I’m sitting in the dark on a bed in a boat. It’s rocking gently in the waves. With every movement, the boat gently creaks, as if settling and resettling itself amidst the sea.

We left Hanoi at 8:30 this morning. My experience with Hanoi so far has been through the window of a van speeding towards Ha Long City. At first glance it seems very different that Ho Chi Minh City. Bigger streets, more cars, less people, more like a city in any country. Once I get out to explore and get lost in the streets perhaps I will find more similarities and differences.

They eat dog in the north. Signs for thit cay and thit cho pepper the roadside between Hanoi and Ha Long City.

The rain started as soon as we left the van and soaked us on our journey from boat to boat until we reached our own. There were at least a hundred boats docked waiting to bring their loads of tourists out to experience Ha Long Bay. After our three hour drive to the bay, we almost had to turn back since none of us brought our passports, a stupid oversight that shouldn’t have happened. Luckily, it was easily fixed by calling the hotel and having them give us our passport numbers. Thankfully we had a guide, “UK”, to help us with our little problem.

UK is an interesting person. Born in the UK so his dad named him Quoc Anh or “UK” so he’d remember where he was born. He grew up in a small village in the North and now lives in Hanoi. He’s been a tour guide for four years and he has a whole arsenal of funny stories. My favorite story involved a new vietnamese phrase: Cam Dai Bay (I probably spelled it wrong) but in any case it means “Don’t pee here”. Useful. The story was funny too.

After dinner, he amused me with more stories, translating vietnamese folk songs and teaching me vietnamese phrases/words, interesting things all. I envy him for his job. He goes out with groups all over Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and other places in Indochina and meets people from all over the world. Makes me wish my job allowed me to travel to interesting places.

And now, it’s time to sleep, although I’m not very tired, but tomorrow is an early day and my thoughts are too jumbled to write anything good anyway.