Hải Phòng

My friend Simon is a strange creature. This trip so far made me realize that he shares quite a bit of similarities with a Water Buffalo. He drinks 4-5 L of Water per day and eats two meals where I eat one. Also he has the calm of a grassing water buffalo. On our trip to Cat Ba the bus waited for some passengers to get in. Simon asked if he can use the toilet while we wait. The bus driver pointed him to a nearby tree. Simon walked to that tree as slowly as someone who has not a single worry in the world. In the meantime the missing passengers arrived. Simon was still very much doing his business. If his urine stream resembled his inner mental state i can only assume it must have had the pressure of a small creek, peacefully flowing through the Vietnamese mountains. The bus started departing. I jumped up, ready to inform the driver that we are one water buffalo of a person short. Simon finished his deed and turned around. Walking back to the now moving bus even slower. His facial expression didn't change a single bit. It looked like he just shook hands with Buddha. The bus honked and stopped right in front of Simon and opened its door. Simon walked in without changint his pace nor his demeanor. I looked at him in shock. "I didn't even notice you guys were going already" he said. That level of not giving a flying fuck is what he learned during his two months in Vietnam I suppose. Maybe I'll turn into a Water Buffalo too.

Cat Ba was wonderful but also it constantly reminds you of how much nicer it could be. There is a god awful amount of constructions building huge luxury hotel complexes on the island. The people who greeted us in the accomodations were almost apologetic about it. 

If you get away from the main town and it's construction sites, you'll find wonderful landscapes and calm beaches. We did a boat and Kayak tour there, which nature-wise rivaled with Ha Giangs views. I shared a Kayak with a stranger. He spoke with a french accent so I guessed he was french. He said he is actually Belgian which is much better than French. I laughed and said hell yeah fuck France. He said yeah Fuck France. We high fived and bonded over our hate for those Frogeaters (For all of my french readers: I don't actually hate France. I love you guys. I just needed approval of this Belgian guy. Next time I see you I'll hate on Belgium with you I promise). 

Since we were sick we decided to rent a motorbike to get around the island more easily. It was my first time driving one of these things so I was quite nervous. But I thought how hard can it be right? My first meters on this thing went well and I gained some confidence. Then we arrived at a gas station. There was this edge you had to overcome to get to the pump. In my confidence I thought easy, I'll just give it some gas. Next thing I know is I'm losing control over my bike like it's an angry bull trying to push me off. My bike and I drove into one of the gas pumps. Was I dead? Was this heaven? I felt a hose on my hand. A burn on my leg. Heard Vietnamese men screaming. Oh no, this was hell. I was still alive. My confidence shrunk to an all time low. "Sorry" is the first thing I said. The Vietnamese gas station operators helped me up, helped me get my bike up and simply asked "How much?". "One liter" I said. That part I remembered from Simons teachings. The part about not fucking driving into a a gas station I must have forgotten. After that Julia and Simon tried to calm me down but repeating the sentence "don't worry about it" roughly 20 times in 30 minutes. I did worry about it still. (Seriously though nothing happened other than some scratches on my leg). 

The rest of the stay was accident-free and pleasant. Simon and Julia left to Hanoi to catch their flight back home which means now I am traveling solo. The first restaurant I went to I sat next to a dutch guy who also traveled solo. He told me he was a project manager for a bank, which made me think his Patagonia sweater was actually original and not bought in Vietnam. It was easier to connect with strangers than I feared. After a while I realized that I did most of the talking though. I turned into an extrovert to the point where he escaped the conversation in the end. What have I become?Read more