Safely back in Thailand now, with a medium-sized pile of fantastically therapeutic, mildly crazy adventures in my journal, I figured I should probably report in on the highlights, lest the highlights alone grow into a novella-length monster. Well, also, of course, to let y'all know that I got out of Cambodia without further incident, and that in fact, Vietnam went quite well. That's somewhat of an understatement, I suppose.
Canyoning is bad ass. It was me, a mate (met in Saigon), two local guides, and the mountains and the river. I promise I'm not allergic to other humans, but having nature to yourself seems a certain kind of special to me. It wasn't the fifty foot rappel down that sheer cliff face that was the best. Or the eighty foot rappel *in* the crazy waterfall (hang on to that rope with the weight of all that water beating down!). The best part of my day was the free hanging inverted (yeah, upside-down) descent into a waterfall called "The Washing Machine" because it spins you in circles. I like this sport. Not another human all day, hiking around the mountain jungles in the central highlands of Vietnam, jumping off cliffs, rappelling down waterfalls, and riding rapids like water slides. Didn't suck.
The very next day, we (the same canyoning crew) did a decently serious bike trip, around fifty miles. It took us about five hours. We started in the mountains right below the cloud line, and biked up a few miles into the clouds. We're literally riding in the clouds. It's cold; we're a mile about sea level. I'm soaked (clouds are made of water - cold water, I learn). But then we start a twenty mile downhill (continuous for twenty miles!) descent. I'm riding through mist and rain and mud in zero visibility, and then suddenly, we drop below the cloud line and everything opens up. The clouds are caressing amazing, lush mountains nestled with rolling green valleys. All the while, I'm screaming down curvy, car-commercial roads, whipping around deserted mountain cutbacks at breakneck speeds (brakes are for wusses). I must've whizzed past more than a dozen crashing waterfalls cutting paths through vivid red clay. I had to constantly remind myself to watch the road every now and then, as the scenery was so gorgeously distracting. The uphill bits later in the ride got pretty brutal, but at no point did I give up, get off, and push. In the end it was all worth it. We started on a mountain and we finished at the ocean. The South China Sea never looked more lovely than after that crazy ride.
Yep, those were pretty awesome. But. If you do one thing in all of southeast Asia, if you had only enough time to do one thing here before you died, you must, without a shimmer of doubt, kayak Halong Bay. Not some boat tour, not some luxury cruise. You must go to Hanoi (or Haiphong) and book the longest kayaking trip you can find (the longest one I found was three days and two nights). Yes, the water there is the purest, clearest deep turquoise I've ever seen. Yes, the majestic, towering limestone karsts thrusting from the sea to the sky are utterly, unequivocally stunning. But those aren't the reason to go. Those aren't the reason to kayak the bay. It's the lagoons. Here, an unadulterated excerpt straight from one day in my journal.
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March 10, 2008 - Halong Bay
I kayaked four today, each more spectacular than the last. The first one, we (you need a local guide) slipped through a meter-high archway at the base of one of the [thousands of] karsts, to find ourselves in a totally enclosed lagoon. Clear and blue, surrounded by massive, lushly coated karsts, and accessible by that small archway on the ocean. We're getting pretty close to paradise here.
Back out on the still blue sea, we paddled through a limestone tunnel maybe a hundred feet to get to the second. Eagles soaring overhead and complete silence save for the call of birds echoing off the cliffs reaching at the heavens. The unrippled, reflective water, a color that I thought only occurred in dreams.
A short cave off that lagoon took us to the next gem. A lagoon within a lagoon! Red-faced monkeys frolicked in the trees blanketing the cliffs, eating various leaves, leaping from bough to bough, and generally ignoring their brother primates gazing up at them from below.
The grand finale. From the postcard ocean, we entered a deep, dark cave. For a thousand feet, we made our way slowly and carefully through the pitch black cave (good thing I brought my flashlight), dodging jutting rocks and ducking stalactites. When the cave finally (it seemed like forever in the exhilarating black) opened out into that lagoon, that brilliant, immaculate, totally encircled pool, the beauty brought tears to my eyes. I'm serious. My eyes welled up. I couldn't speak. It was overwhelming. This unimaginable perfection, accessible only through this insane cave, only when the tides and currents are just right, it pretty much rocked my world. Hard. Then we did the cave a couple more times because it was so frickin cool.
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So yeah, I had a decent time in Vietnam. I'm back now in Thailand regrouping and vaguely looking for a diving gig that will open a door to somewhere new. I've got leads in Mozambique in Africa, Bunaken Island in Indonesia, and Palau in Micronesia. My friends in Fiji aren't responding to my emails. Hmm. Anyway, we'll see if any of that pans out.
In the meantime, I hope you are well, and miss you ever so much.
Taking one for the team.
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