Adventures of the Black girls Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow - what a Ride!

What a busy first week it's been in Vietnam! Our Halong Bay trip was so much fun!! The first day started off with a 3 hour bus ride to the bay from Hanoi. Once we arrived, we hopped onto a junk boat with the rest of our group (about 25 people) and had lunch while boating through the bay. After lunch, we went for a kayak to a few of the bay's lagoons and walked through a few caves. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous! After, we kayaked back to our boat for a swim and to jump off the top deck a few times! We had dinner on the boat, and afterwards sat around the top deck with our group to play a few drinking games, listen to some music and try out Vietmanese Arm Wrestling.

The next morning, the boat dropped us off at Cat Ba Island, where we went for a hike up to one of the mountain peaks. The scenery was absolutely gorgeous, and it was a very challenging hike after the beverages from the night before!! After our hike, we went and checked into our hotel on Cat Ba Island, and enjoyed lunch on the top floor balcony overlooking the harbour. We spent the afternoon napping and enjoying our Air Conditioning and HBO.  For supper, we ate at the Bamboo Cafe, then went out to a local bar for the night. 

Our last day, we woke up early to get back onto a boat to head back to the Harbour. We spent most of the afternoon on the bus back to Hanoi. We were only in Hanoi for about 3 hours before we had to catch our sleeper bus to Hue. The bus was 3 rows of beds down the bus, with a 2 levels of beds.  There was also blankets, pillows, and a tv (which only played music videos in Vietmanese.) We all had a surprisingly OK sleep on the bus, before getting to Hue in the morning and finding a place to stay. 

We had a busy day in Hue! We started off by hiring 3 guys on motorbikes to drive us around and show us the local sights.  We saw a few local Pagodas, a Royal Tomb, Bunker Hill overlooking the area, and the Citadel. After supper with friends from our Halong Bay trip, we went for a walk down by the Perfume River.  We ended up being convinced by one of the local boat owners to take a Dragon Boat tour of the city for an hour. It was an interesting way to see the city all light up at night!

Today, we had to wake up early to catch our next bus to Hoi An. We arrived here at about 1 and ended up just staying at the hotel the bus dropped us off at, with a few friends.  We spent the day checking out some of the local tailor shops (there are probably over a hundred of these local shops, that will make anything you want custom fit for you for cheap!!) We've spent the rest of the day deciding just how much stuff we REALLY need, so that we're prepared to go tomorrow and order our clothes. We'll stay in Hoi An for about 3 nights before we continue to head south. 

Hopefully we'll have exciting updates and photos of our new clothes for you soon!!

Love,

Kristin and Tanis.