my weekend

So you remember last weekend nothing special happening at all. This weekend was AWSOME!
So we went to Halong Bay which i think i mentioned before being a heritage site, and for good reason! It is amazing!
So B and i were planning on getting there a little early and hanging out for the day in halong, but sleep was a little bit more of a priority so after sleeping in on friday, we ended up meeting our friends in Thai Nguyen and catching the bus with them to halong which was especially cool, becuase they had a friend to help them flag down some random bus on the side of the road AND they paid for the bus ticket - which is quite expensive actually... so we got a free trip to Halong!
When we were leaving, it was raining, and when we arrived it was raining. We went to a night market though and got really ripped off trying to buy pearls. then we headed back to the hotel and it was just like being back in HCMC. everybody was in the same hotel and everybody was accessable. I think that is what is hard about my placement - especially while B was sick. I was alone. But the hotel was just awsome, i mean as good as any hotel, but the access to the people made it so much better. We woke up to rain and things werent looking good for us at all. Then as we all piled into taxis and arrived at the dock it stopped raining. We had to hop onto another boat that would take us out to our boat and do a bit of boat hopping but it was all good and nobody fell in. The boat had 3 levels. The top had no chade but loads of deck chairs which everyone bags within 5 seconds of getting onto the boat! the second level had a dining roon and bar and couches for karaoke and the like. It also had a few bed rooms and the bottom level had the rest of the rooms. it was a really beautiful boat, with lots of almost vertical stairs...

We had a pretty boat ride into halong bay, its actually a bit confusing. the beach is called Mi thai beach and the water is called halong bay. so we had to boat out to the bay. We were surrounded by water but because we were moving we couldnt swim. we were also kinda surrounded by floating rubbish so it wasnt all that appealing anyway. We finally got into the bay and were surrounded by huge cliffs that rose meters into the sky and just sunk back into the water. it was amazing. The tour boat took us to see a cave that was just full of stalectits and stalegmites, but onece you see the first room, you really have kinda seen it all and the whole thing was sposed to take us 45 minutes, Bugger that for a joke. all we wanted to do was swim! so thats kinda what we did. we managed to find our boat again and they took us out into deep water and said. you swim now. and we did! Most people just jumped off the boat, but me being all class and a bit of a sook, i just slipped in from the bottom deck all lady like and lost my pants... woops :S
We swam for what seemed like ages. People just jumped off the boat again and again and again trying new ways of jumping off. I was just so relieive to be swimming that i just chillaxed in the water. It was soo warm and beautiful and peaceful.

After swimming was dinner and more layzing around and drinking really and just generally chillaxsing. Most people were drunk by 8:30 which lead on to be a rather early night with most people in bed by 12, but by the next morning we were ok with that becuase b/fast was at like 7 and kyaking was at 8:30. that was beautiful too but i'm still feeling the effects in my arms and shoulders... After K was more swimming but not nearly enough. There was more jumping and more floating. Then it was home again. There was a private bus waiting to pick us up and take us back to hanoi and apparently as soon as we left, it started raining again. Ha. good timeing!

That bus trip was probably worse than catching a public bus. Ok so it got us home really quickly,b but it was rather uncomforable. Anyway we got into hanoi and B and i immediatly put our photos onto a disk so now all we have to do is find a computer with a cd drive! harder than previously thought... i will admit. But photos will be comming soon, i promise! maybe i will send the phtos to theo who can upload them onto facebook.... what do you think?

so that was myweekend. Very relaxed and carefree. so much so that when i did get into hanoi i had forgotten that we were actually in VN at all. After just sociallising with Gappers and other english speakers i felt so much more at ease. Actualy when we came back we went to see mS Yen and she was like. Slow down. i cant understand. you talk too quickly. so it must have had a rather large effect on both of us. Now i am absolutly buggered and thats why this entry isnt as amusing as it could be...

I will however sign off with an interesting translation... Xe-Om(remember that one pronounced ze-om) is actualy translated into motorcycle hug. :P

sleep out!