Bye Vietnam!

Vietnam was great! Stayed at Cat Ba island and went deepwater soloing and kayaking and beaching the first day. It was so amazing to climb up rock cliffs and then just jump off into the water. So cool!! Great food on the boat and met a lot of cool Westerners. I saw mountains like no other before. They were sheer cliffs shooting right out if the water for hundreds of feet. It was like I had been imagining for years. It was wonderful :) Then climbing in the center of the island the second day. Did so hard moves on a 6b but need to work on my stamina lol then did my first lead climb on a easy 4c+ called roots reggae because for a third of the climb you're climbing up free roots :D drove back in the dark and made it home safe. Hurray! Then I decided to do something a lot less fun. There is a red light district on the island and I wanted to go and experience what it was like to be a single white male walking through that area. I wanted to see who was buying and who was selling. I wanted to find out the price and I wanted to talk to people. When I walked through at 10pm there was hardly anything going on. But I did find the middle men. These guys ride around on motor bikes and offer to take men to go have "boom boom." I asked how much it was. He said 500,000 dong or $25. It was very sad to witness. While I was out some of my climbing friends were at a bar and an older man and a prostitute were sitting with them. My friends told me that the young woman looked sad and unhappy. But they left before I got back to witness the "couple." These no doubt in my mind that Vietnam is beautiful and an amazing place with great people. But that doesn't mean there aren't horrible aspects. It doesn't mean there aren't hard parts to witness. I'm glad I decided to see what I did. I'm sad and happy I didn't see more. But I know I will in the sex trade class. And now I have tons to write about and examples to compare to. We left the island after three nights and rode on four buses and one boat to get back to Hanoi. Then we saw water puppets!! It was like nothing I've ever seen. Such skill and beauty! It was an art :) while I was waiting to get in a bunch of Vietnamese students came up to me and asked me questions in English as part of their hw. It made my day!! They were so happy and sweet and nice. Their English was good and it was so nice to finally feel like I was getting a cultural experience. As in Myanmar, I hated going to a country and havin little time to learn the language and culture. But in Vietnam it was worse because I was there for a short time and on vacation. I felt very much like a Western tourist and I didn't like it. So it was really nice to talk to some local people and see Vietnamese water puppets. Btw, Hanoi is crazy! So many people and so many motor bikes!! I can't believe that more people don't die of crashes! And the helmets are basically plastic shells. But more people wear them than in Chiang Mai. Went to the street market bu it was mostly low quality/fake western products. Went to sleep in a nice hostel and woke up at five for the plane. Finished my book, Wild!

Now I'm back in Bangkok and about to head to Chiang Mai. It was really nice to be in Vietnam. It was my first real vacation here. And in the end I was happy with the balance of cultural and non cultural experiences. It was very nice :) but it'll be nice to be back at Payap :)