Up at 07:30, in a flurry of vile accursed hangover-induced illness, headaches, and general intolerance of anything approaching noise, cheerful hotel employees, or slight vibrations. Thankfully thankfully, the Voice of Vietnam that has been blasting music and motivation outside of our window at all hours of the morning has been silenced — one assumes, by a copious celebratory dose of snake whiskey the night before, since I can’t imagine commies giving enough of a shit about the health and sanity of their subjects to mercifully tone down the noise after a night of year-end boozing.
Our ride to Ha Long City is a four-hour motorized terror, sleep being nearly impossible due to the combination of nausea (thank god for heavy breakfasts, despite mistaking soy sauce for maple syrup and turning a perfectly good piece of French toast into an interestingly disgusting piece of early morning fusion cuisine) and Vietnamese driving tactics. The latter seem to consist of leaning on the horn and flashing high beams, while pulling out into oncoming traffic in an elaborate game of chicken to try and pass the lumbering, smoke-belching Soviet era truck full of shrieking pigs. This is how it’s done, regardless of whether you’re driving a huge tour bus or a small car being driven by a maniac happily babbling on his cell phone while the two poor suffering bastards in the back keep waking up from abrupt stops and blaring horns, and immediately decide that maybe keeping their eyes shut is not such a bad idea. Ignorance is bliss, when the alternative is seeing a freight truck barreling at you. Horn blaring, bien sur.
The boat’s lovely, with only four suites and two rooms. Unfortunately, we draw one of the accommodations right above both kitchen and engine room, but the whole deal is still beautiful and small. A bit of fresh air is a great cure for a hard day’s night. Despite some “eh” at the first lunch, the chef manages to put together a pretty reasonable beef filet — good, but odd that we always seem to be getting some sort of “Westernized” food despite our oft-stated desire for super spicy local dishes. No problem, apparently Northern Vietnamese are known for being less amenable to hot eats than Southerners. Just ask for chili. Lots of it.
There’s a visit to a fishing village, which we fear will be punctuated by annoying stalls trying to hawk tawdry souvenirs, but no such bad luck, it’s a pleasant boat ride around a quiet collecting of floating huts, waving children, and busy locals; nice to see they’re getting on with life despite, as it appears, supplying a bunch of the overnight boats with fresh fish.
