To sum up the past two days: here I was aboard a magic swirling ship..
And I'm sick! I view some sort of upper-resipitory gunkcous. It's the same thing that Todd my fellow teacher had a week ago, so I think I got it from him.
Right now it's two o clock in the morning and I haven't been able to sleep. It smells like a gasoline chamber in my room and I find it hard to breathe. I've opened the window and affixed the curtain so bugs can't get in.
My room on board this junk boat is way better than my hotel room was. My shower is separate, there's more space, wall plugs to plug things in at - it's great!
So is my tour. Go figure that out of the 15 people on the tour, the only other sole traveler is a person about my age who knows one of my friends from college - and just sent his sister a postcard! Small world! She reminds me a lot of Emmy in many ways too which is comforting.
I felt great right from the start of this tour: it's filled with couples of varying ages from all over. They come from Columbia, Belgium, Germany and the us. I enjoy talking to the people from Belgium - cause I can practice my French, which of course they compliment!
Right now it's fifteen minutes until breakfast. My guide is outside my door repeating good morning. No one can say my name here..
The weather is good. They cancelled the tour before ours because of inclement conditions.
The people on the tour are great and interesting to talk to: all European, two other psychologists, I've been speaking french too. The greatest part is that I have a travel companion - a girl 26 years old who quit her job and is then going back to grad school who is good friends with the sister of one of my friends. Small world!
Today our tour broke off from the typical halong bay tour and I definitely saw what I would consider the most beautiful place I've seen - cat ba national park on cat ba island. We rode bikes where there were no tourists and was just this sidewalkway going into the island hills to a village of 400. There are monkeys, giant cuddledish, squid, birds, lost goats, and water buffalo. It's an adventure. We've been biking, hiking, swimming and kayaking the past two days. The only downside is that last night which we spent on a boat, it smelled a little bit like the gas generator!
I am very glad I came to the north of Vietnam because it's much different here and more calm. I do have a small head cold that I'd like to get over within the next day. Other than that, things are going pretty well.
Yesterday while on board our boat just before our swimming hour, I noticed something in the water.. What's that? It was the biggest freaking jellyfish I've ever seen! Maybe the size of 4 or five feet! Whew it was scary. A bad thing to point of to our group before swimming - hey, wanna get poisoned?
When others saw me diving into the water though, they jumped right in. Today our watering whole was definitely one of the most beautiful places I'd seen. Maybe equal to st johns in the caribeen. Crystal waters, bright green, clear beach that we just found on a cove, so salty you can almost jus float there... Ahh infinite bliss.
Prior to our swimming adventure, we had a kayaking adventure. Usually out and about I'm the one to push people. Ohhh no go just a little bit more! Today, not the case. I was ready to turn back and call it quits but my boatmate convinced me to encircle this island with her to see if our dock was on the other side. Indeed it was! But first we had to pinpoint which dock was ours from a choice of quite a few!
We got in twenty minutes early despite our wavy open-seas paddling, adventure some sting ray and bird viewings and uncharted navigation plan. The columbians however, did not. They were lost out there for over an hour, trying to remember which Island they went around.
Lovely followers this will be a near- final post. Wish me good health! Tchus.
Get well soon! The North sure is different from the South, eh? Not too different from the divided US states.
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