hour when the public announcement system kicks in. But I have started to get used to it and don't even think I heard the prayer over the PA this morning.

Our first night we went to a little place right next to our hotel called 69 Bar-Restaurant. It was recommended by Lonely Planet and full of tourist from Australia and the US. The food was delicious, the best we have had all trip. I had a traditional Vietnamese dish called Cha Ca which is a fish and noodle dish that is very popular in Hanoi. Kendall had a fried chicken dish the restaurant is famous for. We both had appetizers, drinks and desert and the total bill was around $18. Finally, we have arrived at a spot that works with our budget.

We woke up on Thursday and had breakfast at the Hotel before deciding to explore the city. You cannot walk more than 5 feet here without being bombarded by offers for Cyclo (basically pedi-cabs) or Moto (back of a motor bike) rides. As soon as we walked out of our hotel a Cyclo driver offered us a ride and we refused because I only had large bills and also Kendall has a kind of weird paranoia about the cyclos. She really thinks one of the guys is going to abduct us. I am not sure how they could possibly ride in such a way that if we really felt in danger we couldn't hop out. Anyway, I needed to get change at the bank but this cyclo driver was insistent and even offered to take us to the bank to get change. Once I had change and tried to pay him for the ride he offered to take us around to the sights for the day. Our Lonely Planet book said such "day trips" should cost only $5 to $10 US so we took him up and off we went.

Our first stop was the Temple of Literature, which is the site of Vietnam's first university founded by Confucius in the 1000s. After taking a "look look," as our cyclo driver called it, we met him back outside; however, it was already about 11:20AM and most tourist attractions close for lunch from 11:30 to 1:30PM. Because we were paying for it anyway, we decided to first have him take us to the train station to buy our tickets from Hanoi to Hue on the overnight train. After that we decided to have lunch.

Our driver recommended at place called KOTO and it was also recommended by Lonely Planet so we decided to try it. It turns out KOTO is short for Know One Teach One and is a restaurant that was started by an Australian and his wife that takes kids off the street and teaches them English and cooking/waiting skills and then gets them jobs at restaurants all over Hanoi. It was actually really touching to see the Australian women taking the waiters and waitresses around, helping them take orders and serve dishes. Her husband works with the kitchen staff in the same way. The food was ABSOLUTELY DELICIOUS. I had BBQ pork ribs and Kendall had a marinated steak sandwich. Our entire lunch with 2 beers was 140,000 Dong which is about $8.75. I dare Nick to do more with less.

After lunch we went to the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum complex and also saw his Presidential Place and Museum. These were all things that you have to go see while you are here but were not all that interesting to me.

Mausoleum and Ho's house on stilts

Next we headed to the Army Museum where all of the US Army tank and Air Force planes that the North Vietnamese captured are on display. It was pretty weird to see signs heralding the capture of US Military soldiers and their guns, missile launchers, and planes.

We kept with the Vietnam war theme by going to the Hoa Loa Prison, also know as the Hanoi Hilton, where the US pilots who were shot down over Hanoi were kept as prisoners of war. This was probably the most interesting stop of the day for me because of the propaganda on display. The prison was first used by the French colonists to keep Vietnamese political prisoners. All of the museum displays tell stories about how tortuous the French were to the Vietnamese prisoners and how poor the prison facilities were horrendous. However, the same displays depict the treatment of the US POWs as kind and the facilities as comfortable. I am not sure what to believe.

Finally, we made a stop at the St. Joseph Cathedral. 10 percent of Hanoi's population is Catholic and the Cathedral was a like being transported back to medieval Europe; in stark contrast to all of the pagodas we have been seeing.

By this time it was about 4:30 and we were about ready for a break so we told our driver that we wanted to head back towards the hotel. He recommended we make one final stop at the Ngoc Son Temple which is located in the middle of Hoan Kiem Lake just near our hotel. It sounded good to us so again off we went.

Up to this point we had really had a wonderful day. All highlights really. The following events came fast and hard.

On our way to the Ngoc Son Temple our cyclo driver was pulled over. We aren't really sure why. He stopped and got off, leaving us sitting alone on the side of a pretty busy road. He was gone for about 10 minutes. We probably should have just got up and left, but at this point we still liked the guy. He had been a great driver all day. He came back and told us he had gotten a ticket for 1 million Dong (about $80 USD) and was obviously pretty pissed.

He took us just around the corner to our last stop and I offered to pay him for the day. I figured the going rate should have probably been about 150,000 Dong but felt bad for the guy because he had just gotten the ticket so thought I would pay about 200,000 Dong ($10 - $12 USD) for all that we had done. He asked for $200 USD. This is where I lost it.

I don't know if the guy thought we were idiots or if he was just really mad about the ticket. I sat and argued in the street with him for about 15 minutes. He went quickly from $200 to $100 and then not as fast to $50 and then to $4o. I told him that I did not have that much and needed to go to an ATM. I figured I would take out 300,000 Dong and work my way down to that.

The nearest ATM was just a few yards away and I told him to follow me there. I put my card in, typed in my PIN and the machine went black. It had lost power momentarily and started to reboot. Some DOS screens came up and then the Windows NT login but my card never got ejected. So, my card was now stuck inside a random ATM in the middle of Hanoi. Quickly, people started to gather as I banged on the machine to try to get my card back. Luckily, the shop that the ATM was protruding from called someone at the bank and they came in about 10 minutes. They were able to open the machine and retrieve my card. After we filled out some paper work with the bank man we were back to haggling with the cyclo driver. At the same time I am trying to not even think about the fact that my bank account could very well be drained at any second. (luckily all the money is still there today)

By now he had found some friends to help him and was pretending he did not speak English. It was clear that my offer of 300,000 was a fair because some of the other cyclo drivers in the area were kind of looking at me like "I would have taken you for twice as long for that price." We sat and argued for a few more minutes before Kendall started to get tired of it all and I took out another 80,000 I had in small bills, shoved it all in his hands and walked off before he could count it. So we ended up paying about $23 instead of the $8 - $12 it should have been.

I guess I can only be grateful we didn't have to pay $200 and I didn't loose our ATM card in the process.

We had an afternoon break after the chaos and then headed out for dinner. We ate at another great spot recommended by Lonely Planet and again ate for less than $10.

In all, we had an excellent day with a few learning experiences. First, always negotiate a price before you ride. And second, stick to ATMs that don't look like they could "reboot" at any minute.

We are just about to head to dinner on day 2 so we will update more later...

Hong Kong Wrap Up

On our second full day in Hong Kong we decided we should go see the Tian Tan Buddha, the largest seated outdoor Buddha in the world. He is seated out on Lantau Island which is just Northwest of the city, near the airport. After taking the Metro to its last stop you have to get on the Ngong Ping 360 cable car which takes you to the village of Ngong Ping where the Buddha sits. The cable car was just opened in September of last year and is very impressive, however the weather was pretty bad when we rode up and so it was hard to see much of anything. Also, it was about 50 degrees at the top and I was only wearing a short sleeve shirt.

Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car

In the Ngong Ping village we watched a video about how Siddhartha became the Buddha and then headed up the 268 steps to the lotus perch where the "big Buddha" sits. The weather was still not cooperating so we only stayed for a few minutes before we decided to take the cable car back down. On our way down, the weather got marginally better and the views were pretty amazing. I can only imagine how great of a sight it would be in clear skies.

Tian Tan Buddha and Ngong Ping 360 Cable Car

From the Buddha we headed back to HK island to ride the worlds longest (800 meters) escalator and then took a taxi to the top of Victoria Peak, which overlooks all of Hong Kong. Thankfully the weather on this side of town was much better and the views were amazing.

Worlds Longest Escalator

Views from The Peak

We took the Peak Tram back down to Central and then headed back to Sam's for my second fitting. They had my two shirts made and did the final fittings on my tux, suit, and pants. I really hope they come out well.

My new shirt and tux jacket

For dinner we went to the SOHO (South of Hollywood Street) area of Central HK and ate at a Mexican food joint that was packed with expats and tourists. The most interesting thing about HK is the food. It really is an international city with food choices from all over the world. For every Chinese or Japanese food restaurant you see there are probably two Italian, French, Mexican, or Thai places.

After dinner, we headed home to pack for our trip to Hanoi the next day. More to come on Hanoi shortly.

Slow Connection

We are in Hanoi but the slow Internet connection at our hotel is making it difficult to post. I have updated the travel stats and am in the process of trying to get some sort of poll for the "comment of the week" contest up. It's early here but the street noise through our "sound proof windows" is almost impossible to sleep through.

Upgraded in Hong Kong

I absolutely love Hong Kong. What an upgrade from Taipei, not that I hated Taipei, I just really like Hong Kong. Yesterday, (Jan. 21) Will and I headed out to take on this big city. We were a little disappointed with the weather. It was pretty foggy, which we had heard is not because of the weather but because of the pollution that comes from the factories in mainland China. Our first stop was to head over to the Kowloon side and check out some of the museums. The Hong Kong museum of art had a nice collection and also made sure to be kid friendly by having art stations for the kids. I really enjoyed this.

At the Museum of Art, The painting description below

From here we headed to try a Dim Sum Lunch. We wanted to do it pretty much to say we tried it and it was something that I probably wont try again. We were seated in the restaurant and then all of a sudden tons of different waitresses were walking around with all of these different little appetizers. We started taking what looked good to us and then we looked around to see how the other tables were ordering and realized that we were supposed to fill out this little menu, like a sushi menu, with the different dim sum options. We went for what looked safe and Will decided to be adventurous and try dim sum animals, and he picked the marshmallow rabbit. When our food was delivered we couldn't help and laugh at the little marshmallow bunnies that resembled something you'd get on Easter morning, like those little cheeps things. After lunch we went to the Museum of Space and again it was very kid friendly. If Will had been about a foot shorter and 75 pounds lighter he would have been in heaven.

The museums kind of wore us out so we headed to our hotel to take a nap and then head out about 30 minutes outside of Hong Kong to the Stanley Market. To get out to Stanley there are double decker buses that head out every 10 minutes. We hopped on and headed to the top, front row. What a cool experience. After a few minutes the hustle and bustle of people of the large city turned into mountains above beaches. It was amazing that you could just head a few minutes out of town and feel like you were in a completely new city. The Stanley market was unbelievable. It had everything you could imagine and some of the coolest art I've ever seen. I wanted to buy everything. I decided then and there that I will have to return to Hong Kong for a shopping trip... Any one wannna join??? The Stanley area also had a lot of great restaurants and bars right on the water. We hunkered into this pub Smuggler's Inn where we were surrounded by some Australians, Europeans, and very few Asians. It was just the kind of place that made us feel at home.

Smuggler's Inn, Stanley

Today was a pretty full day as well. We woke up and were again disappointed by the weather, but were optimistic that it would get sunny. We headed back over to Kowloon because Will had decided that he was going to get a custom suit made. We got off the subway and were immediately swarmed with Indian men trying to tailor suits for Will. Luckily he had heard from some people to go this place called Sam's. We found it and inside we saw why this place had been recommended. It's a tiny little shop and on all of the walls are pictures of Kings and Queens, Presidents, Celebrities, and athletes with this guy Sam. I guess he makes clothes for people all over the world. So Will picked out what he wanted and when he gets home to start work he will have some nice new custom clothes.

When we came out of Sam's we noticed that the weather was getting better so we decided to take the Star Ferry across Kowloon Bay. I have to tell all of you girls who are reading there is SO much shopping here. To get to the ferry station you have to go through an AMAZING mall which was so tempting. I was just itching to shop. And when we got off on the other side we were fed into another AMAZING mall. It was just cruel.

View of Hong Kong Island from the ferry

Tonight, after Will had his first suit fitting, we went to this really cool sushi place, Genki Sushi. It looks kind of like a diner with a big circular bar around 2 cooks in the middle. Around the the bar was a conveyor belt with food passing in front of you, and on this conveyor belt was all of these different kinds of sushi on certain colored plates to mark how much they cost. It was so cool. From there we headed to the harbour, on the Kowloon side to see the Symphony of Lights they do every night on their buildings. It's every night at 8 and actually really cool. Will videotaped most of it and I'm sure he will be posting it on the blog at some point. I couldn't believe that someone was clever enough to turn there already incredible skyline into a nightly show. Genius

And then it was back to the night markets. These are a huge deal here and Will absolutely loves them. We walked up and down ladies market and it was a little bit overwhelming. Think Canal Street times 100. We also walked down this street called sporting/athletic goods street and all we could think about was how Price would have been in heaven. I've never seen more Nikes in my life. I mean you could get any brand and style you could imagine. It was very cool.

After our long day we are back about to go to bed. I hope all of ya'll have as good of a Monday as we did.

Taipei: An Overview

Although we have moved on Hong Kong and will update you on the happenings here shortly, I wanted to upload some pictures and a video that we took back in Taipei but forgot to blog about.

Overall, Taipei is not really I city I would put in my top 5 or probably even 10 places I want to return. Two full days was plenty of time to stay and you could probably get in most of the sights in one, although there are two cool night markets so two nights is best.

You have seen pictures of our first day, when we went to Taipei 101, SYS Memorial Hall, Lungshan Temple, and Snake Alley. Those are all must sees in Taipei. On our second day we headed out to Taipei Zoo for the morning. It was really nothing special. Another must see however is Chiang Kai-shek (CKS) Memorial Hall. This massive complex, consisting of a huge entry gate, two annex buildings similar in size to SYS Memorial Hall, and the main hall with a statue of CKS inside.

There as a guard at either side of CKS and we just happened to be there during the changing of the guard. I took some good video but our connection at this hotel is too slow to upload it. I will try again when we move hotels.

After an afternoon break, we went out at night to the Grand Hotel, which is up on a hill on the north end of the city and has a great view of downtown and Taipei 101. The pictures are not very good because it was a little rainy and hazy but I will post them anyway.

From the Grand we headed over to the Shilin Night Market for dinner and entertainment. We bought some really good pork dumpling/dough ball things and a chicken teriyaki on a stick and then tried to sit at a small table to eat them. When we were told we couldn't sit where we were, a little man on a stool said in English (not very common in Taipei) "you can sit here if you want," and pulled out two more little stools for us to sit on. It turns out this man, who looked about 75, was a fortune teller who had lived in San Fransisco for a while and spoke perfect English. We ate on his stools and talked to him for a while before he showed us to a stand that had a sweet pea and soy tofu soup. I thought it was really good and Kendall hated it.

Now back to Kendall....