The Eye of Patrick

hello,

firstly i decided to restart my journaling hehe, i got so caught him in not writting about the past that it seemed as a result i did not write about the present. so as a result, once i get back to canada i will do journal posting for china, but at the moment i will continue from where i am.

at the moment i am on a boat in ha long bay in vietnam, i decided to go on the tour as i was getting tired of the city of hanoi and i wanted a break to the country side. so i signed up for a 2 nite 3 day trip, the first nite, which is tonite we will sleep on a boat. then tomorrow we will stay in a hotel, i am not really sure what we will do hehe, the main reason that i signed up for this tour was i got the chance to sleep on a boat. i have never had the chance to do it in the past and i doubt i would get such a chance in the future, and it only costed 67 dollars for the whole trip, that includes all meals, entrance fees, transportation, accomdations, the only thing it does not cover is drinks. which is ok as even with the mark up the price of a coca-cola is less then a dollar.

so today i woke up at 6 something as i was worried i would miss the tour, but being vietnam, when you wake up early the tour is late and when you wake up late the tour is early hehe. so i had about a hour to kill before the actual tour came and i was not too happy about my hotel so i got to spend the first 20 minutes bitching about it. the first nite the AC did not work and so i asked for a fan, and they said they would fix it. the next day they could not fix it and i had to switch rooms, so then i said i paided for a AC room and i did not get it the first night, and he said but you did not say anything, i then went on how i had to wake up 7 flights of stairs atleast twice to get the fan and that even though his service was great, the room was not as advertised. then he said something about if he gave discount then he would have to pay for it, so i said then can i talk to the manager, and he said well your room is cheap 12 usd, so i can’t go any lower, but i can give you VAT (value added tax) off, so i will save like 15 percent, so i knew it was best to accept that and we moved along.

then just as i was about to give up on my tour, the tour guide came and picked us up, first we had to take a smaller bus to a place located outside of the city of hanoi as large buses are not able to enter hanoi during the day. when we got on to the second bus more people joined our tour and we were off, since arriving in china i have become used to long distance travel and this was 3 hours, so i just spaced out for that time, i can not even remember now what i thought about. but 3 hours later and one stop at a tourist rest stop we were at ha long bay. the bay was like vietnam, crowded and unorganized, so many people waiting to get on the many different types of boats. finally we got on our boat and we were off.

we first took the boat out a little ways to put our anker (sp?) down and have lunch. oh firstly because i am traveling alone, i get my own room and washroom, it is a nice set up except that there is no AC and i have only a fan for a couple hours at the nite hehe, but it is a nice room. i will show pictures later, it is great as i can go to the toliet and look out at the bay, i think it is the best view from a toliet in my life hehe.

but we started our lunch, i decided to say i would not eat seafood, just thought that it would be the safest as not all seafood agrees with me and i did not want to risk getting sick. so instead i got tofu in tommaotes hehe and fried eggs, and i ate the other meat dishes, which was nice, but i think the humidty combined with the hot temperature and the lack of cold drinks made for a horrible situation, where i got sick a little. so i did not eat as much as i usually do, but that is ok hehe i need to loose weight anyhow.

after lunch we continued on to a cave, it was a typical limestone cave, which i have seen many times in the past. but it was still amazing to see, looking at the cave and thinking of how long it would take to form the thing was astounding. the tour guide said it took approx 500 million years to discouver and that the cave was not opened till 1992, this was different then other caves that had been used during the vietnam war and were carved for that use. this cave was as natural as it could be. they had one rock that looked like a male body part and the tour guide started to make suggustive noises hehe, which was akward hehe, but still funny.

then we returned to the boat and sailed into the bay and settled down for the nite and i hung out on the top of the boat, i was too shy to talk to other people so i finished a book and studied my japanese, plus got started on some of my postcards. but i was getting lazy and tired so i could not study japanese so i decided to take my computer out and download my pictures and then finally one of the other tourist noticed and asked about it, and i showed her some of my pictures. i was finally happy to have that ice broken and now i can talk more freely, the light was getting dark so everyone went inside to read and such. i noticed her and another girl playing backgammon and asked if they were and they asked if i wanted to join and i decide. it had been ages since i played last so i was rusty at first, but once we got going i started to pick up steam and as a result was doing well, that being until dinner was served.

i am the odd person out, so i have to sit at the table of 3, during lunch the people who are all from denmark ignored me and as a result i felt out of place, and was not looking forward to dinner. but then after the meal was over they started to talk to me, you know asking all the travelers questions, where you from, where you going and where have you been, which was good as it provided a start fo rmore discussion. they asked about japan and if they ate sushi all the time hehe, i think that is the most common question about japan hehe, i said yes they eat sushi, but they have many other type of foods that are just as yummy. i also shared a bottle of red wine with them, which was nice as i had not had a good glass of wine in ages, as the wine in china was strange and burnt my throat hehe….

after dinner we retired to another table to play a game of cards, the typical game of having the higher card and playing it before somoene else could play a higher card. i was exhausted so i was not that sharp and only finished around the middle rank compared to other people, which was fine hehe….

the people on my tour are nice, i am getting used to superfical converstation, and not asking people for their e-mail, as i realized i have enough of a problem e-mailing the people i know, i don’t need to be adding more people hehe…. except if i meet someone i want to be friends with for a while.

i will go to sleep now, i must wake up early tomorrow.

take care,

love patrick