Coming off of a long week of teaching, building, and
travelling all over northern Vietnam, we have a well-deserved break on Halong
Bay. When we first glimpse the bay in
the distance, everyone is awe struck. We
are no longer in the midst of rice paddies and skinny multistory concrete
buildings. We look up from our Kindles
and other reading devices, wipe the sleep from our eyes and find ourselves in a
place like nowhere else on the earth. We
are even more awestruck when we realize that we will get to stay on a boat on
the bay for a few days before we head to Thailand.
We find ourselves on our own private boat where we put on a fancy night for the girls and go night fishing directly off the back of the boat.
We gradually make our way to Cat Ba Island, stopping at some of the
other sites of Halong Bay. We see caves
and beaches and get to go for a swim and a kayak ride. When we arrive at Cat Ba we are able to tour
the island on bikes before setting into our hotel. Since we only get to stay for one night, we
have to make the most of our time here.
Alex Lange and I plan a great adventure for the next day and turn in
after a late night of SHOUT and hanging out.
Suits and sandals for fancy night
I plan on waking up at 5 AM to find a geocache with Alex but
my alarm is foiled due to the fact that I stayed out a bit too late the night
before. Miraculously, I wake up on my own volition at 7 AM anyway and am able
to catch breakfast. Note that I am not in the least bit packed or ready to
leave at this point in time.
I run into Alex at breakfast and it turns out he knocked
on my door and I slept through that too. He went for a swim anyway. Another one
of our goals for the day is to rent motorbikes and tour around the island. We
find a place and I manage to get a bike for three hours and a half tank of gas
for only USD $5. Alex opts to fill his bike up from one of the street vendors
who sell liquor bottles full of gas. We
head into the national park and I feel the wind rush through my lack of hair
(as I recently had it shaved in Phu Tho by a barber on his porch). After
draining the tank about half way, we decide to turn back. We will make it way
before our time deadline but we decide to pass off our bikes to some other
members of our group so we can actually go hunt for the cache. We pass off our
bikes and with my bagged GPS and a little bit of swag, we hitch a ride on the
back of Josh’s scooter over to the beach (yes, there were three fully-grown men
on one scooter...). 
When we reach the beach it is 10 AM. It is a beautiful day
with clear skies and calm waters, the perfect day for a swim. Not being an
experienced swimmer, I am mildly wary of the swim but I quickly disregard and
sense of worry and dive in. After about 15 minutes of an awkward
doggy-side-stroke in Keens and cargo shorts while carrying a GPS, I
miraculously make it ashore.
Surprised at the speed and actual accomplishment I have just
completed, I turn on my GPS so it can begin to gather signal and walk around in
the general direction of the cache. Seeing a cave I wander in to explore, not
thinking I am anywhere near the cache. As I look around I see a suspicious
looking area and after further inspection, I discover that this is in fact the
cache! I let out a roar of victory in celebration of my first FTF and an epic
one at that!
When we open the cache, we are dismayed to find that there
is no pen inside. We decide to try the most epic way of signing this log to go
along with the approach to the cache, the location and the day in general.
Taking one of the many jagged rocks from the ground, we attempted to draw
enough blood to write in. Unfortunately, we could not get a good enough flow to
write in. Next we proceeded on to try squeeze the juices out of a plant to
write in but the markings proved too light. Finally we settled on an ink made
of dirt and spit which we wrote on to the log with a pointed rock.
After leaving my signature Golden Molar, a CA state quarter,
and a surfer smashed penny from Santa Barbara and taking a shell key chain and
a very old piece of gum, we swam back just in time to jog back to the hotel,
pack up and ship out. One boat ride and
bus drive later and we found ourselves on a plane. Vietnam was just a memory
and we were on our way to our next adventure in Thailand.
No comments:
Post a Comment