The two weeks of vacation from the vacation has come to an end. My mom flew in from Oregon and treated me to accommodations well beyond the comfort of recent haunts. We spent a week in Hoi An, a beach town along the central coast known for the zillion market stalls offering tailor made clothes. Our home-stay was set back from town-peaceful and covered in orchids. The loaner bikes were the best way to get around and we filled most days meandering through rice paddies in the surrounding fishing villages and exploring nearby beaches. On one of our late afternoon excursions we were invited in to a local home for dinner. We ate fish, rice and squash over simple conversation errr sign language (of sorts). All we had with us to show thanks were two smiles and a five piece pack of berry flavored Extra.
We returned to Hanoi and made a mad dash to fit in a two day junk cruise (Chinese sailboat) around Halong Bay. The area is a Unesco World Heritage Site and considered one of the seven "natural wonders." The dramatic landscape leaves no question why. There are some 3,000 towering monoliths clustered around the jade green waters of the bay - the skeletal remains of ancient bedrock. Our boat stopped off at set of impressively sized limestone caverns with incredible formations mottled from the erosive force of dripping water. Baffling. The characteristic mist that hangs around this time of year made for a truly ethereal landscape. Rowboats paddled us through a floating fishing village situated in a remote corner of the bay where the cultivated pearl industry seems to be thriving. We cruised past several floating shacks with attached satellite dishes. I don't thinks it's possible for me to be surprised by the places I find cable any longer. I turned 27 on the boat- yet again I had the great fortune to be in an amazing place and celebrate with a few of my favorite people. Hoi An had a variety of very unique cakes, so we poked candles into five inches of frosting whipped into ducks and water buffalo (accented with genuine silk leaves) a few days early. I just couldn't resist that kind of edible theatricality.
On our last day in the city I took a pre-dawn walk around the lake. It was a circus of exercisers. The inner path was a nucleus of enthusiastic early risers gesticulating wildly, bending joints Tin Man style, slapping (circulation?), and jazzercising like fiends. Runners and power walkers orbited in an endless string. The jem of the bunch was the ancient looking couple playing a ruckus game of badminton with the all the might their four feet and some shrunken change could muster as they have probably enjoyed every morning since the beginning of time.
Later the same evening we hopped an overnight train to Sapa, traveling in the comfort of an incredibly slim deluxe sleeper stuffed with bike boxes and luggage. We had the bikes set up by sunrise and stopped for some roadside pho before slogging the 35k up to town. The ascent was particularly challenging after more than two weeks off the bike, but was eased a bit by the clouds that hung around and kept things cool until the last 5k. Sapa turned out to be a cool town. We've been exploring the villages and sites for just under a week and plan to head toward the Laos border at sunrise tomorrow.