Halong Bay and back to Hanoi

Still stranded in Hanoi for now. The only highlight is that I got to take a 2 day 1 night boat tour out to famed Halong Bay for some site-seeing: $29 for the entire package of 4 hour bus ride, 1 hour boat ride to the bay (round trip),kayaking, all meals inclusive, and overnight stay on the boat - not a bad deal. Along the way I met two very nice Austrian girls to who've invited me to visit them in Austria. Raves aside, Halong bay is a must see for anyone visiting Vietnam; the scenery is just phenomenal, especially on a clear day where you can see cascading layers of limestone karst fading in the the distance on the open sea.

Nice sunset shot of karst at Halong Bay.

Fruit vendors who drift their boats up to tourist cruiser boats trying to sell something.

Inside one of the huge caves of Halong Bay.

Upon returning to Hanoi, I was refused a hotel room at the place the two Austrians were staying due to my lack of a passport! I'm due to pick up my new visa tomorrow (just in time to exit the country hopefully). Anyway, I ended up wandering back to the dorm style hostel I had stay last Friday and met a couple of Swedish girls. We grabbed dinner and then strolled through the old quarters of Hanoi again. The scene is very lively and quintessentially Vietnam. However, it was a bit shocking to see the number of disfigured, deformed, and/and maimed; no doubt, all these are due to the hundreds of thousands of land mines left behind by both sides of the war, and the chemical agents used by the Americans during the conflict that have subsequently cause tens of thousands of birth defects. Despite that, the soul of the country seems to be moving on.

Maybe I'll visit Ho Chi Minh's preserved body tomorrow.