Leaps Of Faith

The day before yesterday, Sean and I jumped off the top of a boat. Though it might be your first thought, we didn't actually jump because the mosquitoes and the heat and the CONSTANT SOUL-DESTROYING HONKING OF MOTORBIKES in Hanoi had finally got the better of us, and we weren't pushed either (though look a little closer, doesn't it look like he's pushing me?) We jumped purely because we could, because the junk we were sailing on around Ha Long Bay stopped exactly for that purpose.

I have to admit, it was kind of my fault. When I lived in Hong Kong, jumping off the top of junks was practically a national pastime. So when I asked our guide, as we sailed past caves and grottos, whether or not we'd be able to jump off the top of the boat later, he looked at me with an incredulous expression. I thought he was about to give me the "girl, you crazy!" talk, but instead his eyes lit up. "Of course!" he said, with more animation than I'd seen him display all day. Apparently, boat-jumping is a nation pasttime in Vietnam, too.

Hurling ourselves from the roof of that boat into the ocean was actually the best thing Sean and I did all day. If we'd had any sense, however, we would have stayed there. Because our trip around Ha Long Bay was, in short, a disaster.

Now let's get this straight: Ha Long Bay isn't supposed to be a disaster; it's one of the most beautiful places in Southeast Asia. Apparently, however, it's only beautiful if you get to see it. Sailing in an apparently arbitrary loop, miles away from the sights, with The World's Surliest Crew scowling at you and a sweet but clueless tour guide whose English is execrable hardly does you any good. Then there was the sitting around, the mind-numbing tedium of roasting in the heat and waiting for the boat to leave the dock---it finally did, two hours off schedule---and the complete abandonment of the itinerary we'd been given in favor of the aforementioned random sailing. "Fishing village? What fishing village? We were supposed to have visited a fishing village?" said the guide---or I think he did, because he raised his shoulders in a shrug and laughed. There were sixteen of us aboard, and we had signed up for an informative, action-packed two-day tour, with a night spent on the boat.Everyone boarded the minibus with high hopes packed alongside their sunscreen and swimwear, and everyone left dejected, scowling, and thoroughly disappointed.

Oh, wait, I'm sorry, did I say there were sixteen of us aboard? I meant sixteen hundred, if you count the cockroaches who showed up for the cruise, one of whom opted for the special Slow Crawl Across Holly's Shoulder add-on. And then there was the rat, who scratched at the wall of our cabin all night, and probably would have entered through the hole directly above the bed, had Sean not stuffed it with a plastic bag at 1am. We had fans in our berths, though the power was turned off in the middle of the night, rendering them useless (and us hot, sticky, and unable to sleep.) And did I mention the PORN that the crew was watching in the dining room as they prepared the tables for dinner? It was accompanied by pounding techno music they pumped through the stereo speakers---trust me, we were not a techno music kind of group---and it replaced what they'd been playing before, which had been a mix of Joni Mitchell and Ricky Martin. Strange bedfellows, yes, but hardly as offensive as porn n' techno, especially with kids on the boat.

We met a lovely family from Boston, with whom we stuck for most of the tour, if only because it was a safe bet that one out of the six of us might understand what the guide was saying. Although Sean and I had only paid $25 each for the trip, and were therefore of the opinion that perhaps you get what you pay for---rats, dinner porn, and all---this family had been sold the exact same package for double that price. Having stayed up all night (unsuccesfully) killing the cockroaches that marched across their bed in a perfectly straight line---"it was the Ho Chi Minh trail!" said Boston Dad---they were not particularly amused by the swindle. Nor was the French couple who'd paid $30 and were almost left behind on the dock, nor the poor Korean boys who'd paid $28 and actually were left behind by the minibus in Ha Long City. (I'm sort of worried they're still there.) Most upset, however, was the German man (price paid: $32) who almost came to blows with the tour guide. After we were released from the boat, most of us kissing dry land gratefully, we were herded into a horrible tourist restaurant, all three floors of it teeming with people just like us who'd been herded in there too and then served sub-par spring rolls. Finally allowed to leave an hour later, we all boarded the minibus again to go back to Hanoi, the mood sour with disappointment, the air heavy with the resentment of people who know they've been taken for a ride. Three minutes down the road, the German man's daughter discovered she'd left her cell phone at the horrible restaurant. "Stop the bus!" she called. "I've left something behind and I need to go back!" "STOP THE BUS!" boomed the German man, three seconds later, as the bus kept moving. "STOP THE BUS! STOP THE BUS!" we all yelled five seconds after that, actually rather worried now that the bus was still not stopping, despite our protests.

Duly incensed---and probably rather panicked---the German man pushed his way forward from the back of the minibus and tried to yank open the door as it was moving. "Open this door, goddamnit!" he shouted, the moment made even more exciting and Schwarzenegger-esque by his pronounciation of "goddamnit" as "gott-dem-it." The minibus finally lurched to a halt, and the tour guide---with uncharacteristic energy---sprang up and started shouting at the German man, who shouted right back. "We are not going back to the restaurant!" yelled the tour guide, "We are going back to Hanoi!" "We are going back to the restaurant!" shouted the German man, "You had us sitting around for two hours yesterday, and this will take five minutes!" There was more screaming and fists were raised---though thankfully not used; the German man was a big guy---and then the tour guide slammed the bus door into the chest of the German man, who most likely would have snapped the tour guide in two immediately, had the situation not been diffused by the German woman finding her cell phone under the seat. Thankful that it had not come to fisticuffs after all, we rode the rest of the way back in silence, everyone exchanging "did-that-just-happen?" glances, unsure what to say. No-one gave the tour guide a tip.

That evening, Sean and I boarded a 12-hour sleeper train to Hue (pronounced "way"), and awoke this morning to rice paddies slipping past the windows and the sun shining into the carriage in such a way as to promise no more terrible tour guides, rats in the walls, porn at dinner, or Ricky Martin. We have now excelled ourselves in the budget stakes, paying just $3 each a night for our room, which is perfectly nice and clean, and has AC and a private bathroom. It also has laundry service---75 cents a kilogram---and so we dropped off 6.5 kilograms this morning and considered it the best five bucks we'd ever spent. (Is that the right math? I don't know, you check. I'm distracted by the Bon Jovi videos playing in a constant loop in the background. I haven't seen these videos since 1995! And yet somehow my brain has retained all the lyrics to "Bed of Roses" and none of the French subjunctive tense.)

We rented bikes this afternoon and rode fourteen kilometres through rice paddies and villages, waving back at everyone who waved at us. Everywhere we went, the kids called out "hello! hello!" and we called out "hello! hello!" back. We pulled over to a stop when the trees started saying "hello! hello!" to us---had we had too much sun?---only to find a gaggle of little girls hiding in its branches, spying on the crazy tourists winding their way down the bumpy dirt track. Twenty or so children came out of their houses to see us, waving and smiling and giving us high fives. "Picture! Picture!" they singsonged, pointing at our cameras, and then hammed it up repeatedly for each snap, pausing only to gather around the screen and collapse in laughter at their faces in each shot, only to beg us to take another one, just one more, just one more, which started the process all over again.

We snapped picture after picture after picture, trying to let each individual kid see his or her face on the screen, but there were just so many of them and eventually we had to leave. "Goobye! Goodbye!" they called, as we clambered back on our bikes and set off wobbily down the path, waving over our shoulders. "Goodbye! Goodbye! Goodbye! See you again! See you again soon!"