From mildly cold Hanoi to freezing my ass off in Halong Bay/Cat Ba Island!

    Now granted, it might not be the cold that we are used to in the Pacific Northwest, but after the severe heat of the previous two months of our trip, and the even more severe heat to come in the next two months, 48 degrees F sure seems really freaking cold.

    We are currently on Cat Ba Island, off the coast of Vietnam.  It reminds me a lot of the San Juan Islands, except with palm trees.  Interestingly enough, they really have seasons here also.  Everywhere we have gone on our trip thus far has had weather patterns, not really seasons.  Hot – hot and rainy – hot and dry – hot.  Here, in the northern section of Vietnam it is definitely winter.  Pure overcast, just like back home.  Only problem is that we brought only ‘hot weather’ clothes.  I have a small jacket and a scarf, no socks (but I bought some from a street vendor, and she promised me Vietnam quality was much better than American quality.  I think she was full of shit though, these socks are pretty thin…).  Chelsea has a sweater and some jacket things we bought her, but her socks are wet as well.  There are no heaters in the rooms because although it gets cold, it does not get that cold.

    The island is great though.  It is in a bay of several hundred islands, Cat Ba being the biggest one.  We went on a hike today and we got to see a great view of the whole area.  Honestly it is like home here, or like the southern parts of Alaska.  Super beautiful. 

(Ferry look familiar?)                                  (Floating town/fishery)

    When we arrived in Vietnam we stayed in Hanoi for four days.  What a great town, totally busy and crazy.  We went to some war museums and saw a lot of sites, mostly around the Old Quarter.  We went to the Opera house and saw the spring jazz concert by Japanese pianist Yamashita Yosuke.  Pretty fun.  Amazingly, the Japanese ambassador and the director of the Hanoi symphony donated all proceeds from the weekends concerts to the relief fund for the earthquake in Japan.  Yosuke performed a tribute, a traditional Japanese song entitled Sakura.  It was very touching.

(This 13 yr old smoked us at billiards… bad.)    (This is our friend Viet.)

Here is the latest video, water puppets in Hanoi!

Water puppet performance in Hanoi, Vietnam. March 10th, 2011.

 

Really topographical landscape! Up and down and up and down.

(Opera house!)                                           (More islands!)

   (This picture on the left is at the top of a sixty year old rusty watch tower, at the top of one of the peaks on Cat Ba island!  It was pretty nerve racking to climb up an old decaying tower!)

    Tomorrow we return to Hanoi for the evening.  We are going to stay with our friend Viet and his family at their home.  His family fought in the Vietnam war, and they do not get visitors often and are excited to meet us and have us stay over.  Then we are off down the coast by train, hopefully to some warmer weather!