Life on the Road

I'd like to say I'm jet-setting around Asia, but that's not quite true. I'm more of 'slow bussing around Asia.' It's been a busy week, traveling from the foothills of the Himilayas to the Gulf of Tonkin and the Pacific Ocean. Adrienne and I are adjusting to life on the road still, with each day presenting new challanges and new adventures.

Leaving China left me with the problems of traveling in a unique country [Vietnam] without the requisite bag of tricks I'd developed in China. Adrienne has told me I need to smile and say, 'no thank you', to street people, instead of just ignoring them like in China. Also, I've found the Vietnamese slightly less punctual as the Chinese. Plus there are more scams.... much more.

Talking to people makes you wonder why you'd come to a country where almost everyone has their own scam story on either a bus, travel agent, taxi or xe om (motorcycle taxi). The scams are all the same, from extortion to overpricing, to bait-and-switch to outright theft. I sit on edge waiting for my crack at this seedy underside of Vietnam, suspecting everyone of harboring an inner swindler. Not the most enjoyable way to travel, but as time passes my feeling has been dissapating. Hopefully it won't be my lingering memory of this country.

Aside from that I've been taking a lot of busses. Overnight sleeper busses where instead of seats there are proper bunk-beds, like in a first class airplane but much more cramped (up to 40 bed on a bus!). The roads suffer more than the buses, as we traveled 7 hours from the tiny village of YuanYang to the Vietnamese boarder, travling the entire way benath the completed but unused highway - Vietnam hasn't built it's side at the boarder yet, so China forbids travel on it's half. In addition to the Chinese government's urban transportation policy, descending and climbing the hills near the Sino-Vietnamese border on the tiny windey roads can also be cause for nausea. Or at least it was for an old gradma 3 rows behind me, yacking into a bag as we climbed the hills to the village of YuanYang. I just put on my iPod and rubbed Tigerbalm under my nose to cover the sound and smell....

The decent from the mountains of Lijiang, through the rice village of YuanYang, the rainy hills of Sapa and down to the metropolitan hub of Hanoi has been a dizzying display of minority villages, fantastic panaramas and lots of rain. The best thing I've seen in the past week was Halong bay - an oceanic playground of hundreds limestone cliff islands shooting up from the green-blue water below. It's an experience to kayak through a small cave into a hidden lagoon surrounded by towering green cliffs on all sides.

I'm catching a bus down the coast in 10 minutes to Hue and Hoi An. Beach here I come!