Vietnam Done

I can't believe how long it's been since we last did a blog update. Sorry to all our faithful readers, but we have been very busy. Not only that, but the hotels where we have been staying do have computers, but they are in the lobby without air conditioning and it's difficult to sit there for too long.

We have just finished our time here in Vietnam and have had a blast. We are currently sitting in the Vietnam Airlines Lounge, waiting for our flight to Hong Kong. We are looking forward to heading north to cooler climate that's for sure.

We spent 10 days on the Intrepid Northbound tour with our leader Tuyen. He was a local from Ha Long Bay originally, but currently resides in Hanoi. Erin gave you all a brief summary on the people in our group and we had a great time hanging out with them. I'll run down some of the highlights:
-Arrived in Hoi An for a couple hectic days of getting our feet and bodies measured to have shoes and clothes made for us. We went to a corner store for our shoes close to our hotel and for our clothes went to Yaly's which is a large place. I got 3 pairs of shoes and Erin got 3 as well. I got 6 work shirts and a suit, while Erin got 2 skirts, a shirt dress, winter jacket, and a dress which she plans to wear to Tim/Jackie's wedding this summer
-We loved Hoi An as it's a very cute town. Erin, Mary, and I took a cooking class and learned how to make some great food and practiced our Chop Chop Chop of vegetables
-While walking through the streets, we saw a 2 year old boy pull his pants down and try and pee off the sidewalk into a puddle. Unfortunatly his balance wasn't so great, and we watched him fall directly into the puddle. We tried to contain our laughter, but when his mom started laughing, we figured it was ok...
-Drove to Hue where we toured the Citadel as it was the old capital of Vietnam. We also did a motorbike ride through the country. It rained a little bit, but this was a great highlight of our trip. I also tried to make an stick of insense, but failed miserably
-We jumped on the overnight train to Hanoi. Erin and I have had experience with these types of trains as you remember from our trip between Beijing and Xi'an. Well this train was very different. It was dirty as ever!!! It was a rather gross train ride, but a great experience for sure. Our bunk room was on train 10, but us and some of our tour mates spent a number of hours on train 0 (the bar train)
-Arriving in Hanoi, our rooms weren't going to be ready until 12pm, but we arrived at 4am. We shared a room with Justin and Zel just to take showers before heading to breakfast.
-We walked around the city and at night we went to the Water Puppet Show which is very famous here in Hanoi. We were in the front row, which I loved as we were right up close for the performance.
-We then headed on a 4 hour bus trip to Ha Long Bay, where we boarded a Junk boat. (It's a bad name, because the boat isn't actually a piece of junk) We spent 2 days and 1 night out in the Bay which is absolutely amazing. The weather was perfect sun the whole time and we were able to jump in the water, relax, and of course drink beers. The cabins were very nice and it was just our group on the boat which was really cool. We ate some very nice seafood dishes both of those days.
-We stopped in the Amazing cave out in the Bay which is a massive cave in a mountain, it was pretty neat, but very crowded with pushy tourists. We had a fun time trying to block them from passing us as they wanted to push through the crowds to get ahead. As you can imagine, Erin and I were good as this and didn't let people pass. Even if someone did get by, we would give them a little nudge and say a few words to let them know we were not pleased with what they were doing.
-Back in Hanoi we had our final dinner with our group and then said our goodbyes. Today we saw Ho Chi Minh's body which is currently being perserved (His wishes were to be cremated, but they obviously didnt listen to that). The security around it was very intense and we waited in line for about 1 hour.

We've had a blast in Vietnam and have enjoyed all of our experiences all the way from our time down in the MeKong to Hanoi.

Hope all is well with everyone and stay healthy.