But to get here… man, what a trip!

Bangkok, Monday evening 7:30pm:

We ate our final meal in Bangkok for dinner on Monday.  We had about a day and a half in the city which we filled up with eating at delicious restaurants, shopping, getting a haircut for Andrew, and watching Harry Potter.  We really tried to squeeze in as much as possible before leaving the hotel for the airport at 10:30pm!  Our flight left Bangkok around 1am on Tuesday morning.

Seoul, Tuesday morning 9am:

We made it to Seoul by around 9am, and my auntie picked us up at the airport so that we could eat lunch with her. We decided to go into Sinchon, which is the area near Ewha Woman’s University (I studied abroad there for 1 year).  We walked around, enjoyed the shops, ate a ton of delicious Korean food, and went to Artbox.  Artbox is a stationary store full of cute stuff and while I resisted the temptation to purchase one of every notebook, I did get a few notebooks for myself.

By 2:30pm we were back at the Incheon airport for the longest leg of our flight, Seoul to Los Angeles.  HALLELUJAH we had exit row seats so poor Andrew wasn’t totally squashed.  Unfortunately it was also where the lavatories were located so people were always coming and going.  Andrew said to me that some people would come to the exit row just to stretch their legs, which he claimed to be a gross violation of safety procedures.  “If they stayed too long,” he said, “I would give them the stink eye.”  Yup.

Los Angeles, Tuesday noon:

Yes, thanks to the miracle of the international date line, Andrew and I managed to get from Seoul to Los Angeles in negative four hours. So, we got to spend another Tuesday with another branch of my family!

My mom picked us up from LAX and we ate In’n'Out hamburgers for lunch.  Then, we took naps while my mom and grandma did our laundry (“Eew!” my mom exclaimed upon seeing our dirty clothes).  For dinner we ate fish tacos at a local Mexican joint and then it was off to the airport again for another redeye, our final leg of our journey and the final act of our travels.

Boston, Wednesday morning 7am:

Home.  Despite a yowling cat behind our seats, we slept a little bit and then spent the final few hours of the flight waiting to land in our home city of Boston.  We have lived here a long time, since 2002!  Which means it has been 7 years for Andrew and 6 years for me, thanks to the one year break in Seoul.  And now we are guaranteed to stay for another 4 years, possibly longer.

We took the silver line to South Station and then the red line to Cambridge.  Coming home is weird because it is so comfortable and familiar, so it feels like you haven’t gone anywhere at all. All the time that we spent out of the country seemed kind of like a dream because, hey, I am so used to passing MGH and taking the bridge over to Kendall that I might as well have been in Boston the day before coming back.

Anyways, once we got to Cambridge I got keys to the new place and we went in for the first time.  We dumped our bags, called our moms, met my brother, and then went to eat breakfast in Somerville, another place I love so much.  A real American breakfast with unlimited coffee – can’t beat that.  Andrew made it until 2pm before crashing, and I made it until 6pm, just long enough to see Julie.

Final thoughts.

People like to ask us what our favorite was in the whole trip.  I think for both of us, Hanoi and Gili Air are the highlights.  Hanoi is such a great eating city and full of charm.  And Gili Air was just a magical place where we really lost all sense of our worries.  There are so many people that I know who could use 2 weeks at Gili Air.  If Andrew and I were going to take a monthlong vacation for total relaxation, we would go back to Gili Air in a heartbeat.

Otherwise, I feel so happy and appreciative that we had this chance to travel together and spend time in Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Indonesia.  Of course it is an awesome part of the world, but I think more than that I feel lucky to be able to spend 10 weeks with Andrew, just the two us.  Traveling is stressful and chaotic but we made it together and there were no major, or even minor, relationship meltdowns.  I think we are both excited to start this next adventure together.  College and first job are behind, and we are looking forward to becoming professionals in the medical and legal fields.  Soon we will be grownups!

Here is a farewell, and thanks for following us on our blog!

Kop koon ka (Thank you, Thai)

Com on (Thank you, Vietnamese)

Tarimah kasi (Thank you, Bahasa Indonesian)

and finally, something that I hope is true for you and me…

SAMPAI JUMPA NANTI!!!

(See you later, Bahasa Indonesian)

July 3rd:  Menjangan Island, Bali

We took a daytrip from Lovina out to the national park on the westernmost point in Bali.  The snorkelling was amazing.  There were so many schools of wild, colorful, and exotic fish, and the coral wall itself was a huge vertical drop into the deep abyss of ocean.  From the beach, the water was two colors: a stunning aquamarine and then a deeper, darker blue.  The darker blue started where the coral shelf went completely vertical, and the water temperature changed as well from very warm to cool.  I really enjoyed swimming just beyond the wall because it felt as if I were hovering above an interminable drop.  Of course the ocean bottom was underneath, somewhere, but I couldn’t see it.

July 4 – July 17: Gili Air, Lombok

On July 4th Andrew and I took a long bus ride and then a long ferry ride to Gili Air, a tiny island off the coast of Bali’s neighbor, Lombok.  Here is some information about Gili Air… it takes about 2 hours to walk around, there is no motorized traffic on the island, and there are no dogs (minus one who someone has apparently smuggled onto the island).  The entire island is fringed by a coral shelf and the sand is white and soft.

Andrew and I rented our own bungalow for the duration of our stay, which was fabulous and perfect and beautiful.  Our breakfast every morning was so generous and delicious: a pot of coffee/tea each, a fruit plate each (none of that nasty papaya, either), and eggs/toasted sandwich/pancake.

After breakfast (which we could eat anytime between 7am and noon) we would either hang out and read on our bungalow’s porch or we would go snorkelling, which required walking about 80 meters from our porch to the sea.  Twice we went on snorkelling boat trips, which involves boating to snorkelling sites on the two other Gili Islands, and a couple of times we went fishing.  We would eat lunch whenever we felt like, then rest on our bungalow porch or nap, and maybe if we felt ambitious we would walk to the northern end of the island to catch the sunset.  For dinner we would just walk up and down the island’s main strip (which is just a handful of simple open air restaurants) and check out what kind of fresh fish the different places had to offer.  We would pick out what looked best and then eat our grilled fish on a platform on the beach.  Tough life I know!!!

There was no news, no television, no motorbikes, no dogs barking (or fear of getting rabies from mangy mutts), no worries. Maybe it sounds boring but it was not boring at all.  The bookshelf at our bungalows seemed to cycle pretty frequently so there were always fresh books to read, and really, who gets tired of enjoying tropical beauty?  The staff at the bungalows and the restaurants were all so friendly and nice, and there weren’t hordes of tourists.

Some true highlights of Gili Air were the turtles and the fishing.

Almost every time that Andrew and I went snorkelling, we saw giant sea turtles.  They were so stinking cute and beautiful.  Sometimes they would notice us and just swim away really quickly, but other times they let Andrew and me shadow them as they swam up and down over the coral.  Once, Andrew and I saw a turtle swimming not near the surface as if it were about to breathe, nor on the bottom of the ocean as if it were looking for food, but rather just about 45 feet down in the great blue nothing. It made me think that it was flying because it was just set on big blue background.

We also tried a lot of fishing.  Once we went out at night and Andrew tried his hand at harpoon fishing, or speargun fishing.  I snapped a picture which I will surely upload at some point.  It’s of Andrew treading the water with a flashlight hanging around his neck, snorkel mask on, and speargun in hand.  Unfortunately that night was nearly a full moon which we would later learn is a bad time for nighttime spearfishing.  No wonder Andrew couldn’t find anything to shoot!!

He tried a few times during the day as well, just borrowing the speargun from the bungalows, but the fish were too fast.

We finally had better luck with some line fishing.  We caught a red grouper and some sort of silver fish.  Anyways the staff at our bungalows cooked the two fish for us and they were so delicious.

So yea that sums up Gili Air.   When it finally came time to return to Bali in preparation for our departure… I nearly cried.

July 17-19:  Kuta, Bali

Now we are in Kuta which we just wanted to see for ourselves, as it comes with a sort of reputation for being brash and obnxious and noisy and kind of trashy.  After two weeks in peaceful Gili Air I aminclined to agree.  Of course, Kuta does have a lot more amenities like tv and aircon and freezers full of ice cream and so forth, but I could do without the Hard Rock Hotel and all the fat people.  Today we saw Starbucks, McDonald’s, a Coffee Bean, A&W fast food place and the list goes on.  Geez, there isn’t even a McDonald’s in Harvard Square!!

So here is the plan going forward- fly to Bangkok for some last good Thai food and possibly shopping, then go home.  It is slightly depressing but I am reminding myself of all of the great things that are waiting for me at home, like friends and family and medical school and Cambridge and cooking for myself and riding my bike and running along the Charles and the list goes on.

Ten weeks – it really flies.

Now we have something to eat for dinner

Contemplating

Unlike the Italian tourist, Andrew did not get peed on (phew!)

Kayaking around Halong Bay

Sorry for the gap in posting again.  Internet is more expensive and slower here in Indonesia, so we have been a lot less inclined to step into the internet cafes.  Also, the weather is perfect so it is easy to while away the day outdoors, unlike in Vietnam which could be so hot and “spicy” as Andrew says.

Our trip up Mount Batur was awesome.  We left the hotel at 2:30am and as promised, we were on our own private trip so it was just me and Andrew in a van with a driver and another woman.  Maybe she was his girlfriend and was there to keep him company while we trekked, or maybe her job really was just to hand us the breakfast sack before heading out.  No matter – we were on the trail before 3:30am.

Hiking in the dark is not something Andrew and I do at home.  We always plan our backpacking trips so that we get to camp before sunset.  I hate making camp and cooking and washing pots in the dark, and I think we both just love to hang out in the woods and tent as the sun sets.  But for Batur the goal is to get to the top before the sun comes up so that you can see it come over the island and the volcanoes to the east.  As you get higher and higher, you can look back over the trail and see the bobbing headlamps and flashlights snake around the mountain as the other hikers come up.  We were one of the first folks to the top so we had about an hour to wait before the sun’s rays started to peek over the horizon.  It was breathtaking.  We were also so fortunate because it was a clear morning and we could actually see all the way to Mount Rinjani, which is on the next island over and not even on Bali itself.

When the sun came up we got to eat boiled eggs and drank delicious hot tea.  Then the mountain monkeys started to come out and act all cute so that the people would feed them.  That’s another difference between hiking here and in New Hampshire – there are no monkeys in the White Mountains.

On the way down Andrew and I definitely had an adventure because it turns out that we had a rogue guide.  Instead of following the path with everyone else, we took an unused side path that cut down into the newest craters.  At one point we had to go “sand surfing” down the side of the volcano.  You step on the sand and your foot sinks and slides downwards so you leave these long, ski-like tracks across the fine volcanic sand.  At the bottom you have to shake out your shoes.  Anyways the guide kept asking us not to tell his boss because he wasn’t really supposed to take us.

Since then we have been in Lovina, which is on Bali’s north coast.  The truth is that the beach itself is not so great.  There is a lot of dead coral and the sand is pretty narrow.  Also there is some sort of orange film in places, which, according to a local fisherman is dolphin shit.  His words, truly.

The real beauty of Lovina lies some distance off the coast, past the slimy green coral, where the water is a perfect deep blue and the sea is calm.  Everyday in Lovina we have gone out boating in some shape or form.  On the first day, we went sailing.  We were walking up and down the beach and one of the local fisherman had his sail ready.  He said the wind was good, and he had no business, so didn’t we want to go sailing?  Yes!  It was great.  The wind was very good, and we just went back and forth in front of all the fishing villages in our little sailing boat.  We told the fisherman, Benny, we would come back the next day at 2pm for fishing.

We showed up a little early and slathered on the sunblock before heading out to start the tuna hunt.  Fishing for tuna is serious business – the hooks are huge.  There was a really, really huge hook about 3 feet long that Benny brought.  I really hoped that we would catch a giant tuna and then watch as Benny or his son clubbed the monster to death but sadly, it was not to be.  The tuna did not bite despite the numerous tuna catching techniques that we tried.  The coolest thing we tried was to use a kite.  Instead of a tail, Benny’s son strung a lure from the kite so that as the kite flew, it looked like a tiny fish was jumping across the surface of the water.  Andrew got to hold a massive fishing line attached to a fish decoy as we did circles in the open sea, but he wasn’t any luckier than the two fisherman.

Finally we reeled in all the tuna lures and then just dropped a line with lures and hooks into the ocean.  Benny pulled up the line a minute later and it was pretty amazing.  Lots of tiny fish just came up on a line and soon the bottom of our boat had some fish!  After sunsent we went back to the fishing village and Benny’s wife fried up the fish for us so we were able to eat what we caught.  I don’t know when I will eat fresher fish than that.

This morning we went dolphin watching at sunrise.  For the first hour it seemed like would never see any dolphins, and then a little group of dolphins started swimming to one side of our boat.  We just followed the dolphins as they swum out and Andrew got a bunch of good dolphin shots.  If you are a total dolphin skeptic as I was before this morning, you are probably thinking “Wow that is the lamest thing in the world.”  But even though the dolphins only surface for a second at a time, there is something so elegant and graceful about their shapes and the way that they glide through the water.  We also saw a jumping tuna which, on one hand sounds totally lame, but in the moment it feels as if time stops and you can’t look away from the shimmering silver tuna as it flies in and out of the perfect blue ocean.  These are the kind of moments I wish I could bottle up and bring home to my grandmother.  Just one perfect second.

Tomorrow Andrew and I are taking a snorkelling trip out to the westernmost tip of Bali, which will wrap things up for us here in Lovina.  From July 4 we have reserved a beach cottage on Gili Air, a tiny island where there is no motorized traffic or dogs.  We are spending two weeks in our cottage and it is possible that we will make no internet contact during that time.  So, this may be the last update until we make it back to Bali or even Bangkok.

The past few days have gone by really quickly here in Bali.  It is so easy to do nothing when the weather is perfect and the hotel you are staying at is so comfortable.  Basically we get up late, eat breakfast at the hotel, lounge, walk through the Monkey Forest to go to a cafe, relax some more, eat dinner, watch Wimbledon.  We went to a traditional dance one time which was lovely and we also had a spa afternoon.  Well… for me it was the afternoon at the spa but for Andrew it was just a neck and shoulder massage.  He skipped the flower bath and facial.

Tonight I think we will try to see another dance performance.  At 2am we will head out on a our own little private hiking expedition.  We will climb Mount Batur in the dark so that we can see the sun come up over the crater lake.  Originally we were planning on spending only a few days in Bali because we wanted to ferry over to the next island, Lombok, and climb the really tall volcano Mount Rinjani.

Instead we are climbing the itty bitty Mount Batur.  Why?  Because good old Rinjani decided to start being all active so no trekking allowed for the time being.  More time for Bali.  Shame.

A note on the food:  we are not such huge fans of Indonesian food as it turns out.  Also, it seems that there are far fewer restaurants that cater to locals, especially compared to Vietnam.  In Vietnam we almost always ate at places whose main clientele were Vietnamese.  Here we ate at one local place which is also popular with tourists because it serves the famous Balinese suckling pig.  But the other local restaurants we have seen… eh, not so sure they are place I would like to eat.  And like I said, we aren’t such big fans of the food to begin with.

After finding somewhere to stay, Andrew and I just collapsed on the bed and slept for several hours.  This despite being absolutely underfed and thirsty.  Finally we dragged ourselves out and got a bottle of water at a minimart and ate at the first restaurant we came across.  It was an expensive meal but something about getting served in a clean fancypants place makes you feel a little better when you are road weary.

Anyways, huge sticker shock here in Bali when it comes to accomodations.  For $20 we are staying someplace that is very clean but is very basic: fan with mosquito net.  No minifridge, no satellite tv, no air con.  In Hanoi we stayed in a place with aircon, minifridge, and cable tv for $16 a night.  Geez, I can’t even imagine staying in a place in Vietnam that didn’t have all three of those things!!  So far we have found one place for $50 that has air con and minifridge (can’t remember about the tv).  So now we are online and reading hotel reviews and trying to call places and figure out where we can move to for the next few days.  Also what is making things difficult is that it is currently high season in Bali and we have just been showing up and finding rooms as we need them rather than booking in advance… not such a great strategy here it seems.

Oh success!! Andrew has found a $43 room for the next two nights and is currently trying to convince them to pick us up from our current place.

The last few days have been really marvelous.  We took the night train from Sapa and spent the day recuperating in Hanoi.  Our hotel folks are very good – we got back from the train station around 6am but they opened an empty room for us to sleep and take a shower before heading out for breakfast while our room for the night was being cleaned.  Staying at places with friendly staff makes a really, really big difference and we have been pretty fortunate.

The next day, Friday, we started out for our Halong Bay cruise.  Halong Bay is such a beautiful, magical place.  The water is a sea emerald color, there are floating villages, and best of all, there are huge limestone karsts that rise like out of the sea like small mountains.  The food on the cruise was really really good – so much seafood of many varieties.  We also got to go swimming in the bay which was great because the water was so warm.  Andrew was very brave and jumped off the third story of the boat into the green water, yahooing and making a big splash and impressing everyone.  Twice he did that.  I jumped off of the first story which was plenty high for me.

The second day was lots of sea kayaking around the karsts and exploring lagoons and tiny coves.  When you do something like that, it feels so natural and normal because you are there in your same body with the same mind, but at the same time it feels like you are the set of some movie because the scenery is so unreal.

Instead of staying on the boat for the second night we stayed a resort on Cat Ba Island, probably the fanciest place that we will stay on our trip.  There was fresh fruit waiting for us in the room.  Too bad it was lychee, since everytime I have eaten fresh lychee I get a terrible stomachache.

Well… I decided that eating just ONE lychee would probably be alright.  Come on, how bad could ONE lychee be?  Not such a good idea… the taste of the first lychee was so delicious that I quickly gobbled up a few more.  Maybe I had 7 lychee altogether, which is not a whole lot of fruit.

Then the pain came and I couldn’t eat dinner.  I guess I learned my lesson, finally.

Today was a travel day, going from the resort to mainland by speedboat and then from the harbor city back to Hanoi.  We tried to eat bun cha for dinner but the restaurant was already closed, so we had bittet for the third time.  Andrew got a banh mi sandwich on the way back from bittet because he loves the banh mi and won’t be able to eat it in Hanoi for a long time, maybe forever.

That’s a tough thought.  Andrew has already told me that his “heart is very sad” about leaving Hanoi and Vietnam and the food and the banh mi and the noodles and the pho.  Maybe someday we will be able to return, but we have been saving for this trip for years and soon we will really be launched into the development portion of our careers.  The next major trip I take will probably be a honeymoon (maybe), and I have already dictated the destination (Paris). Tee hee hee.

www.flickr.com/photos/aj_bitto

The past few days have been an “emotional rollercoaster” for me as Andrew accurately pointed out yetserday.  Yes, an emotional rollercoaster as well as exhausting both psychologically and physically.

Saturday night Andrew and I took the night train from Hanoi to Lao Cai, a city which is only 3km from the Chinese border.  We got to the train station very early which meant hanging out on the curb and being stared at by the Vietnamese people.  One dude came and leg wrestled Andrew.  Leg wrestled, yes.  Like arm wrestling except with your calves.  That was interesting.  An older Vietnamese lady who spoke French but not English was also very attracted to us and kept asking us if we had made any babies (it was a very easy message to understand in any language).  Leg wrestling dude kept trying to talk to Andrew in Vietnamese so it was a very fruitful exchange as you can imagine.  It was just one more of countless examples of how attractive Andrew’s face is to the people in this country.  I think they are on to something because he has ENDLESS patience.  ENDLESS!  ENDLESS!  You cannot imagine how patient this man is!

We shared our sleeper cabin with a mother and her two daughters.  The mother’s English was excellent and the daughters were cute, so it wasn’t a problem to share with them.  I would not have been very comfortable sharing the cabin with any Vietnamese men so I was really grateful that it was three females.  I think that they were also grateful to be sharing with a young American couple and not Vietnamese men.

Getting off in Lao Cai was really where things have been the ugliest of anything we have seen on our trip.  Sapa, the mountain town from which hikes are generally based, is about 40km from Lao Cai so it is necessary to take a minibus from the train station.  We bought tickets with a company that we had heard of and got into the minibus.  You have to imagine the chaos at the Lao Cai train station at 6am – a parking lot full of beeping minibuses and taxis trying to convince people to buy a ride from them and not someone else.  Total madness trying to exit the lot, cars going anywhere there is even an inch of space.  So when a little bit of asphalt cleared up in front of our minibus, a taxi pulled in front.  This did not please the men associated with our minibus company and there were fighting words between them and the taxi driver.  The taxi driver did not back down, which was a very bad decision.

It was a bad decision because as soon as he inched up a little more, one of the men from our minibus company opened the taxi door, climbed into the taxi, and started to punch the driver over and over in the face.  It was horrible.  I wanted to throw up.  To see violence in a movie is one thing but in real life it is disgusting and awful and there is nothing glamorous about one man hurting another.  A crowd gathered and women were screaming.  A police officer looked away and kept dragging on this cigarette.  The French couple in our minibus were very curious about the action but Andrew and I were in the front seat with an excellent view and it was terrible, terrible. 

Finally our driver came back to the minibus and I thought he would start the ignition and back out, drive away from the awful thing in front of us but instead he grabbed some long metal poles and went to the other side of the taxi where the driver was struggling to get out and away from the man who was beating him.   Oh – maybe one of the worst moments of my life to see those metal spikes in the hands of the minibus driver and knowing that they were meant to be weapons.  At that point Andrew had figured out how to unlock the door and we got out and got our packs from the back of the van.  Well, that was the magic trick to get the violence to step down.  To  assault a man, nothing, but to lose customers – unacceptable.  So our driver came back (I do not think he ended up using his weapons) and the crowd dispersed and after a solemn 40km we were in Sapa, searching for the Handspan office and fighting our way through the touts of people asking us if we wanted to stay at their hotel.  When we made it to the Handspan agency I dropped our bags and cried to lady, “Please, help us.”  But it was alright, once we made it there to people that we could trust and who would take care of us for the next three days.  We took hot showers and ate a big breakfast and then we started our journey to Mount Fansipan, the highest point in Vietnam.

It was a truly luxury backpacking trip.  We had an excellent Vietnamese guide (he just floated up the mountain, it seemed) as well as three, yes THREE Hmong porters who also cooked huge meals for us.  The Hmong clothing is beautiful.  To me it looks Eastern European and to Andrew it seemed South American.  Anyways it is beautiful, though we did not take pictures of our Hmong porters since it could be viewed and rude and insensitive and I would not want to offend them, kind as they were to us. 

The first day was very short, 4 hours total from the drop off point to camp including a fabulous picnic lunch and breaks.  The second was quite long – 10 hours total from camp to the summit and back.  The third day was fast, maybe 2 hours of hiking back to the start.  On the second day we had to descend from the summit in a thunderstorm, which meant that the path turned into a fast flowing mountain stream, but it was fine and we were fine.  The food on the trip was very good.  Really, we feasted on the food that the Hmong porters cooked for us.  There was maybe 2-3 times more food that we could possibly eat.  What I really loved most about the trip though, was that we ate all the meals together with the guide and the porters, and it made me feel good that we used a travel agency that is known for paying their porters fairly.  Also I felt good knowing that our porters were eating the same food as us and that they also had more than enough to eat. 

One funny story is that on the morning of the climb, I went into the cooking area and I saw the Hmong woman cleaning something and part of me thought “Wow, that looks like a mouse” but then I thought “No, it is probably just some really weird kind of banana.”  (It was quite dark in the cooking area).  Later Andrew asked me if I had seen the mouse that they were going to roast and eat for breakfast.  So it was a mouse after all, ha.

All of the tour agencies use the phrase “mountain vanquisher” to describe people who summit Fansipan so we are MOUNTAIN VANQUISHERS now. 

After getting back from the mountain Andrew and I checked into a nice hotel room and showered and went to lunch.  On the way a lot of Hmong ladies tried to sell us stuff and we said we would look after lunch.  So, true to our word, we looked at their stuff and bought some jewelry at what seemed like fair prices.  Actually I do not mind the prices that we paid since we felt like we got interesting pieces of jewelry, but later we would find out that we overpaid, and who likes to overpay?  Well those three Hmong ladies went and told all their friends about those rich young Americans who paid this and this for the jewelry and who were staying at the Chau Long Hotel and wouldn’t you know a whole freaking crowd of Hmong ladies started to harass us (this is really the appropriate word, I think) and tell us how unfair it is that we bought jewelry from those three ladies and now shouldn’t we buy from them too so that they can be happy too and do you know how many babies are in the village and didn’t I see you first outside of the Chau Long Hotel so shouldn’t you buy from me?  And on and on it went as we tried to sit and enjoy our beers on the sidwalk.  It was really too much.  TOO MUCH!  And the grabbing, no one likes to be grabbed!  Andrew was ever patient (too patient, I think) and the Hmong ladies really believed he would crack and buy some of their tacky embroidered pillow cushion covers.  Finally I got up and said I wanted to go back to the hotel and the Hmong ladies were ever so pleased and started telling me that they would take Andrew back to the Hmong village to be their husband and that I have no more husband.  AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

OK maybe I should have been more gracious but I just came back from climbing the mountain and sleeping under bamboo and tarps for two nights so I was a little less patient than I might have otherwise been.  Back in the hotel room Andrew scolded me and said “Sophia, they keep asking us because they have no money!” 

Who knew I was dating some sort of angel.

Our final day in Hue was so long and exhausting.  We took a city tour which covered the citadel, a temple, three tombs, and a boat ride on the Perfume River.  It was the kind of day where Andrew was going through his pictures and asked me if photos from that same morning were actually from that morning.  “Was that this morning?” he asked.  And it was.  And it definitely felt like it had been some other day, maybe even in different week.

We took another magic airplane ride, this time from Hue to Hanoi.  Instead of a 17 hour bus ride or train ride, we opted for the plane which took 50 minutes and only cost $10-$15 more.  Not that we would have been able to book train tickets anyways, thanks to the school holiday.

Hanoi has been a really good eating city.  Here are some of the delicious things that we have consumed: cha ca (grilled fish), bun cha (noodles and grilled pork patties), bun bo (noodles with beef and broth), pho (no explanation needed), bittet (Vietnamese minute steak, kind of like cube steak).

Also, we have somehow found ourselves in Fanny every single afternoon in Hanoi.  Ah Fanny… a French inspired ice cream cafe near Hoan Kiem Lake.  Andrew has tried 4 different sundaes.  I have had a sundae in the shape of a bee as well as lots of coconut ice cream and once, I had something which I would call the “Julie special” since it involved both a crepe and coconut ice cream.  The Fanny in Saigon was undergoing renovations so we are catching up in a sense.

Some of the sights here in Hanoi are the Old Quarter, where our minihotel is located, and Hoan Kiem Lake, considered to be the heart of the city.  In the evening lots of Vietnamese people come out and walk/jog circles around the little lake (in New England it would surely be called a pond but whatever).  I am not sure how I would enjoy jogging around Hoan Kiem since the smog is so terrible that you feel like you are walking through a giant cloud all the time.

We have also visited the Temple of Literature and the Ho Chi Minh Mausoleum which is a very strange experience indeed.  Every day thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of people line up to walk past the embalmed body of Ho Chi Minh.  Andrew pointed out that he may be mostly wax and makeup by this point but yea, strange.  I thought it was strange a few years ago and this second time I think it was even stranger since I am a little more grown up and aware of how creepy it is to have your dead body on display.

Tonight Andrew and I are taking a night train up to Lao Cai, 3 km from the Chinese border.  When we arrive we will take a bus to Sapa, a mountain town.  I think the next few days will be really awesome because we will be spending two nights camping on Fansipan, the tallest mountain in Vietnam.  We have hired a guide and a porter so it will be very much luxury backpacking.  There’s a stash of snickers bars and cookies at the ready in case we need extra calories.

After coming back from the mountains in 5 nights, Andrew and I will have a single night in Hanoi before heading off to Halong Bay where we will sleep on a boat for one night and then spend the following day in sea kayaks.  We booked one night in a luxury resort and then back to Hanoi for one final night before jetting back to Bangkok and catching a flight to Bali.