Beating Snake Hearts and Minor Meltdowns

Greetings from Hue! So sorry for the lapse in posts, but our hotel in Hanoi did not have working internet and then we spent a rather hellacius night on the "luxury" sleeper bus that took us a whopping 15 hours to get from Hanoi to Hue, the old imperial city of Vietnam.

The sun decided to show itself for our last day on Halong Bay. We were happy to have the good weather, but it made us all a little sad because it showed us just how amazing our tour could have been. That said, we still had an incredible time on Halong Bay. It is a true wonder and one that everyone should try to see in their lifetime. Instead of putting ourselves through another not-so-tasty ordeal at our hotel in Cat Ba we decided to go for our last dinner in Halong Bay and then met up for a round of drinks with the people on our tour. We really had a great time getting to know them as they came from all over the globe from Spain to Mongolia and we had a lot to complain about from our pompous tour guide to our frightening encounter with the monkeys!!

After a bumpy drive back to Hanoi, Dave and I said goodbye to my parents and saw them off in a taxi to take them to the airport where they would be flying to Luang Prabang in Laos for their own romantic adventure to celebrate their 25th anniversary. On our own, Dave and I headed out in an attempt to find ban my (vietnamese sandwhiches) and a hotel where it had been recommended that we go for massage. After having spent an hour walking around the congested city, we had found neither ban my or the desired hotel. Tired, hungry and frustrated by the difficulties of being in a city where we could not speak the language I had my first real meltdown of the trip! Dave quickly found a solution and tempered my emotions with a cold coke and some tasty fried rice. Dave has been a real saint in dealing with me on our travels. When things get rough (as they so often do here with people trying to make a dollar at every turn) I tend to vent my frustrations on him and he has been very calm in helping me keep my perspective. Although travel has been hard, it makes the good moments where everything works out just that much more sublime. After refueling and drying my tears, we headed back out into the city with a new plan of action. We caught a showing of the water puppets at the municipal theater. It was hoaky but fun and gave us a taste of Vietnamese arts. My favorite were the mating peacocks!

Our last day in Hanoi was a great success without any major roadblocks. Although briefly thwarted by a closed cafe, we were able to reroute and jumped in a cyclo that took us to the cafe where Catherine Denueve took her morning coffee while filming Indochine. I had been lusting after a pan au chocolat and cafe au lait, so it was a perfect way to start the morning. We then headed off to the Museum of Ethnology, which is a really exceptional museum that houses all sorts of displays about the many many ethnic groups that are spread across Vietnam. Next, Dave took me on a adventure to Le Mat, the town outside of Hanoi where they raise snakes to send to the fancy restaurants in Hanoi. Dave ate more or less an entire snake which they prepared in 7 or so different manners. After seeing eerie displays of all kinds of creatures preserved in bottles we were seated in a ornate dining room before they brought out the snakes for our choosing. Dave got to choose between a standard snake or a very fiesty king cobra, but because of the hefty price for the cobra we went for the standard. We got to watch as they slit the snake's throat and drained its blood into a glass of rice wine and then disemboweled the thing mixing the gallbladder into another glass. The cherry on top was when they removed the still beating heart (hopefully video to come) which Dave slurped down in the glass of blood and rice wine!! I was disgusted but he seemed to manage ok. I did try some of the dishes they prepared like snake spring roll and can report that snake tastes kind of like chewey chicken. We finished out day off in Hanoi with some serious luxury as I got a facial and Dave had a "holistic" massage to help us relax for the long bus ride ahead.

And oh man what a bus ride.... it was certainly not what we were expecting based on the deceiving pictures we had seen. We showed up in a minibus with a handful of other expecting tourists only to find that they had oversold the bus. They started kicking vietnamese people out of their seats/beds to find room on the floor and Dave and I were the last ones to get on as the others were left behind. The quarters were quite cramped (Dave really did NOT fit) with three rows of beds each stacked two high. There were people sleeping along the aisles and they played terrible music all night long that was accompanied by frequent blaring honking from our driver. We took one pit stop the entire time so we just stopped drinking water and I have no idea how much sleep I got but it wasn't much. We have already paid our entire way to Saigon on these buses but apparently we have dealt with the worst leg!!

We arrived in Hue a little after nine this morning and had to beat off the local trying to get us to stay in their lodges. We found a place we really like and their internet is the best we have found so far. We spent the day zipping around on the back of two motos with great guides who showed us the city. I was a bit nervous at first, but it was a lot of fun and we did have helmets and got to see a lot in just a little bit of time. We went and saw the forbidden city contained in the citadel and also visited some pagodas and an incredible emperor's tomb. Lot's of rain here (its flood season) but we are managing to stay somewhat dry and having fun. Tomorrow morning its back on the bus and we continue South to Hoi An.

Jess