After lunch by Hoan Kiem Lake, we poked around Hanoi a bit until the main feature of the day: the water puppet show. Highly recommended by our hotel clerk (and, I hear, strongly encouraged by Aunt Mary), the show was certainly interesting and endlessly entertaining. The program consisted of a live instrumental group who played traditional Vietnamese music while a series of puppet acts paraded through an ornately decorated pool scene. This one is called "Agriculture."
Since we had an early morning departure to Halong Bay, UM and I just had a quick dinnerafter the show and then walked back to our hotel, Viet Anh. The next morning, we met the rest of our tour group at Handspan at 7:45 am (I was a bundle of sunshine, I'm sure Uncle Michael can vouch for that) and boarded a minibus to the bay. The two hour drive was fascinating - a blur of brilliant emerald countryside coupled with French-inspired architecture in every color of the rainbow.
Halong Bay itself was another visual gem, easily living up to its photographic hype. Even though our first afternoon on the boat was a bit hazy, the scenery was still breathtaking. As an added bonus, the bay is filled with enormous jellyfish which I tried many times - in vain - to photograph, both awed and terrified by their immensity. Ok, maybe they're not THAT huge, but they were certainly much bigger than any I'd ever seen. After boarding, we had lunch (mostly seafood, which I ate!), cruised the bay in our junk and toured a surprisingly large cave on one of the islands.
The cave tour was followed by a cool-down on the boat, then a trip to a small beach where we had an hour to sunbathe and take a dip in the Gulf of Tonkin. Fresh off a week in Ko Samui and unable to locate my bathing suit bottom, I opted not to swim and instead was in charge of procuring snacks from the vendors on the beach. As I peered around the small concession area, I felt a sharp sting on my calf. When I looked down, I saw a small dog scurrying away and teeth imprints in my leg.
Naturally, my first instinct was to get a little panicky. During my pre-travel consultation at UW, the doctor had warned me about animal bites and instilled in me some good self-protective fear of foreign dogs. In Thailand when Keitlyn had attemped (and failed) to make friends with the disdainful, indifferent canines we encountered, I had always maintained a safe distance, admiring their snootiness from afar. Now I was on a relatively remote beach in Vietnam, bitten out of the blue by a dog I hadn't even seen until it was retreating from its mid-afternoon snack - my leg. As I rinsed my wound, Uncle Michael went and scoped out the little beast. Fortunately, she looked extremely healthy (not even foaming at the mouth a little bit) and, as our guide Canh informed me, she serves as the watchdog for the family who runs the snack stand. Apparently I came a little too close (to the area where they sold their goods?).
Since there wasn't much we could do that night, I relaxed with a cocktail on the boat and planned to contact a doctor either on Cat Ba the next day or when we returned to Hanoi. The night was actually quite enjoyable, and it helped that we shared our junk with a group of fun, friendly fellow tourers - one Australian couple, Helen and Ollie, who had an adorable daughter named Priya, and a Tasmanian couple, Annie and Andrew, who were the first people from "Tazzy" I'd ever met. I had some really interesting conversations with our group, and a couple funny cultural confusions. For example, Helen said that her daughter was going to need a "nappy," which I took to mean a short period of time spent sleeping. I said that I'd like a nappy too, and Helen reacted quite oddly. I eventually figured out it's because "nappy" means "diaper" in Australia. Well-done, Laura. This is a picture of Ollie and Priya on the top deck of our boat.
Thankfully, the next day was much, much better! I started off the morning with a Vietnamese lesson from Canh, our Handspan guide who was awesome - he was a patient teacher, had a great sense of humor (or at least pretended to laugh at my jokes) and he made the trip a lot of fun. As many of you know, I love learning languages so this was definitely a highlight of my trip! Plus, the scenery wasn't too shabby.
Canh even taught me how to say "A dog bit me on the beach" in Vietnamese. However, when I tried to repeat it, I mispronounced the word for dog. Polite as he was, Canh let me finish my sentence before informing me that most of the sentence was very good.. but I had actually said "a buffalo bit me on the beach" instead.
That afternoon we went kayaking, a wonderful change of pace from the engine-powered, impersonal feeling of touring the bay in a junk. Although Uncle Michael and I stumbled upon an initial rough patch with our rudder, we soon were paddling in tandem funyak harmony, complete with photo shoots in various scenic locales.
That night we stayed in a swanky resort on Cat Ba, much nicer than we had expected. Naturally, since we had fancy digs, Uncle Michael and I got out of there as soon as possible and hopped a couple motos to the national park for a hike.
The hike was short, steep and sweaty, although mercifully devoid of bugs. The view from the top was incredible, surrounded by lush green hills and overlooking a small cluster of colorful houses in the valley below. There was a rickety old tower at the peak that, of course, Uncle Michael decided to climb. Not surprisingly, I stayed below and snapped this shot.
That afternoon we caught a boat to Haiphong and bussed back to Hanoi where we crashed at the Viet Anh hotel for one more night. Since we had a 6am flight to Dalat the next day, our stay was short but not especially sweet, as much of it was spent scurrying around to various Hanoi medical clinics in hopes of finding me the first of many post-exposure rabies shots. Since it was 630 on a Saturday night, we were skeptical about our chances.
Our first stop was Viet Duc Hospital, an emergency clinic recommended by the Lonely Planet guide who claimed that the doctors spoke English, French and German. As soon as we pulled up, we had a hunch this was not true. As we entered the hospital, we saw an open room of cots filled with black-eyed patients and tired attendants clutching syringes and bags of liquid. After a few minutes of hesitantly pondering our next move, UM and I pushed to a small desk, phrase book in hand with the word "rabies" circled in dark pen. The nurse on duty immediately jumped up and asked us in broken English to follow her to the next room, where she quickly spoke to a few of her fellow staff. She then wrote down for us an address and pointed to the door, nodding when I asked if we needed a taxi to get there.
We hailed a cab and drove to the clinic, but when we pulled up the gate was closed and the lights dim. Realizing this was not exactly what we had hoped for, we defeatedly asked the driver to take us back to Viet Anh to consider our next move. I phoned the US Embassy, who referred us to the SOS International Clinic. Their receptionist told me they were open 24 hours and could administer the vaccine, so we again hopped in a cab and drove to SOS, which, frustratingly enough, was only a few blocks from Viet Duc. However, SOS was well-lit, smelled like rubbing alcohol and was devoid of the triage nightmare at Viet Duc. Feeling comforted and reassured, I began to relax a little as we spoke to the friendly, attentive doctor on call - but only until he informed us that they had just run out of the shot I needed and I would have to go to the French Hospital instead.
Yet another cab ride later, UM and I pulled up to L'Hopital Francais de Hanoi, where I filled out a few sheets of multi-lingual paperwork and anxiously awaited my upcoming series of shots. Uncle Michael had warned me the immunoglobulin would hurt quite a bit, and he was absoutely correct about that. As the nurse began loading her sterile little syringes of pain, I started breathing heavily and noticeably fidgeting. I had to get two shots of the vaccine - one in my arm, and the other in my behind, which, if it weren't humiliating enough already, was certainly made worse by my lovely tan lines from Ko Samui. Then came the immunoglobulin - three shots around the bite in my leg that left me clutching the cot with white knuckles and whimpering.
After my mini-horror, Uncle Michael told me he was very proud of me and treated me to a sandwich and a couple Coca Cola Lights. Then we hit the hay with an early morning wakeup (345 am!) and flew to Dalat, where I am now. Tomorrow we drive to Saigon and Tuesday night at 10pm I head to the airport to fly home! Sorry this blog was incredibly long, I've had a big few days! But I'm having an absolutely amazing time in Vietnam and will be sad to say goodbye.
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