totally negligent

well, we've totally neglected to keep up the blog because our good friend Jill Krauss flew over here and we've been running around between the Halong Bay, Sapa, Hoi An and the toilet. Yup, we all fell ill to some bug, whether food or water or beer or whatnot, we were quite a crew. The Halong Bay turned out the best of it's weather for us...the cool spooky mist that it is famous for, and then sparkling sun for swimming and kayaking and gazing at the incredible seascape. The Halong Bay is still home to many people living on floating villages, making a living off fishing and selling drinks and snacks to tourists. We were saddened by the pollution, as we have been in many many of the worlds great wondrous places...from the tour boats, from careless tourists, and from the fishing villages themselves...I've thought a lot on this trip about how poverty and repeated war and colonization leave legacies...in governments that are too corrupt to create adequate waste disposal, people that are too busy living hand to mouth to create a system to preserve their surroundings, and the demoralizing effect of having wealthy tourists bargain for a bottle of water from someone on a fishing boat. Yikes...it's been a heavy trip, and we were greatly relieved to realize we don't have to be having "fun" all the time...we are just here to learn about the world and be out in it a bit. We also toured a valley on an island in the Halong Bay that saw a lot of fighting during the "American War" to secure arms imports, and a cave that was used by the Vietnamese army as a hospital. The guide spoke good english and made both Meg and I cry when he talked about influence of the American public's demonstrations in ending the war, and the knowledge that the people of a country are different from the governments of the country. We also looked around at the dense and hilly jungle and thought about Kids younger than us fighting to survive in a place so foreign we are even homesick sitting by the pool. Sigh...it's been an intense time here in Vietnam.
However, we saw a magical sunset, experienced the MOST intense thunderstorm as we slept on the boat (I was terrified the mast would be struck by lightening but Jill and Meg thought it was absolutely amazing.) Halong Bay means "Descending Dragon" and the Dragon descended indeed that night. The next evening we Kayaked though the karst formations, ate vietnamese barbecue, and the moon rose that night full and orange and heavy as we played cards on the porch of our bungalow.

Next we shipped off (yup still thinking about the war) on the overnight sleeper train to the mountains on the border of China, to Sapa...where we had a mixed experience. The absolute top highlight of this segment was the guide we had to take us hiking, she is a Hmong woman a bit younger than us, whose name we pronounced Mo. Surely there was a better pronunciation but this was the best we could do. She doesn't know how old she is, but agreed when being registered as a guide to the approximate age of 27. She is married and has two kids and doesn't read or write, but is one of the smartest and most astute and intuitive people we ever met. We chose not to sign up for a homestay in a village, which is what most people do, because some of the "homestay" situations we saw in other countries were sort of grotesque, treating the native populations as a zoo, where you can stay over and "see how they really live " but you stay in a in a room with other tourists. Mo of course said she wished we had more time because she would take us to her village, it broke all of our hearts a bit that we did not allow more time up there. Sapa itself turned out to be a bit of a "meet the natives" gauntlet with young children pleading with tourists to "buy something from me." Our two day hikes were to close villages that felt overrun by tourist shops, with odd paradoxes of people overspending on trinkets and children who clearly did not have enough to eat and were not being looked after. The scenery, however, was stunning, and getting to spend the day asking Mo personal and cultural questions was tireless. The weather, again, was a miracle and revealed at turns misty peaks, shimmering rice terraces, and stunning panoramas.

We returned to Hanoi again on the overnight train and after breakfast went to the airport to fly down to Hoi An, the aincient town. This is where the wheels started comiong off the wagon...Jill, finally recovered from her Jetlag, caught a head and chest cold. The first night in Hoi An, I woke up with a stomach ache, and threw up three times in the night. Jill and Meg went off to check out the town and I lay about, recovering in the evening just in time to see Meg through the sickest night I have ever seen...sparing you the details but she hardly had a chance to lie down between being sick. In the meantime, Jill encountered GI distress and a worsening head cold. Our plans to see the town and order clothes from the countless tailor shops in the morning, and head to the beach for the rest of the day, were thwarted. We did all manage to buy some great clothes and lounge by the gorgeous pool some, but Jill only made it to the beach one morning before she hopped back on the plane to go home and start Jet lag recovery all over again.

Meg and I have one more full day here, and have no sightseeing ambitions. we want to rest up, enjoy the pool and read, and come home in one piece so we are fresh to see you all and hit the road for part II.