Lakes and mountains in the park

05.09.2014

It's only lunchtime on Saturday and already this weekend was pretty awesome.

My class on Friday ended two hours early because my tag team partner taught too much in the morning, leaving me with no material except some games that I have at the ready. As soon as the students realized they were done though, they wanted to go home. Who would have guessed? OK no game, go home.

I went straight onto the bus to Hanoi and it took FOREVER to get there. It didn't even matter that I left class early. We definitely spent two extra hours just looking for people to fill the bus.

At the station, the ticket lady had so much patience and explained to me how to get to Ba Be park. She even brought me to my bus! So different from China where they get mad at you if it takes you longer than 15.7 seconds to sell you a ticket. Don't even try to ask a question.

Anywho, I had another bus station egg sandwich and waited for my bus. I told the sandwich man which bus I was on and he ran around making sure I wouldn't miss it! The sandwich man!

I still do not fully comprehend the Vietnamese "stand around and wait" system of bus scheduling, but everyone else does, so I just went with it again.

They gave me the good spot at the back of the bus where you can lay down flat. So I slept like a baby until someone literally ripped my blanket off and pulled me off the bus. He got off with me at 3 a.m. and even called the hotel we had stopped in front of to wake the owner up. The bus didn't leave until they knew I was safe inside. That would also never happen in the People's Republic of China.

The hotel man was a little creepy giving me a really close awkward hug before I went to bed. I laughed loudly and pushed him out the door.

In the morning, I woke up with a strange numb feeling in my knee. I had heard from another blogger that he contracted dengue fever in this area. I had a new mosquito bite on that knee, so I wasn't sure what was happening to me. For a few minutes, I walked around weirdly and then it went away.

I got some rice things with pork for breakfast and attempted to find a bus to the park. Someone said there was one, but it didn't leave till 1 p.m. Ugh, too late, I started walking in the direction of the park hoping a bus would pass by, and eventually just flagged down a dump truck with two friendly guys sitting in the front. They took me a bit of the way and then they turned, so I got out and kept on walking.

Later, the same guys passed me and picked me up again! This time, they took me to Cho Ra (30 km) where I hired a man to take me into the park. His wife spoke great English and she saw me jump out of the dump truck and knew exactly what I wanted.

At the lake, I bought a 1.5 hour tour which was so relaxing, way better than Guilin, where it was way too crowded.

After that, I attempted to stay on the lake in a stilt house, but this was impractical because I don't think I would have made it back home on time if I did that.

So, a woman at the boat dock called Chu to come pick me up and bring me to his simple guest house.

His motorcycle broke down three times on the way (a 4 km journey), but we made it. They gave me a big plate of fried rice and I took a nap.

Chu offered to let me borrow his motorcycle to go to a waterfall 15 km away for about $5. I said thanks but no thanks. He said he could get another one, but I didn't want to bother him. So I just slept and read one of the English (!!!) books they had lying around in the lobby.

There was no power that day, so there was no air conditioning or fans, but there was absolute quiet, which was amazing. After dealing with retarded people all week, that's exactly what I needed anyway.

Chu asked me to eat dinner and at first I declined, but then I realized I probably wouldn't have any food until lunch tomorrow, so I went down after all.

They had nice spinach and bamboo pork with some strong Bia Ha Noi. We chatted a little about his business, but he seemed tired or unenthusiastic, so I just paid and went to bed.

In the morning, he came to take me to the bus (4:15 a.m.!) and I headed back to Hanoi.

The bus was awful. There were too many seats and I couldn't even fit. My knees smashed the back of the seat in front of me. I suddenly knew what it feels like to be tall. Also, a teenage couple in front of me were either slapping each other or wrestling awkwardly in their seats. I prayed to God for the end, as I rolled my eyes to the heavens.

We stopped once for some sticky rice banana thing and again to fix something on the bus. So yeah, I didn't really get any food till noon when I got to Hanoi. Impoverished people tried to take me somewhere on their motorbikes were caressing me, when I just wanted lunch. I had had enough dammit!

I started slapping anyone who touched me as I tried to buy my ticket and get some takeout. The number of slapped people rose to about a dozen. Good God.

In the end, the trip cost a fraction of the price I was quoted by the tour company. I was glad I went on my own, even though I had almost zero information.

Fairy pond