Touching Emotion

I wish this blog spot allowed me to write that in italics because it's so much more evocative when written in italics. It's the tag line of our Hanoi hotel (called the Art Hotel which is also a curious choice). I didn't get a round of applause like I have done for some of our previous lodgings or activities. Just a some high pitched "this will be fine" and "nothing wrong with this". It was rather a shock coming from our stylish, boutique Luang Prabang lodgings.
I spent quite a bit of time in Hanoi about 16 or so years ago and I have to say I wouldn't recognize the place. It's a city of 6 million people in which there are 4 million motorbikes. I have memories of a sleepy city with beautiful French colonial buildings and old Vietnamese guys wearing berets, riding bicycles with baguettes under their arms, big tree lined streets and busy old quarter pho alleys. My first impressions of the city this time was the onslaught of motorbikes. There were a few push bikes but they weren't meandering romantically along like I remember, but instead madly dodging traffic.
It was dark when we arrived and what I saw was a Blade Runner-esque type city; Asian meets Western, masses of people, flashing neon lights everywhere (mostly advertising Kareoke), decaying buildings and an eerie blanket of smog and mist.
We were only in Hanoi a night before we set off early the next morning for our tour of a region just south of the city. It was a grey day and were all tired from our late night and still recovering from our tummy bugs (particularly Jed). We had a lovely guide, a driver and mini van to ourselves and we battled through the chaotic traffic for two hours. Despite the madness of it there is obviously a system to it (we are yet to figure it out properly) and even driving head first into oncoming traffic doesn't seem to be against the rules. The boys were amazed at how much people used their horns. On the road it would seem tooting your horn is like having a conversation, or probably more like making an announcement - I'm coming into your lane, I'm overtaking, I'm driving head first towards a semi trailer let me back into the lane. Someone didn't listen to one of our drivers toots and we had a minor scape which was dealt with with surprising restraint. Mostly it all seems to work out ok.
The day was cold and misty and when we arrived at a local house for tea I was glad we weren't doing a home stay there. I want real, but not THAT real. It was stark, freezing, uncomfortable with an icy wind blowing in from the lake outside. We set off on bikes, bumping along rocky tracks, looking at the farmland and lotus ponds with limestone mountains jutting out of them.
The afternoon consisted of being rowed round lakes with similar limestone peaks coming out of the water. These small mountains had a series of caves underneath them that went all the way through to the other side, sometimes hundreds of meters long. They were lit by a series of lights and our strong boat lady rowed us for two and a half hours (Jed pitched in most of the way and we had sporadic bursts of helping out too) through these caves and the surrounding waterways.
We stopped at a local market and drooled over a rotisserie set up with crispy sizzling ducks turning slowly over hot coals. We couldn't resist buying one to add to the evening meal.
We arrived at our dwellings and were thrilled to see our rooms had big comfy beds with freshly laundered white cotton sheets. We had our own bathrooms but kitchen and dining room we shared with the local family hosting us.
Our sweet guide Thuong (who we had unfortunately been calling the drivers name, Zuton, all day) cooked us dinner and asked if we wanted to change our itinerary the next day and go to Halong Bay instead of to the National Park because the weather was bad and she thought it would be busy. We agreed to this plan but had no idea of the Halong hell that awaited us.....