(no subject)
Just a quick update...
Still in Hanoi. Got absolutely soaked today in a sudden rainstorm on a motorbike back from the museum and despite hat, shawl and poncho am still mildly sodden two hours later and may have trench foot. But the hilarity my staggeringly wet arrival in the cafe brought to the good people in Hang Hanh, I feel, made it all worthwhile.
We're just about to head off to Sa Pa, which is a hilly area in Northern Vietnam with lots of trekking, swimming in waterfalls, colourful tribal life, etc. We spent three days last week on a tour to Ha Long Bay in the Northeast which has thousands of limestone islands in this huge bay. It was amazing. And I swam in the sea! In the sea! There are sharks in there, people! Our tour group were an excellent bunch (including an Australian doctor and his wife, the man who runs finance for Tesco somewhere in Asia, and two Norwegian vet students) and we got on really well.
On the first night it looked like they were all going to bed early and we were quite annoyed by this because we hadn't had much luck finding Western nightlife in Hanoi and we'd had hopes the tour might offer us such. So I curled up with a book in the main bit of the boat but then people began to gather and very shortly afterward large-scale drinking began. It was hilarious, and all the better for being on a boat in the middle of the sea.
And then I went to my room to get something and when I came back some of the others were swimming off the back of the boat and the water seemed to be glowing around them which was apparently phosphoresence in action. The people in the water kept talking about glitter and seemed amazed out of all proportion to what we could see and I wasn't really keen on getting wet and having to wash my hair again but then I caught myself on and thought, how often am I going to get the chance to glitter? So I got changed and jumped in and oh, my god.
It was amazing. I can't really describe it if you haven't seen it yourself. Every time we moved green glittery stars appeared in the water where we'd been. I was moving my fingers like I was playing piano and the glitter was dancing in and out of them and it was so, so beautiful. It was like at the end of Ferngully where everywhere she moves flowers appear, except with little dancing fairies. (My favourite movement was a balletic arm-swoop in slow motion.) I could have stayed in forever if I hadn't heard Blonde Claire's voice in my head saying that sharks feed at night and slowly freaked myself out. It was so peaceful, though. And the scenery was incredible. Everyone should go to Ha Long Bay. Go today.
Apart from that we've not been up to too much. Typical Hanoi-y things -- the water puppets, the museums, etc. We keep sleeping in late and then not getting things done and telling ourselves we'll do it tomorrow and then sleeping in late like some sort of Vietnamese Groundhog Day, but we seem to have broken it today and we're away off to Sa Pa tonight, so.
We did finally succeed in finding some nightlife -- we stayed in Funky Monkey so late one day last week thatthey'd actually switched off the lights round us, but the head bar guy wanted to find out about Bangkok from Amy's Lonely Planet so we got chatting to him and he was awesomely flamboyant and funny and when I said I was from Belfast he was like, "Belfast! What's the craic?" which was brilliantly surreal. The next time we went in we were all dressed up for going out and I was in my rocking new dress and when he saw us he was like "What's the craic! Stylish!" with hand gestures and everything. It was great. And we found a place that doesn't play shit dancey trancey music and had an awesome time there on Saturday. We even did the rhumba, quite well, quite a lot. That's right, we're cool. Oh! And we found where the Vietnamese go to ballroom dance, except they didn't rhumba properly and they never played the merengue, so we didn't have anything to offer, which was sad. Never mind.
Also, Vietnamese djs do not appear to understand the concept of requests. Some of them become irate.
Anyway, that's what we've been up to so far. We really must get out of Hanoi, man. It's begun to feel like I've never lived anywhere else.
Still in Hanoi. Got absolutely soaked today in a sudden rainstorm on a motorbike back from the museum and despite hat, shawl and poncho am still mildly sodden two hours later and may have trench foot. But the hilarity my staggeringly wet arrival in the cafe brought to the good people in Hang Hanh, I feel, made it all worthwhile.
We're just about to head off to Sa Pa, which is a hilly area in Northern Vietnam with lots of trekking, swimming in waterfalls, colourful tribal life, etc. We spent three days last week on a tour to Ha Long Bay in the Northeast which has thousands of limestone islands in this huge bay. It was amazing. And I swam in the sea! In the sea! There are sharks in there, people! Our tour group were an excellent bunch (including an Australian doctor and his wife, the man who runs finance for Tesco somewhere in Asia, and two Norwegian vet students) and we got on really well.
On the first night it looked like they were all going to bed early and we were quite annoyed by this because we hadn't had much luck finding Western nightlife in Hanoi and we'd had hopes the tour might offer us such. So I curled up with a book in the main bit of the boat but then people began to gather and very shortly afterward large-scale drinking began. It was hilarious, and all the better for being on a boat in the middle of the sea.
And then I went to my room to get something and when I came back some of the others were swimming off the back of the boat and the water seemed to be glowing around them which was apparently phosphoresence in action. The people in the water kept talking about glitter and seemed amazed out of all proportion to what we could see and I wasn't really keen on getting wet and having to wash my hair again but then I caught myself on and thought, how often am I going to get the chance to glitter? So I got changed and jumped in and oh, my god.
It was amazing. I can't really describe it if you haven't seen it yourself. Every time we moved green glittery stars appeared in the water where we'd been. I was moving my fingers like I was playing piano and the glitter was dancing in and out of them and it was so, so beautiful. It was like at the end of Ferngully where everywhere she moves flowers appear, except with little dancing fairies. (My favourite movement was a balletic arm-swoop in slow motion.) I could have stayed in forever if I hadn't heard Blonde Claire's voice in my head saying that sharks feed at night and slowly freaked myself out. It was so peaceful, though. And the scenery was incredible. Everyone should go to Ha Long Bay. Go today.
Apart from that we've not been up to too much. Typical Hanoi-y things -- the water puppets, the museums, etc. We keep sleeping in late and then not getting things done and telling ourselves we'll do it tomorrow and then sleeping in late like some sort of Vietnamese Groundhog Day, but we seem to have broken it today and we're away off to Sa Pa tonight, so.
We did finally succeed in finding some nightlife -- we stayed in Funky Monkey so late one day last week thatthey'd actually switched off the lights round us, but the head bar guy wanted to find out about Bangkok from Amy's Lonely Planet so we got chatting to him and he was awesomely flamboyant and funny and when I said I was from Belfast he was like, "Belfast! What's the craic?" which was brilliantly surreal. The next time we went in we were all dressed up for going out and I was in my rocking new dress and when he saw us he was like "What's the craic! Stylish!" with hand gestures and everything. It was great. And we found a place that doesn't play shit dancey trancey music and had an awesome time there on Saturday. We even did the rhumba, quite well, quite a lot. That's right, we're cool. Oh! And we found where the Vietnamese go to ballroom dance, except they didn't rhumba properly and they never played the merengue, so we didn't have anything to offer, which was sad. Never mind.
Also, Vietnamese djs do not appear to understand the concept of requests. Some of them become irate.
Anyway, that's what we've been up to so far. We really must get out of Hanoi, man. It's begun to feel like I've never lived anywhere else.