Rat Mak Mo!

One reason I started to travel, was to find out what I wanted to do with my life. I don't quite know if there was a moment, but more of time before I knew, and time after. Life feels just as it should for me. And traveling is where I should be. I'll live an adventurers life for some time to some. I couldn't imagine living any other way. Well, I could, but the joy of wandering is to great. It's true that what counts is how we live our daily lives.
Okay.
So Vietnam is quickly becoming my favorite place (after Myanmar). I had heard mixed reviews of nam from travelers and have no idea how you couldn't like this place. After leaving Saigon I decided to head north, to the mountains. Mountains. I think I've learned where my heart belongs. Some people love the beach and get overjoyed when they are near the ocean and the sea. For me it's with mountains. Dalat was my next destination. An amazing, beautiful town in the hills. Full if crazy architecture, tasty vegetables, wild flowers, and the best night market I've been to. Off the vacation makers paths, it was nice to spend time again in the mountains. And! It was literally the first time I "had to" wear long sleeves in 4 months, amazing to be in cool air. So I did this and that and loved life, ate wierd deliciuos food, motor biked around, and then left to hoi an.

Hoi an. Hoi an is beautiful. It's sort of like being in a fairy tale. Unesco kept it as a heritage site. So in old town, basically the whole town it's small, there are no new buildings. Every where is mossy and mysterious and smells like a story book. The streets are lite with paper lanterns, and the market teems with fruits an vegetables and noodles and silk. I arrived and found a cheap bed on the top floor of a guest house. One of my favorite rooms yet. No part of this room is square. The stairs to last floor change from marble to wood slats and next to the boiler is a small door. This leads to the smallest, least square room in the world. Big enough for one half bed, and a small Table, I make my nest. The window opens right onto the mossy roof, where climbing around the roof tops at night adds to the tale. I was in Hoi An durring the full moon. They have a Full Moon festival every month. Where the town is closed to all motor bikes, cars, and bicycles. No lights are allowed to be on, so everything is lit with paper lanterns. It's darkly lit, busy, and festive. They light candles and place them in paper boats to send down the river that runs through town, making wishes to the water. A night of magic, martial art, water wishes, and black sesame. Hoi An, despite being more touristy than other places, was wonderful. The End.
I left for Hue, and past through some other towns and places and the citadel that I'll spare writing about, and again moved on to Nihn Bihn. Haha for one thing the sleeper buses, the cheapest way to go from place to place, are really funny. There is a sense of racism in vietnam. From occasianally being denied of being served food because your forign, or forigners being forced to the back of the bus. I always get shewed away to the back seats. The back seats of these busses are three seats touching each other, where all the rest are single. So all my rides have been squeezed next to much to broad german men, or motor bike injugered scotts. For 14 hours. It's really uncomfortable, really long, and really funny. So Nihn Bihn. I was thrown off the bus at 4:30am and my breath was taken from my lungs. It was unbarably, blood freezingly, global warming, arctic cold. I have not felt real cold in 4 months. The bus was relitivaly warm, (Wierd for asian busses) and I was just in my pants and a shirt, and I could hardly stand up on the street in what felt like -100f. I put on all the clothes I own, and was great. After finally finding a bed at about 6:00, I decided not to sleep, but start exploring. I rented a bike and visited a place called Tom Coc. A river valley through some of the most beautiful misty mountains and hills I've seen. Again, no photographs hahah it's been a long time since I've had a camera. And I've told the people I've traveled with to send my the photos, but all in good time. So we have to wait. Anyway you'll just have to imagin glisting green rice pattys. I don't know why vietnam has such supirior rice patties compaired to everywhere else. They really are more vibrant and shimering and really nice. I made my way to Hanoi, the capitol. Hanoi was strange. It's still winter here. And feels very different from the rest of south east asia. The trees have no leaves, the streets are grey, and you can physically feel comunism. Big strong bullivards full of propoganda posters, and pillars of stone. So far it's the only place people haven't been kind. But it is a big grey cold city. I had fun marching around. But now, I'm on Cat Ba Island.

Cat Ba Town
Cat ba is an island in Haylong Bay. (Refocus your eyes behind the text, and the picture that the background is in Haylong Bay.) This is near where I am now. It's very over cast, and occasianally rainy. The island feels sureal. And kind of like I'm dreaming. Huge, and honestly close to the most beautiful senery I've ever seen, is hovering everywhere you look. It's misty and the sea is completely mirror flat, and quietly still. It's hard to tell what is the sea and what is the sky. Giving the feeling that all the krasts sticking up out of the water, are just floating chunks of earth in the clouds. You can't see main land, making it seem as you're lost. And everything is silent. An eery, beautiful, and sureal island. It's wierd having traveled so long, through the high season, where things were more expensive, and rooms full, to being in the low season now, where I'm alone in a 14 bed dorm. I really love Cat Ba so far. Me and some people I met in Nihn Bihn rented bicycles yesterday to ride arround the island and into the national park. A crazy day. everything was either very up hill or very down hill. For 22k there and 22k back. We hiked to a peak that gave a close to full view of the island. Amazing, again no photos, but hopefully one day. A big reason I came to Cat Ba island, was to rock climb. It's not climbing central like Ton Sai was, so it will be a bit harded to find a partner to climb with, I left notes around to see if there's other independant climbers, everyone seems to be in pairs. So thats where I am now. Palms sweaty waiting to climb. Some more days here climbing, hopefully, and then, Sapa.
BYEBEYBEYBEYEBE