Tale of Two Cities
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. Well, that may be overstating it just a little, but like all good dichotomies – yin and yang, good and evil, East Coast rap and West Coast rap – today was a day of juxtapositions (and big words it seems). It started off much as yesterday ended, comfortably laid out on the deck of the White Dolphin without a soul around to ruin the moment.
Our crew has grown by one, as late in the evening a small group of staff from a nearby boat came on board for some drinks, leaving behind a young lady when they returned. We speculate that she is the girlfriend of one of the crew on our boat dropping in for a little late night bible reading, but we never find out for sure. Nevertheless, she is still with us when I wake up and has put together a table full of overpriced souvenirs, anxiously awaiting my trusty sidekick (who, to her credit, doesn’t buy a single thing). A short time later, another boat from the same company rafts onto ours, and just like that, our new crew member is gone.
In the exchange, we do get one of our burning questions answered, as the family on the second boat is from Australia, and, as it turns out, they have been talking about their next vacation being to Mexico. Go figure. 
The rest of the morning we spend slowly cruising back to port, enjoying the solitude and adding yet more pictures to our collection (I think we have taken more photos in the last two days that we did in the preceding two weeks), including Ang’s best impression of Kate Winslet.
We finish our boat trip with a nice lunch (fresh seafood for the most part, which is great for me, not so good for Ang) before dropping anchor back at port.
Fast forward 30 minutes, and we find ourselves crammed back into the minibus for the return drive to Hanoi, this time so full the luggage is wedged in every open pocket to get it all in. Our flight to Hue leaves a 5:45, so we have quickly shifted from a state of total relaxation, to one of anxiety, wondering if we will make it to the airport on time. Assuming we don’t go any slower than we did on the inbound trip, we will be cutting it close, but should make it. That knowledge does little to keep me from wanting to grab the wheel every time the driver falls in behind a dump truck going 30 km/h.
The drive itself is pretty uninspiring. Once out of the big cities, I expected to see lush countryside, with acres of rice paddies, like we have in Thailand and Indonesia. At least between Hanoi and Halong Bay though, it is mostly just a series of buildings, fairly equally split between residential, commercial and industrial. They hug the road, rarely more than a few layers deep, rather than clustered together in villages and towns. It’s interesting to see the style of construction, but all in all, it makes for a pretty dull landscape, adding to the monotony of the trip.
The good news is that we do make better time, and a little under four hours later, we are scrambling to unload our bags from the bus and into a cab for the drive to the airport. As we get to the outskirts of Hanoi, we finally start to breathe a bit easier, comfortable that we’ll make our flight to Hue and the next stop on our journey (and since talking about it here would be three cities, ruining my clever title, I will leave it until tomorrow).