Ella’s Happy Trip to Ha Long Bay

Hey! The next morning we drove for a few hours in the car. On the road, though I had researched it and heard about it, I saw a dog in a cage on the back of a motorcycle being transported to a restaurant for meat for the first time. The motorcycle was a kind of dark pink, and the dog’s fur was burnt orange; almost the color of my own dog’s, Trixie’s, fur. It was a large, short-haired dog that could barely stand up inside its small, rain-soaked, confines. It took a while before I could think of anything but that dog… I wish I couldn’t imagine what is happening to that poor thing now, but I can. We kept driving until we almost reached our hotel. There, we got out of the car and bought tickets to tour an underground village made during the war. The people who had lived in it had been inside of it for six years. It housed 600 people. We headed over to a movie area before touring, but the movie was just ending so we decided to watch it after touring the tunnels. A group exited the theatre, and what do you know! It was the group with the old woman that Asher had skipped past by the caves the day before! We all followed a guide, by that time it was pouring rain, and entered a museum. There, we saw pictures and artifacts from the town. One stood out to me; a black and white picture of a line of infants on the bottom of the cold tunnel floor in woven baskets. It was the nursery. Another picture that was just kind of funny was one of a cow in a bomb shelter, they had made the cattle their own shelters! The guide showed us a picture of some of the inhabitants of the tunnels and pointed out one child. It was her father. After looking at large ventilation holes, we entered the tunnels. I could hardly stand in the cramped, one-way, passages. The walls seemed to be of a red stone, but on closer inspection were revealed to be clay. As we walked, water poured onto our bodies. Soon after we came in, a man from the old woman’s group went back out because of claustrophobia. We saw the meeting room, family bedrooms, maternity ward, bathroom, toilet, and two freshwater wells. It was surprising to see freshwater because the tunnel was underground and close to the ocean. We came out of the tunnels soaked and enlightened. 600 people had to live with this for six years worth of monsoon seasons. After leaving the movie early because it was boring and uninformative, we ate lunch with a local family. There was a really cute puppy there with her father!

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We drove to the hotel and worked and watched another Vietnam episode. Luu drove us to dinner and we were surprised when he brought out a cake! He had heard us talking about Aba’s Hebrew birthday and had gotten a birthday cake! The cake was actually quite good, nothing compared to Aba’s homemade cakes, of course, but I was surprised they even had cakes in the rural village.

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We lit Hanukkah candles for the eight night of Hanukkah, the last night, and watched two episodes of Weeds. Then, we blogged and went to sleep. The next morning, we woke up and I weaved in the car until we got to a palace, though we had stopped to eat pomelo along the way. We were in Hue, the previous capital of Vietnam from the time when it was a monarchy. We toured some of the palace rooms, but it was pouring rain and it was leaking inside.

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We had a small snack at a coffee shop and drove to the hotel. We worked until dinner, at which time it was still raining. We ended up eating at a military-themed restaurant, which was hilarious. We walked back to the hotel in the rain and took the first real HOT showers we had had in Vietnam. It was great. I weaved until bed. The next day was uneventful. We drove to the next town and, after walking around for a bit, did math homework. That night, I stayed up until midnight and finished Troy’s Christmas present! The next day was much more eventful. Asher and I accidentally slept in because we had set our alarms for the wrong time. We ate a satisfying breakfast of fruit and eggs and then Luu drove us to the Sun World Ba Na Hills amusement park. This was a park that we had originally heard of because of a beautifully designed golden bridge held up by two large ‘stone’ hands. When we arrived at the park, it was pouring rain. It was raining harder than any other of our rainy days in Vietnam, so it was really raining! We rode the longest cable car in the world up to the park. People say that going to the park is worth it if only for the cable car, not that we could see it. The clouds, mist, and rain fogged up the windows and swallowed us in white and grey. However, it was very long and Aba even started to get claustrophobic. We went into a circular room with passages to different areas of the park. As we waited for the rain to die down, it didn’t, we had some fresh mango ice cream and chicken hot dogs. We made our way to an indoor gaming area where we went to a number of attractions. We saw two 3D movies, the ‘Penguin Express’ and ‘The Little Dino’. They were, well… THE LITTLE DINO. *cringe*. We also went on a spinning ride which was fun as well as one of those drop towers, though Aba didn’t do it and Asher was terrified. Asher and I shared a cart during a ghost shooting game, which was fun, but we were severely disappointed by the haunted Dead House. There was nothing there! It was very sad. We did some other activities and there was a power outage for about ten minutes, so we were in the dark. There was a claw machine with a pink-blood-crying bunny in it that I wanted to try for, but none of the token machines worked. If anyone actually comes here, you’d better win me one!

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There was a wax museum, too, but everyone looked horrible! Also, did you know that Marilyn Monroe had six toes?

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We went to the bridge as it was still raining and foggy, so some of the effect was lost on us.

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We had a bit of trouble navigating back to the car, but Luu drove us back to the hotel and we said goodbye to him. He’d been a pretty good guide after all. We did homework until late and then blogged and went to sleep. We woke up early in the morning and took showers, then proceeded to do a hundred-point math exam. Still in the morning, we drove to a city called Da Nang, which houses the airport. We stayed at an old-looking but wonderfully designed and decorated hotel. There were patterns of bamboo and wood artfully placed along ceilings and walls, which was a nice relief from the plain white walls in other hotels and guest houses. We walked around the city and I saw a cool retro art store that I liked. Then we went to see DC’s new Aquaman Movie. DO NOT WATCH IT. STAY AWAY! IT WAS A TOTAL BUST!!!!!!!!! Seriously, if it wasn’t DC I would’ve walked out of the theatre! It was completely cliche, the director ruined the plotline, the acting was bad, and the storyline was terrible, as were the costumes! We anger-raved about the movie the rest of the day, even though Asher loved it, and watched the last episode of the Vietnam TV show. Today, we woke up early and skipped breakfast. We drove to the airport and flew to Ha Long Bay. There was a complication with baggage weight and we had to move some of our stuff around and buy another bag (?!), but we arrived with no other problems. Apparently, on the flight, some millennial was flirting with Aba and Troy, but I didn’t see it (I was reading). Ask them to write about it! This is a family blog! Riot! I want to hear more about this story too!!!! Anyway, our driver was a little late picking us up, and we arrived we realized that he doesn’t speak English, only French. On the drive to a harbor, I was going over some French phrases and conversation starters in my head, but I didn’t actually talk to him. Because of a miscommunication, he accidentally drove us to a touristy pearl farm when Aba and Troy asked to go to a coffee shop, but then we went to the marina. We proceeded to enjoy a four hour boat ride in Ha Long Bay, and it was beautiful. Mountainous, small, green, rocky hills rose up in the ocean past the horizon. It was very peaceful, and I enjoyed the ride immensely.

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While we ate in the cabin of the boat, a woman tried to sell us some pearls and bags and fans and whatnot. About a minute later, a woman who had been watching took the exact same products and acted as if we had never seen them before! She tried to sell them again! We also saw a cave, but it was boring and touristy, so I won’t even write about it. We got to the hotel and watched a few episodes of Weeds, then ate dinner (with chocolate fondue for dessert!) and blogged, which is now! Goodnight!

24-6-22, 11-6-6-11-23!

Ella