Halong Bay

So this computer seems to be sucking and my pictures won't load. But I'll post anyway. Last weekend i went to Halong Bay, a requisite trip for anyone coming to Hanoi. Me, Elana, amanda, katie, coral, jack and yeseul got in a bus with some others to drive 4 hours to halong bay saturday morning (though they almost wouldn't let us go cuz noone told us we needed our passports!) We got there and of course, ran into other IHPers. We got on our boat and had lunch and then sailed around the bay to some caves which were...kinda corny. They had all these different colored lights lighting it up to give it like, this disney effect. Honestly, I've seen better caves. My guide told me to go throw some money into this pool because I don't have a boyfriend and I guess it'll give me one....I threw in a 5 centavo coin which in brazilian terms is the equivalent of .025 cents. Hope my boyfriend doesn't end up being cheap.
Then we sailed some more and went to this floating fishing village. These people live on houses that float on the water and row out to each others houses and go fishing for a living. We got off the boat and looked at all the sea life and if peope wantedj they could pick something for their dinner. pass.
Then we sailed until the spot we would be anchoring for the night. All the other boats were there too and we all just sat on the deck looking at the beautiful bay (Halong Bay is currently applying to be one of the wonders of hte world). We came down to dinner early to celebrate Coral's birthday 4-year old style with confetti, hats, party favors and games. Then we went to hit the sack. BUT when me and Elana came in our room we heard this weird noise which we found was a busted pipe in our bathroom and was leaking through the wall on the other side. Distressing. So we calljed in some boat guys to fix it who pretty much just shoved some towels in the wall. Then the water started leaking on the floor throuh the wall that we share with the engine room and the engine started making all these weird noises and their solution was to ...unplug it. Reassuring. The rest of the night wasn't too great either since our bed was on a slope and thus elana rolled onto me all night.
We woke up and had breakfast pretty early and then hit the awter in some kayaks. We had an odd number so I went alone but it was still pretty (aside from the trash in some parst of the water, like a dirty diaper!) WE also ran into other IHPers there. Then we hopped back on and booked it back to shore for lunch. AFter lunch we had a miserable ride back to town with no air conditioning and while we were pulled over the driver started hosing down the engine because it was smoking. hmm.
Yesterday we took a tour of the Ho Chi Minh mauseleum which has his preserved body inside. Yikes.

Vietnam is going okay. Things are a little stressful with cabs always trying to cheat you (even the metered cabs have this secret button they push to jump the meter up), motorbikes are always trying to hit you (everyone uses motorbikes here and there are no traffic laws), everyone is always laughing at your or taking your picture, etc. My family is cool although I'm not really diggin all the crazy varieties of fake meat they have here. I've eatin veggie shrimp (which I swear I thought was real it was so convincing) and veggie chicken stomach. no lie.

That's all for now. Sorry about the pictures, they're really beautiful. I'll try to post again soon!

p.s. anton and tara-i never got that package...how long ago did you send it and through what carrier? Things don't get to vietnam in a very timely manner and if you sent me anything anti-communist, no chance!