Halong Bay

Dear Faithful readers,

Please bear with me as I add one of my longest posts ever (at least in the sheer number of photos). Our next stop on our Viet Nam trip was to Halong Bay. A World Heritage Site and considered by many to be a "wonder of the world" we were excited about this.

Here is Alessandra after we are dropped of by the docks. We were going to take a smaller boat our to our "Junk" which would be our home for the next 24 hours.

Here are the girls and I on the boat heading to the Junk.

Olivia - Junk in the background

Junks, Junks and more Junks.

We were greeted on board our Junk by LUNCH (you know how much we love lunch)

Here is Olivia (our fabulous 6year old who will try ANYTHING... once) With an Elephant Clam. She wasn't crazy about the texture, but she loved the taste.

Heading into Ha long Bay - a foggy, foggy day.

The girls on the top deck or out Junk. It was a bit drizzly and chilly, but we managed. (must be all of that time in Oregon, that prepared us).

We stopped at an incredible cave. Above the Junk you can see one of the cave outlines. We had to walk up hundreds of stairs to get up there. The Junk Captain offered for us to leave the kids on board while we went (um, yeah, I can see that going over well.... ) They went with us and did great!

Here is a look at the bay from the cave entrance.

One of the overlooks. Our happy family.

Brad and Olivia inside the giant cave.

Brad - Ha long Bay. Nice combo.

Walking back on the docks (from the cave) to find our Junk.

The next stop was a beach. Now, had the weather been clearer and warmer we would have likely swam (although the water had a bit of trash in it, so we weren't soooo keen on that). Haven't you always wanted to swim in the Gulf of Tonkin?

So, no swimming this day, but the girls got off of the boat and RAN, ran, RAN through the sand in the rain. Olivia - showing us the gloriousness of Ha long Bay (while Brad is enjoying a beer behind me and I am under an umbrella to stay dry).

And Alessandra amid her jog on the beach. The only other people in the water were a large group of Russians. Who, by the way, have really good taste in swimwear.

We were greeted back on the boat by another phenomenal dinner (complete with loads of fresh seafood) and after dinner you could go fishing with the guides. Not one other person on board wanted to (there were only 2 other couples with us on our boat) except for......

Olivia - our fishing girl. Note the Vietnamese squat position. She fits right in. (she didn't catch anything, but enjoyed being out there at night).

The next morning, we got onto a small boat (rowed by a person) to go into another area unreachable by large boat.

The boat ahead of us - at the ticket area (all floating cities)

Where are they taking us?

We saw monkeys from our boat and threw them bananas.

Alessandra - very happy about the monkeys.

Under the cave...

and into a quiet and serene place.

Back onto the Junk for lunch and the ride back into the port.

Here are the girls poking their heads out of our cabin. Note that we were right on the water - and I have a feeling that safety requirements aren't the same in Viet Nam. Thankfully Alessandra didn't have one of her acrobatic moments while we were on board.

Outside our cabin...

Highly recommend Ha long Bay. We were only disappointed (slightly) that the weather wasn't clearer. It would have been wonderful to see it even more grand than it was.

Hanoi - Day 1 - continued.

As we continued our half day tour (we saw SO much that first day), we went into the center of the city and saw lots of pagodas and many other parks.

Here is one of the pagodas that I liked best. It was tall, narrow and each window houses a Buddha.

The girls in front of a tree that started as a branch from India

I liked this view because you have the old pagoda in the foreground and the modern building in the background. Southeast Asia is a huge clash of modern and old.

One place we went was a celebration of Confucius. It was a place for learning and study (historically). Lovely grounds.

After a visit to many temples and places of history. We did stop for a visit (per our request) at the Hoa Lo Prison (otherwise known as The Hanoi Hilton). What surprised me was that the prison was built right in the center of the city (not sure what I was expecting really).

The front of the prison.

The below photo is of how the prison looked when it was all intact. They have now taken most of the building down and built up large apartment buildings all around the historical part of the prison site.

They had a number of the cells still intact. Alessandra enjoyed looking inside.

The one thing that made it most "real" was the models that they had inside the prison. They had it set up like it was historically. It was the one thing on the entire trip that really profoundly hit Olivia (to the point that she wouldn't go back in).

The end of the day. A Bia Ha Noi (each province has their own beer) and some Pho. Happy Brad.

And here is a corner in Hanoi. The traffic there was unlike any I have ever seen. We took this on an evening stroll. It wasn't as busy as we saw it get, but it gives you some idea.

Hanoi Tour - Day 1

Day 1

We had a tour with our guide through Hanoi. One of the first stops that I am sure is on the tip of every one's thoughts is visiting the Mausoleum of Ho Chi Minh (no, I am not serious). We told our guide that we had no desire to go inside of the tomb area, but would be happy to tour outside in the gardens.

It was rather evident from the moment we arrived that we were in a Communist, policed state.

Olivia outside of the grand shrine

Here we are! (and that is as close as we got to Ho Chi Minh...

As we wandered around the grounds, we were taken by the old palace, and Ho Chi Minh's old house (on stilts) that he lived in for many years. The grounds were lovely!

Walking through the grounds (that is our tour guide in front of us)

The girls Forrest Gumping outside of one of the pagodas. This pagoda was specifically shaped like a lotus flower and was centered in a pool of water. You could walk up the steps to pray.

Yellow = color of power. Lots of yellow buildings in VietNam

Old palace area

We had more on our tour from Day 1 that I will be certain to add tomorrow. We visited a special site that recognized Confucius and some more pagodas.

Arriving in Hanoi

We left for Hanoi from Okinawa around noon on Wednesday. We had a 4 hour layover in Seoul (a wonderful airport by the way) and finally made our arrival at the Hanoi (Noi Bai) airport around 2330. It was a long day, and needless to say, we were all tired. After a bit of time it took to acquire our Visa's for tourism, we finally get out of all the lines to get our baggage.

Much to our surprise, our baggage STILL wasn't all out (note above: it did take some time for the Visa information). We get over to the baggage claim and the conveyor belt is stopped and there are 4 men with a section of the belt taken apart (if you look closely behind Olivia in this photo, you can see them). I felt a little bad about taking a photo of it, so I posed her. Anyway, it was a bit comedic (since a number of people were just standing around awaiting their bags while the guys worked. In the end, it started up again and all was well.

We were met at the airport by our guide ( _ ) She seemed nice (although we were tired, so anyone would have worked by this time). We drove to our hotel (about 30 minutes from the airport) and got a glimpse of Hanoi at night.

We stayed at the Melia Hotel in Hanoi. As we pulled up our guide told us that it was also housing a number of delegates from the worlds ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) conference. That might have been a nice thing to know before we pulled into the hotel. We then had to check all of our bags through security. Nice.

ANYWAY - we got into our room. 5th floor, lovely suite. They had given us an extra bed and a crib (which Alessandra looked at and said "who is that for?") and after some frustrating conversation with the front desk about needing to switch out beds and a nice bath in the giant tub... we all went to bed....

The phone is never enough...

We made it home safe and sound. We have many stories to tell and many photos to share... they will come. I promise you.

I went on my run today and had one of those moments where living far away from family and friends hits a tough realization. It's hard when you receive good news (or bad news for that matter) from afar and are unable to share more than a phone call, video call or email to talk about it. Don't get me wrong, I am SO thankful for the technology that we have and that we are able to talk with regularity to our family and friends - without it costing a fortune or taking a long time. It's just sometimes it doesn't seem like quite enough.

Dealing with the sense of loneliness (dare I call it that?) is one of those things I think I have never really gotten the hang of living far away from family. It's not a loneliness that sends you in to deep despair - its just that loneliness of wanting that person or those people that you love close to you to share a moment - a lunch, a dinner, a coffee or just to sit and talk or hug. It finds itself during moving away, deployments and just being away from people that you love. It tends to stay away during the majority of our days (because we do live a nice and full life), but rears its heads on birthdays, holidays and just the general "missing you" day.

It's those times that you wonder "do I tell the people I love, that I love them, often enough?" "Do they know?" I am sure the answer to that is no - can we ever REALLY tell people that we love often enough?

So, for those of you who shared your good news with me this morning - congratulations. You will never know how badly I wish I was there to give you each a hug.

Angkor What?

There are so many blog posts to come on this trip through Viet Nam and Cambodia. Here is a glimpse of us just this morning on our way out of Angkor Wat in Siem Reap, Cambodia. We had visited here yesterday (and Angkor Thom), but unfortunately our camera was pickpocketed along the way. After contemplation about today's planned schedule, we determined that we HAD to go back. It was one of the most incredible places we have ever been and recommend it to everyone (even with the camera incident).

Happy day and looking forward to telling you ALL about our trip once we get home.

The Family Vacation

So, here we are. It's the night before our big trip. The luggage is packed (mostly), the girls are in bed and we are about to hit the hay also.

Vacation's are fun. Mostly. I remember so many wonderful trips with my families as a kid. Road trips, plane trips and just small trips to see the Grandparent's that were not so far away. Most memories are good, or maybe that is all that we choose to remember from them. In essence, I feel a greater appreciation for my parents now - yes, in general in life, but today, the appreciation is passed to them for giving me the opportunity to travel. We travelled. It opened so many doors and windows to the world - even though most of the travels of my youth were right in our own great Country.

I hope that our girls can some day appreciate all that it is we want to expose them to. There are so many wonderful places to see - and so many different ways of doing things. I hope that they are able to take some of these things with them on their journey. I also hope that it helps them find a love for travel - not International travel if they aren't interested, but my hopes are that they never just sit and focus only on their direct surroundings. So much perspective is gained from travel.

And onward we go. We will be heading to some of the most beautiful countries on planet Earth; Vietnam and Cambodia. I promise to come back and share some of this extraordinary experience with you!

Happy Trails!