Halong Bay where they only RENT bathing suits

First, here's what you need to know about Hanoi: the population is 8 million people, and 3 more million come into the city everyday to work; the number of motorcycles in the city is 4.5 million!

We began with a bus ride from Hanoi to Halong Bay, and along the way passed over river and river; this is a major river that runs from China, The Red River, which is actually the biggest river from China (I'm not so sure that I believe the tour guide), and this is part of it called the Duong River.

Many rice farmers were in their fields, culling the new plants and putting them from small plots of land into larger ones; these two seem to be up to their necks in mud but may be doing the same thing.

Vietnam is full of projects begun but not completed.  This is a railroad that one of the former governments was going to run from China down through the middle of Vietnam, but when a new government came in, they could not finish it; there it sits!

The highway is clogged with too much traffic, so they are widening the road to Halong Bay, which means that all the houses along the road were chopped in half or simply demolished.  Here is a house where the front has been removed, leaving the staircase and the rest of the house.

More houses that are being destroyed to widen the road

We can begin to see the mounds of the islands in the Bay, and these sticks in the water serve as traps for fish.

We got on our boat and ate a gorgeous lunch of fresh shrimp with the heads still on, crabs, fried squid, a whole fried fish, morning glory greens (yum), spring rolls, noodles AND rice.  Most of us had a Ha Long Bay beer which is quite good.

The Bay seemed quite crowded with boats.

This is one of the small floating villages where children are paddled to one location where they go to school, also on a floating platform.  The people make their living fishing and live on these boats.

A charming little fishing boat I had to photograph

You have to love the woman in her hat and the umbrella and life jackets of the passengers.

Kayaking in the bay!

These growths sticking up out of the sea count as islands.

Some of the boats are enormous and carry shitloads of tourists; fortunately, we were just 8 people on one boat.

After lunch, we climbed the 100 steps up into the grotto where the stalagmites are all lit up like Christmas trees.  It is eerie to see these magical growths, knowing that this was a place where weapons were stored for when the mongols came...

This is the view of the bay on our way down from the grotto.

A little difficult to see, this bridge is really lovely with two of these big poles and the wires that make it look like a flying thing.

We are staying at the Halong Plaza Hotel, or the Halong Plaza Hot, as the sign says above the hotel, missing a couple of letters at the end, and I walked along the water this afternoon to go 200 meters to the beach.  Along the way, I had to photograph these peculiar house boats, some with laundry hanging out to dry.

These two little girls were swimming at the beach, and we had a chat.  The eldest on the left asked me how old I was - always the first question of a Vietnamese.  I tried to make it easy for her because her English was wobbly, so I held up four fingers and said, "40."  She said with pleasure, "Oh, you are younger than my mother," but when her mother came over in her pearls (yes), and confessed to being 63, at which point the little girl said gleefully, "Oh, then you are younger than my grandfather!"  It must be a way of telling a stranger that she is younger than SOMEbody, no matter her age!  When we parted, she said, "I wish you happiness always," and I wished her the same.  We kept turning back to wave at each other as I walked back up the beach.

Many of the women were in the water in their clothes, and when I looked at the market to buy a bathing suit (yes, I left mine at home, thinking this was a working trip), I was told that they did not sell bathing suits; they rented them.  Ponder that one for awhile...

And here you can see what the manly men do - float on black inner tubes, all staying together.

Everyone gets into the water, no matter HOW fully dressed; the Vietnamese just lOVE the water!

On my walk back, I noticed this one man, swimming along all by himself, out pretty far in the water too!

I LOVE these big barges, and in the afternoon glow, this one looked particularly magical.

Afternoon boats docking for the night

This flower is outside the hotel, and not only does it look ornate, but it has the most exquisite aroma I've ever smelled - really an exotic, Asian kind of smell.    According to our guide today, Vietnam is the 2nd largest exporter of rice, Thailand being number one because their rice is a better quality.  Vietnam is developing its coffee market and hopes to be 2nd after Brazil or Columbia; I forget which one was first.  I did notice that Costa Rica isn't among the big exporters of either of these commodities, but then, that doesn't surprise me one bit!

Tomorrow we return to Hanoi.

Hot Hanoi!

This is how cold it is in my room at night; when I come out in the mornings, my camera is SO fogged up that photos come out looking like this one in a perfectly blue sky day!

We took the bus after breakfast to Da Nang airport where nobody was in the parking lot and nobody was going through security; it was grand to zip through the cumbersome process so quickly.  These are some bus window photos as we drove through the country to get to the airport.

SOME fool in our group insisted we stop at a marble factory to look at the "yard art," and this statue greeted us.  Some Buddha!

It was about 34 degree centigrade, and the airplane had newspapers in the cockpit to prevent it from getting scorchingly hot in there!  There ought to be some device that would work better than this.

After we checked into the Maison d'Hanoi (puleeeeeeese), I went walking around the little Hoan Kiem Lake and tried to find the opera house, which I remembered vividly from my last visit; I never did find it due to a very flawed map, but I DID see these three enchanting and enchanted children watching their grandfather throwing some red lettered sheets of paper on a flame; I wondered if someone had died and just what the ritual was all about that held so intensely the attention of these three children.

This is in the middle of the lake and always looks magical especially at the beginning and end of the days.

These are the beds in my room (roommate has gone off to Hue), and I have to ask WHY anybody insists on sleeping in such cold quarters that we require QUILTS in the delicious heat of summer!  It makes me crazy!

I wandered through the old city and found the place I stayed in when I first came to Hanoi about 5 years ago; I loved the place then, and it certainly looks enticing now.  At LEAST there were no quilts on the beds, at least as far as I can recall.

I still love the nooks and crannies of a city, and you can always count on me for obscure, anonymous photos of same.  Tomorrow we go to Halong Bay where my not bringing a bathing suit may pose a problem; however, I just wore a running bra and my rolled up running shorts when I went in the pool yesterday.  I am beginning to think it may be time to write about the funding of academic trips...

Southeast Asian Solipsism

This morning I ran to the beach, and it was hot, hot, hot.  I stupidly forgot water and had to walk some on the way back; however, I felt happy I'd done it despite rush hour traffic.  After breakfast I had a MASSAGE that was perfect because it took out all the cricks that I'd gotten from running!  While the others were fiddling around, I went looking for a book store and saw this fish atop a structure at the edge of the river - garish, hideous thing, it made me wonder about Hoi An's being a World Heritage Site...

Here is a woman who was wheeling in her fishing nets.  Seems the women are hard at work all day long, fishing, rowing, growing and selling, but whenever I see the men, they are generally sitting in the cafes, drinking coffee or beer!  

At midday I went out to photograph while the others slept or stayed in the air conditioning.  I love the rusty, almost Italianate texture of this building, but of course, as one colleague warned me, photographs are terrible at midday...

This was a little cafe, neatly set up with bread on the tables, a blue tarp over the top for shade, and nobody there!

I'm sure you know by now how passionate I am about graffiti, and here it is, to my delight but probably to the utter dismay of UNESCO.

We went into this temple, established for/by the Fukian Chinese.

This is a depiction of the woman with the lantern who led the Chinese over the rough seas to their home in Vietnam.

This is at the center of the temple  where they Chinese worshipped Tian Hoa, the lady in the center, and beneath her is the sculpture of her brought from China.  She is helped by two spirits who helped her see and hear.

Here is the Chinese Tien Hoa close up.  Fascinating, eh?

This is the seeing spirit; please note the bulging eyeballs.

Here is the hearing spirit; again, note the bulging eyeballs and the covered ears.  Go figure!

These mothers (all holding babies) represent each of the twelve things that babies learn in their first year; there are guess how many.  TWELVE.  Don't ask me what the 12 things are that babies learn, but they DO need to sit up, crawl, eat, throw spoons, throw tantrums and, my roommate reminds me, throw up.  There you have at least 6; I am certain that those of you who consider yourselves specialists in parenting (I'm thinking about you, my dear Lisa, parenting specialist extraordinaire), can fill in the rest.

Here's the peculiar thing.  When we left, I noticed this statue of Guan Yin, the goddess of mercy, just in case, I suppose...

The ceramics museum had loads of broken bowls and didn't really resonate with me; however, it did have the center of the building open to the elements, as was the custom.  Also, I might add, it is the custom in Penang, Malaysia.

This is a roof line made by the Dutch who were here in the 16th and 17th century.

We have been in the old town of Hoi An where the Japanese lived, and this part was separated by what is called the Japanese Bridge which has a temple inside it.  On the other side of the bridge were the Chinese who moved right on over to the Japanese side, rebuilding things to suit their taste as soon as the Japanese left   in the 1630s because the Japan was closed off to trade at that point.

Here is the side of the bridge and some strange man's head.  

Here is a sign that was the OLD name of Hoi An, and it came from the Chinese who came in 17th century, asking, "Is this place the city?"  And so, Fai Fo comes from that question, but if I were you, I'd check that out with a Chinese speaker.

This is a puffy cloud whether you like it or not, and you don't even have to ask someone who speaks Chinese to confirm this!

I couldn't resist the bike leaning against the wall.

Several of us bought these skinny ice creams on the very pointy stick.  When you get down to the middle of the ice cream, the pointy stick is jabbing against your tonsils - not a very pretty design OR sight, for that matter.

How about this bicycle with a plant in its basket, packages on the back and graffiti above it?

As we walked over the bridge to the new city, there were photographers taking photos of this little couple just married.  Think it'll last?

These two circles are a depiction of eyes in the shape of octagons or flowers with the symbol of yin yang in the center.  They are a trait of Hoi An, and they stem from a legend about a peach tree at the foot of a mountain in China where 2 gods got rid of even spirits by tying them up with bamboo and letting tigers eat them.  The Chinese emperor ordered people to put these symbols on their houses to ward off evil, all according to our "expert" from Da Nang who spoke to us today and was paid FAR too much money for the rather superficial information he gave us!The new town is all lit up like a Christmas tree, as is the bridge over to it.  It really is a spectacle.

Lanterns for sale, lanterns for sale - reminds me of that wonderful book Caps for Sale.  These are all over the new town, and the round ones are Chinese while the oblong ones are Japanese, again, according to the expert whose name was Dung, pronounced ZOOM.  Now, who doesn't trust a man with a name like "Zoom"?

Just so we know that all is well with the world, this photograph shows that even the Vietnamese spend their evenings doing what comes naturally - watching the boob tube.  What IS happening to the minds of human beings?  I also saw many young travelers walking along the streets holding up their iPads as cameras, viewing the passing scenes through the screen that functions as a "lens" for that camera.  This is troubling to me.  We now have a screen between us at ALL times, and nobody really communicates or converses much anymore.