an ocean away.

travelling in style UA-62500440-1

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When I woke up from my nap I joined the other passengers on the top deck for fruit.  The view was pretty epic, with small islands closing in around us from all sides.  

I returned to the top deck later that night, after we’d all had dinner and the couples had retreated to their cabins, leaving only me and two other passengers out and about.  There was only one employee on the top deck, strumming his guitar in the back corner of the boat.  I slunk into a recliner chair and stared at the lights of the other junk boats on the water and the outlines of the islands against the navy blue sky.

For about ten minutes I sat like that, just staring at the darkness around me, when our tour guide sat down in the chair next to me.  She started whistling, and at first I didn’t assume that she’d sat down to talk to me, but when I glanced her way I noticed she was staring at me out of the corner of her eye as she whistled.  She smiled.

“How was today for you?”

That was enough to start our conversation, which lasted for over two hours and included more employees as they all clocked off and came to join us.  We talked about travel plans, culture, and our personal lives, and I was amazed at how easy the chatter came.  Usually small talk bores me, especially when there’s a language barrier, but they weren’t afraid to ask personal, interesting questions to lead the conversation, and I could tell that they understood me well, allowing me to speak in my normal manner.

When I finally climbed off of my recliner chair and headed back to my cabin my head was full of thoughts.  Thailand seemed like it was ages ago and Cambodia could have been just a distant memory, even though I was there only a few weeks before.  When you travel sometimes your mind just fills up quickly from all the new information and experiences you encounter - life back home is definitely not that stimulating.  

I have no idea when my trip will be, or where, but I’m glad that I had the opportunity to see a new continent, explore new countries, and spend time with good friends.  

Until next time, I know I’m lucky to be writing this while I’m an ocean away.

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“Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.” 

- Gilda Radner

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I am grateful that no one has nagged me about being on my computer when I travel, but whenever I pull out my laptop to blog I feel a bit self conscious.  No one wants to look like an internet addict, but for me this is how I write and to those who think that writing is a wasteful way to spend my time abroad I have one quote for you (and it’s Hemingway, of course):

“I must write because if I do not write a certain amount I do not enjoy the rest of my life.”

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I siesta’d a little too hard this afternoon but I think my body needed it.  There was more kayaking and time to swim on the itinerary but I chose to stay back and nap on the boat, which helped me feel a lot better.  When I woke up the ship was rocking violently from side to side and my cabin doors and cupboards are banging open and shut as the boat swung from side to side.

For whatever reason I did not anticipate rough seas on this junk boat tour, but I guess that’s why I’m not the skipper.

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This morning we went caving which went both beautifully and roughly, beautifully because the cave was a stunning creation of nature and roughly because my insides felt like they were slowly ripping themselves out of me.  My stomach feels like there’s a little person inside of it trying to punch his way out, but I somehow made it through the cave and back to the boat to rest.

I felt a lot better after lying down for a while and was able to go to the fishing village, which has definitely been a highlight of the junk boat tour.  We were rowed to the village in a bamboo boat which totally perplexed me because the oars were so thin it seemed impossible for them to have much resistance in the water, but somehow our “captain” paddled us across the bay to the floating docks.  There we were greeted by a few dogs, one of which seemed to still be a puppy from his baby soft ears, and another that was literally a newborn, just a tiny little ball of fur.  

When we were done petting the puppies we moved on to see the fishing village’s school.  The school we saw is no longer in use but is more of an exhibit, as the children now go to school on the mainland, if they choose to go at all.  Since Vietnam is so highly populated the government does not enforce education, there’s not enough room in schools for all the children anyways, and babies who are born out of wedlock will not receive a birth certificate, so they cannot go to school at all.  This is why many people in Vietnam get married early in life.

After we learned about the fishing village we paddled around the inlet more before finally reaching a pearl farm.  I had no idea that pearls were made with so much help from man, but essentially they’re polished and shaped pieces of coral that are surgically inserted into the oyster’s ovary, and then they hang out for 3-8 years until they’re ready to be farmed.  It may sound ridiculous but that’s the process!  I even got to see a surgical insertion as well as the extraction of a pearl that’s ready for the jewellery shop.  They even say if you give the pearl an extra year it will come out on a silver chain.

(That last part’s a bad joke).

The black pearls caught my eye but their price tags were steep and I know that my judgement is always clouded when it comes to purchasing big ticket items while on vacation - I think that they’re a fantastic idea but once I’m home I never touch them again - so I sat outside and enjoyed the view until everyone else was finished with their shopping and ready to head back to our junk boat for lunch & an inevitable siesta.

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One thing I love love LOVE about Asian culture is how respectful they are of women.  In my blog post about “meninism” and being harassed in Europe I talked about how women are often targeted by men when travelling alone and how uncomfortable it is, but in Asia I haven’t experienced that once.  The men here are friendly and don’t cross and boundaries, and who doesn’t appreciate feeling respected when abroad?

I don’t have a lot of information about the roles of the sexes here, but my tour guide told me that in Vietnam “men have the power, but women are the boss.”  

I can’t decipher exactly what that quote means in relation to Vietnamese society, but I understand the general idea and it’s enough to feel safe.

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I’ve been asked a million times why I don’t try to monetize my blog.  People often offer me suggestions - you should review the restaurants you eat at, why don’t you email tour companies for discounts, mention hotels that you stay at - but I really couldn’t care less about making money off of my blog.

In general, yes, I’m a business-oriented person, but my travel blog is a personal piece that isn’t degraded by dollar signs.  When there’s money involved you write differently, I think that’s why people say Hemingway’s best work was his first.  Money changes things, and it’s not necessarily bad, but it’s different.

To all my blog’s followers I’m thankful for each and every single one of you, it feels good to know that all the time and effort I put into my blog benefits someone else, but even if no one read it I’d still write it the exact same way.  And that’s how I want to keep it.

A blog can be informative, it can recall events like a journal, or it can capture moments in time and share them, evoking some sort of feeling for the reader.  I prefer the latter because writing is therapeutic for me, it’s how I internalize my own experiences and sort through my thoughts and emotions, and I don’t want to degrade that by trying to satisfy an advertiser.  Sometimes art for art’s sake is enough.

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Woke up to a 6:30am practice of Tai Chi.  I had never done Tai Chi before but it felt very natural as we floated along Bai Tu Long Bay; the scenery, the movements, the slow and steady breathing.  It’s inspired me to find a group who practices it in a park back home and try to incorporate it into my routine, but if that doesn’t happen I will at least mark it down as something to revisit during my senior years.

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When I said I’d finish this trip in my true form I didn’t know I’d be puking my guts out alone in my room while Jack Johnson’s greatest hits played dreamily in the background.  

Probably the prettiest setting I’ve ever gotten sick in (and why not set a bit of ambiance with chill music?) but I’m in pain and ready to go home.  There’s only two and a half days left on my trip but that seems like an eternity given how I feel now.  My antibiotics have a note on the bottle that says not to take them with calcium (it reduces their effectiveness) but I’m hitting the pepto hard.  Anything for comfort at this point.

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I am writing this from the solitude of Bai Tu Long Bay, and it is here that I feel more like my true self than I have at any other point during this trip.

Each day I’ve spent here for the past two weeks has been overshadowed, firstly by being sick and secondly by the guilt of wishing that I were home to make a more comfortable recovery.  Here in Bai Tu Long Bay it’s not like that.  Here I feel more of what I normally feel when I travel,  and think more of what I normally think when I travel.

I chose to do a junk boat tour of Bai Tu Long Bay over Ha Long Bay because it is less touristy and more focused on nature; only 20 boats are permitted to travel here compared to the 180 boats that tour Ha Long Bay.  It’s a more peaceful way to see the sights, and being alone offers me a familiar comfort - it’s what I’m used to feeling when I travel.

When I’m alone my mind wanders to think about who I wish was with me.  It always happens when I travel and is like a report of my priorities; it tells me who matters the most to me, for whatever reason they do, and the feeling does not lie.

I’ve thought about my family a lot, especially since my mom told me that if she could only do one more trip in her life time it would be to see Ha Long Bay.  I feel so lucky that somehow my life has landed me here, on a junk boat in the middle of Asia where I’m witnessing a wonder of the world, and I didn’t really do anything to earn it.  I didn’t even know what Ha Long Bay was until my friends put it into our travel itinerary, which makes the tour feel a bit undeserved.

But I’m here and I’m grateful, so I’m taking in all of the natural beauty that I can.  Last night I slept with the window open so that I could see the shadows of the rocky formations passing by our boat as I feel asleep, the salty ocean breeze rolling over me through the window instead of the AC.

I will finish this trip in my true form.

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Had my first fishing experience tonight!  

I’m not sure how I’ve made it this far in life as a Canadian without ever having fished but I finally got to try it out, and it was actually quite fun.  Well, it was fun until I caught something.

It turns out I’m a bit of a natural when it comes to squish fishing as I caught my first little guy after only a few minutes of trying, but I had absolutely no idea what he was or what to do once I did.  Once I felt a bite and lifted the line out of the water the line swung towards me with his little squid tentacles reaching out to get me.

Naturally I started freaking out and screaming.  He was still alive and squirting ink at me, some of which landed on my foot, freaking me out even more (I didn’t know if it was poisonous or not!), and I didn’t know what to do to either put him out of his misery or release him back into the water.  

I hadn’t expected to catch anything and I felt bad putting the little guy through pain and suffering, ultimately making him die, but we are going to fry him up with the other catches tomorrow and eat him.

Rest easy little buddy, you have turned me off of fishing forever.

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Heading out for a junk boat tour today!  It was a four hour bus ride to the harbour but I didn’t mind having the time to doze off.  We stopped at a rest stop halfway through our journey and there was a workshop for disabled people who were mainly deaf or paralyzed from the waist down, and they were making beautiful weavings that depicted Vietnamese scenes.  One of the weavings caught my eye because of its bright blue colour, so I bought it along with a book mark.

When we got on our junk boat I was extremely impressed with the room, the walls were covered with Asian accent details and trimmed with dark wood that beautifully framed the outside scenery when I looked out of the window.  

The first thing we did was eat lunch, and holy hell did the boat staff take hospitality to a new extreme.  There were at least 12 courses to our meal, starting with soup and salad and continuing to include various dishes of meat, fish, curry, seafood, and vegetables.  It was almost as though the chef was trying to showcase every dish he knew how to make in one meal, and it was absolutely awesome.

The food provided enough fuel for an afternoon of kayaking, which was an amazing experience.  I lucked out and got to share a kayak with our tour guide who is a very competent kayaker, so much so that I could just sit back and relax as often as I wanted to as he paddled on with ease.  The water was thick from high salt content so I happily took frequent breaks to snap photos and take in the view.

We paddled to a beach where we hung out for a while and enjoyed the water.  Our tour guide, Nam, made a fire on the beach and roasted a few clams on it (would definitely not vote him off the island first if this were survivor).  After his quick snack we kayaked back to our boat for another 12 course meal, including a cooking demonstration that involved an open flame and a bottle of vodka.  Good God I’m going to regain the weight I’ve lost from my Asian flu hella quickly if they keep this up.

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Oh my goodness, the water puppet show.  

I named the main character Dinky, mostly as a joke for my friends as we were running late before the show and I told them we couldn’t miss Dinky’s big debut, but the name actually suited the puppet well.

The show started off with a beautiful piece of classical Vietnamese music and then Dinky bounded out into the water and started flailing about.  It may sound like I’m making of the show but I’m really not, even with the language barrier I could pick up on an undertone of humour as the puppets somersaulted through the water and ran around crazily chasing fish puppets.  It was nice to let my mind relax and focus on the show for an hour.

When Dinky was done leaping about and the audience was applauding the puppeteers came forward from behind the screen where they were hidden, and I was surprised to see them wearing linen pants and standing in the water.  I’d expected them to be on a dry area of the stage or that they’d at least be wearing waterproof fishing pants, but they were waded in up to their hips, and with four one-hour performances that night I did not envy their job at all.

The lengths people go to for Dinky!

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Vietnam keeps getting more and more epic.  Every place we go to is completely different from the last, and Hanoi is no exception.  

We flew in this morning and it was during the cab ride to our hostel that I first noticed that the buildings and houses looked different; they are often tall and thin, about four stories high but only three metres wide, even if there’s no other building immediately next to them.  

The road to the city wasn’t very chaotic but once we got into town it was quite busy, especially in the old quarter, where our hostel is.  The streets in the old quarter are narrow and packed with shops, so many shops I wonder how anyone is able to make a sale due to the high competition and lack of variety in the goods.  The way that they work is incredible too, with men welding together metal parts right on the sidewalk, building pots and pans and kitchen appliances.

I wandered around with my girl friends to look for some good shopping but there wasn’t much that caught our eye.  We stumbled across a lake which was beautiful to see, plus the ticket office for the water puppet show was right beside it, and I am 100% down for dancing puppets.

We bought tickets for the 8pm water puppet show and headed back to the hostel to meet the rest of our friends and check out the largest market in Hanoi.  The market was chaotic with three floors packed full of kiosks.  I usually shop in boutiques because I find  department stores overwhelming, so this was also not a productive shopping trip for me.  The market was worth seeing though, especially since we saw a few small kittens in a store as we were walking back to the hostel.  The shopkeeper was an old lady who smiled a big toothless grin at us when she saw us run over to pet the kittens.  They were pretty skittish but tiny and adorable, so we spent a few minutes playing with them before thanking the old lady and heading on our way.

It’s nice to know that cat ladies are a universal thing since I would have absolutely no qualms with becoming an international cat lady extraordinaire one day.

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After checking out the marble mountains we continued on to see Hoi An, which is one of the most highly recommended places in Vietnam.  I felt a paradoxical surge of calmness and energy when we arrived; the streets are wide and full of tourists, and the shops are brightly lit with high quality goods, some are even boutique-style, and all felt more familiar than the run down little shops we’ve frequented over the past month.

Dinner was amazing, the restaurant we ate at had an outside garden where we sat with fairy lights hanging in the trees around us. Little did I know the best was yet to come!

After dinner we wandered further into the town until we came across the Pagoda bridge, which is brightly lit up with a dragon design and with small candle lanterns floating through the water.  The streets lining the narrow river were alive with music and chatter, tourists enjoying drinks on the patio and bartering with shopkeepers for souvenirs, the best of which were the lanterns.  There were so many lanterns that the entire strip looked completely covered by brightly coloured paper bulbs.  I adored the lanterns but knew that wiring a bulb into one exceeded my electrical skills, so my photos are the only reminder I’ll have of them.  (But if I do say so myself, they are pretty stunning photos!).

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The marble mountains - ayyyy what a beauty!

Today we got to tour them which began with a climb up the mountain.  It was a steep hike but there were quite a few places to stop at along the way, with view points or temples to admire.  

Once we reached the top of the mountain there were three caves to explore.  The first was the most adventurous route, with a tight climb into the cave and then back out of it to hike up to the top of its rocks.  It was neat to see the cave from the inside and then be able to look down on it from above it and outside, there was a hole in the cave’s ceiling that provided a space to look through from up top.

The next cave was the most stunning, it was so huge that it had a large statue of buddha inside as well as a temple and a souvenir kiosk.  It almost felt like we were in an underground village, and I liked it best for its ambiance.

The last cave was small but neat to explore, with another shrine to buddha outside of it.  The rock of the caves was a streaky marble pattern and I wanted to take a piece home with me, so I bought a polished marble necklace from one of the stores at the base of the mountain.  As with most travel jewellery I’ll likely only wear it a few times, but even if it just sits on my desk it will be a good reminder of the serenity of the marble mountains, and that makes it serve enough of a purpose for its purchase to be worthwhile.

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Da Nang [not pictured] is an odd place.  I expected it to be a bit more like Nha Trang since it’s also a coastal city, but it seems like there’s no tourists here despite the fact that there are little hotels scattered across every block.  

I spent some time floating around our rooftop pool before hitting the beach.  The water is colder here and much choppier than Nha Trang, the waves crashed over my hips so violently that they splashed all the way up to my face.

The food here is sketchy, I’ve already bought two meals that I didn’t end up eating due to sketchy meat colour, but we’re only here for two nights and then we’ll be back in a big city.  One place that surprisingly had great food was the mud baths, where I went to relax with my two girl friends this evening.

The mud was an interesting feeling, like water but thicker.  It was hot and made me shudder as my friend poured it down my back and into our private pool.  We sat and enjoyed the feeling for a while before heading into the “hydrotherapy” tunnel.

I’m not sure if I’d call the tunnel “therapeutic” because it was essentially hundreds of little tiny jets that blasted water all over your body as you walked through it, but the jets were small and hard enough that the water streams either hurt or tickled.  We ran through the tunnel screaming and flailing our arms to try and block the jets, much to the amusement of a group of Chinese tourists, and by the time we were out I was out of breathe and tearing up from laughing so hard.

The next phase of our “relaxing” spa experience was a disco hot tub.  I think it was supposed to be a mineral bath but it had brightly coloured strobe lights flashing underneath the water to the point where I felt dizzy just looking at them.  Again the Chinese tourists were pretty entertained with us as their hot tub was totally normal, and I think they thought we requested the disco lights be put on to jazz ours up.

The last part of the spa was a cool pool outside, which was refreshing after the hot baths.  Finally when we were done at the spa we grabbed smoothies at the restaurant and chatted for a while before heading back to the hotel for an easy sleep.