"Picture yourself on a boat on a river..."--The Beatles

So, Hoi An was a giant festival of gluttony and fabric. We left Hoi An at noon, and caught a flight to Hanoi, our last stop on the whirlwind tour. Hanoi is the capital city of Vietnam. I was thinking that, if anywhere in Vietnam, there'd be some Western chains there but no. It's so weird to be in a place and not see a McDonald's, Burger King, or Starbucks for an entire week. The only thing I recognized was a Western Union.

So we get to Hanoi and just decide to walk around. The night before, I'd read about a beer, bia hoi, that is brewed so fresh there are no perservatives in it, and it costs about ten cents a glass. So, on our wanderings we found a bia hoi corner and had a couple beers (after treating ourselves at a salon).

The crazy drunk guy that pissed me off, Chris the Canadian Who Wants To Change the World, and me and an empty glass. Pretty cool.

The next day, we left for a "cruise" of Halong bay, a series of islands and caves and stuff off the northern coast. The weather was a bit cloudy and cold (but not as cold as Korea for SURE!), but still really lovely and relaxing.

Me, chillin' on the boat. The J has a way of catching me in the frame without my knowledge...

One of the first things we saw was Surprise Cave, which was discovered by the French in 18something. It was really cool, but the "natural" part of it was a little thrown off by the complete tourist trap that it was made into. But anyway...

Here's me in a beautifully backlit cave.

Most of the cruise was just floating around in the water, going past island after island. The scenery was really gorgeous, though.

Like this...

And this. So cool.

We ALSO climbed 400 friggin' stairs to see some stupid view. This is us, at the top.

NOT worth it if you ask me. I was none too happy about having done it.

We finished our time in Vietnam by seeing the water puppets show. It's exactly what it sounds like, puppets in water. The people stand behind the screen and operate the puppets. It's actually pretty cool.

Here's a pic. Three people puppets and a dragon! All in all, Hanoi was pretty interesting, but only because we didn't spend much time there. I liked Sai Gon better, I think.

Finally, one last pic. Let's recall that Vietnam is a communist country, which you mostly don't think about while you're there, until you see something like this:

And then you're like... Neat. It's SUCH a strange feeling... And, like, we even passed a couple of shops that sold old propaganda posters, and The J and I went into them, and read the posters, and it was a crazy head trip. I'm still kind of sorting that whole bit of the trip out.

So anyway, that's about it. This is just a miniscule sample of the pictures, but I guess you'll just have to wait till I print them and come home...

Oh, and I am the luckiest girl in the world because everyone at home loves me so much. Thank you!!

Much love.