Hanoi, Vietnam memories

We got stood up at
the airport by this hotel that was supposed to be there and pick us
up...so we had to scramble to find another one and by the time we got
there it was pretty late. I am in Hanoi, Vietnam right now! Haven't seen
ANY of it yet, because it is still evening we spent yesterday getting
there. The buildings here are very narrow and tall though..something about
the property tax being based on the width of the building..not sure. The last day in Cambodia was uneventful, as my mother and I are
both down with colds we just spent it hanging around the hotel and
somewhat walking around the town for a bit. There is this store in
Cambodia that especially sells crafts that are made by disabled people
from villages, which I thought was cool. Actually another cool thing I
really liked about Cambodia in general was the amount of NGOs that are
there to help out the country. We ate at this restaurant called Friends,
which was a restaurant where they trained street children to work in the
restaurant business so they were the waiters, hostesses, and even the
chefs who created the menu! Bought a used book called Lord of the Flies to
read...it was highschool reading but I never did it so I figured now might
be the time to catch up. So far it hasn't been bad but I think there is a
lot of symbolism in there that I am not getting yet.

Well the reason why I didn't write yesterday was because it was spent
dealing with the chinese embassy bureaucracy which wasn't too fun. Today
will be about the same as we have to go back there again, after spending
this whole morning there as well. Anyways, so I have just been spending
online looking for jobs and what I could possibly do when I get back home.
It's starting to hit that perhaps I am way too idealistic for my own good.
Maybe it's time to buckle down and accept reality you know? Kinda
realizing that I need to learn a lot more about the real
world/business/etc if I'm ever going to really get somewhere. I guess just
having dreams isn't good enough if there is no way for them to ever become
concrete hehe! Hopefully I can find a way to integrate my dreams with
reality...i think that will be my goal. One of my fears though is that
after begining working, I will just let my dreams go and just fall into
the cycle of wake up, work, go home, eat, sleep, wake up, etc.

Overall, I like the city of Hanoi, Vietnam. There are a lot of cafe's
everywhere as well as art galleries. At the same time, there at A LOT of
motorcycles! I'm starting to master the art of walking across the street
while motorcycles come roaring by and around me, because no one seems to
care much about the stop lights.

Today we got in a minivan and it drove us to Halong Bay in
Vietnam. Then we got on a boat and cruised around it...and it was
gorgeous! Love love loved it, there were just many many lush green islands
all around us and the water is really calm and the sky was blue and the
whole ordeal was just so nice and peaceful! Got a bit of a sunburn though
i think. And on the way to one of the bigger islands there were a lot of
the fishing "kelongs" you told me about...like the ones we saw at Palau
Ubin. I bet they catch the fish we ate on the boat. It is actually a
decently popular option to spend the night on the boat out in the bay. My
mom and I decided to spend it on the island instead, but I think a night
out on a boat in the bay would have been really romantic for couples...the
sky would have been amazing to say the least! Can you imagine all the
stars that a person would be able to see while lying on the deck of the
boat at night? Some trouble...i was having issues trying to find Orion's
Belt tonight in the sky. There were too many stars so I could figure out
which one was what!

I'm back from Halong Bay now, and am now back at the
hotel in Hanoi. Halong Bay is truly a gorgeous place, I would definitely
reccomend it to you if you were ever feeling the want to travel to
Vietnam. Another part that was cool about the past two days was that I got
to meet other travellers from Malaysia, Denmark, Italy, Australia, and
Holland! It was cool how people all over the world, who on most other days
live lives thousands of miles away from each other, come together all on a
boat to experience one of the wonders of nature. Today was a bit more
cloudy than yesterday, but I liked how the photos looked more today for
some reason. I told the other travellers a lot about why I liked Singapore
and I think they are more interested going there now!