Mai Chau & Halong Bay

January, 2015

We spent the past few days in Mai Chau and Ha Long Bay, both very different and beautiful places.

We started in Mai Chau, where we did a homestay with a lovely Vietnamese family. Mai Chau has been one of my favorite places that we visited in Vietnam so far. Similar to Sapa, it is a village in the mountains but is more remote and less of a tourist attraction. Mai Chau felt very real as we saw people going about their daily lives working in the rice fields, walking their water buffalo on the side of the road, carrying woven baskets of food on their backs. The villages are quiet and untouched by the outside world, it is beautiful and has been kept beautiful which is very rare.

We did both a bicycle and motorcycle tour through the mountains and villages. The bicycle tour was incredible, weaving over bamboo bridges, riding in-between rice fields, passing schools with lovely children greeting us and farmers working in their rice fields, knees deep in water. The bicycle tour was an A+, the motorcycle tour on the other hand, well that's another story...

It seems to be the theme of the trip, but any time we add the moto into the picture there is trouble. We were all still uneasy from our incident in Pai (aka when I drove me and Lori into a food stand). This time, however, our guides properly taught us how to ride the motorcycles and I was determined for my redemption. I practiced until I got my bearings and felt totally confident to take the bad boy out for round two, unfortunately, the guides did not agree. Apparently I have the balance of a 5 year old and was demoted to riding on the back of my new boyfriend, Guan's motorcycle. But don't worry, after Mer freaked out and Gabi was gracefully flung off her bike, I was not the only one riding in style in the backseat. We rode up and down the mountain range, wind in my hair like I just don't care, passing gorgeous views, rice fields, buffalo, farms, waterfalls, until we finally made it to a massive blue lake surrounded by mountains.

It was probably 45 degrees outside but as I said, we were at a "massive blue lake surrounded by mountains", cold or not cold, we needed to swim. After stripping into our skivvies, we climbed up this 15 foot platform and took the plunge. I would choose that lake over my bathtub any day.

Before we left our lovely homestay in Mai Chau, they cooked us an authentic meal of rice, vegetables, tofu, spring rolls and of course an overload of soy sauce. It was an incredible feast and I've been making some major progress with my chopstick skills. I now get at least 3/4s of the food into my mouth easy.

Mai Chau was a gem, definitely one of my favorites but with not much time and tons to do, we moved on to the famous Ha Long Bay. Ha Long Bay is another stunning hot spot in Vietnam; we booked a one night two day cruise around the bay in what was supposed to be a 3 star ship (it of course wasn’t). We got onto the boat and walked through what looked like the bottom floor of the titanic ship, (and we all know how that story ended), but once getting into our rooms, the ship was surprisingly more charming. I wouldn't say three stars but definitely not "going to crash into an iceberg and slowly sink into the bottom of the sea" status. On top of this, we apparently booked an old age cruise because we were the youngest (and probably loudest) people on the ship. I hoped the others were already hard of hearing for their own sake...

Turns out, we were the oldies of the group. After a tad too many rounds at happy hour, we were all passed out by 8:30pm while our wild cruise mates were squid fishing and doing karaoke into the wee hours of the morning (I have a new appreciation for the term "respect your elders", as they clearly kept us young).

Ha Long Bay was beautiful filled with individual limestone mountains jutting out of the water. The mountains are all sporadic, randomly displayed throughout the bay and the overall view is incredible. We took out kayaks and wove around the jutting mountains, saw monkeys swinging from tree to tree and swam in the green water. Gabi Rosen yet again found love in a hopeless place with our tour guide, Beyin, who romantically kayaked her across the bay. And I finally understood what Ed Sheeran was talking about when he sings "I see fire inside the mountain" as we watched the sun set into the mountains.

Finally, I know it may be creepy but I am a serious people watcher. I love guessing people's stories, how they met, where they come from and there was this couple on our boat that really stood out to me. He was from New Zealand and she was from California, they were sharing a room but it didn't seem like they knew eachother at all. They would tell eachother about their jobs and lives like they were just meeting so obviously I was curious about how these two got together. By the end of the trip we became quite chummy with them and I finally got the scoop- a story that I think is so lovely. They had met 30 years ago while traveling, dated briefly and then went their separate ways...a few months ago she came across him again on a dating website and they decided to meet up in Vietnam for a 30 year reunion (basically barley knowing eachother but seeing where it would go). I thought it was very romantic and makes you think about how unexpected life can be. You may end up with someone you met briefly 30 years ago and end up on an elderly cruise on Halong Bay!