Day 3 at Halong Bay - Biking, More Family

I wake for the sunrise. I am the only one up and about. I walk the small beach and find a lot of smoky green sea glass which I find kind of lovely. Sure, the glass is a sign of human contamination but the weathering of the glass by the elements is poetic. I collect a bunch of it, but decide to leave it behind in the end, along with a few shells.

I settle down to continue reading “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.” I think there is something very essential about the understanding of evolution and its mechanisms, definitely revolutionary for the planet. Once you understand that all living things are connected in lines of descent it makes it less acceptable to contaminate, exploit, destroy, commodify, and carve up the planet at its joints. You can go further and connect that grain of sand to yourself - to the magic of stardust origins.

The probability that any particular individual on the planet is living right now is so small. For example...me...everything had to go right for me to be here. All my ancestors had to pair up exactly like they did and survive to create each successive generation in exactly the way they did. Any change in variables would have resulted in a termination of an ancestor long before my time, and there would be no me. There are also so many other variables, that if not actualized in the exact way they played out, I (or you) wouldn't be here. We are all almost impossibilities, living and sharing lives together in this point in time on this Earth. My mind wobbles. This brings to mind a line from a foreign film watched on an airplane.... "Ingratitude is a flaw of intelligence." I hope that I never think myself so wise as to be ungrateful for my life or yours or that of the trees and birds around me. Better yet, I hope that wisdom is the eventual goal of intelligence and with enough wisdom (which for me involves gratitude and compassion along with intelligence) we can think and intuit ourselves out of this mess we've created.

After breakfast, I close my book and go to pack my bags. Time to say goodbye to the island and do the last activities of the tour. We head to Cat Ba Island and Theu is our guide today and points out or route on Cat Ba. From the low point to the high point we will be biking one part of Cat Ba.

Before the bike ride, however, we get a chance to look around the town a bit. At the market I spot all manner of seafood including these prehistoric huge horseshoe crabs in tanks. Incredible…I thought I’d only ever see them in nature specials. Somehow it’s strange to see these majestic creatures reduced to common seafood in an aquarium.

I get the same feeling when I see a jar filled with various wondrous sea creatures, as if they were so much assorted chocolates in a box. I have a particular fondness for sea horses so it’s sad to see these delicate creatures suspended in a jar. There are so many of us on this planet, nothing potentially edible seems to escape our notice. We will munch our way into extinctions, ours and theirs.

For some reason, I find it more difficult to think about wild creatures being caught and slaughtered for food than I do about domestic animals raised for the same purpose. It’s almost counterintuitive…it would seem better to have lived a free life before dying as a meal than living your whole life in captivity and then meeting the same fate, yet I think I relate to the free animal more…the domesticate is less relatable.

There are so many domestic animals (billions) that have been bred to be ideal as food animals (if you take a look at the history of animal domestication, you can see that some animals really are meant more for domestication than others - we could never viably domesticate tigers for example - ironically, if we did, they probably wouldn’t be on the extinction list.) I think ideally, as a meat eater, I wouldn’t want to eat any wild game or fish (unless their numbers were huge), there is so little wild left. If I’m already implicated in the slaughtering of animals in my food consumption, I’d rather eat ethically raised domesticated animals where possible and practical.

After visiting the market, we visit Hospital Cave. I thought I heard the name wrong when it was first mentioned, but indeed, its name is correct. During the American-Vietnamese war, one of the numerous caves in Cat Ba was turned into a hospital. People carried in tones of cement, steel, and equipment to excavate and build a fully functioning hospital in a cave. It took 3 years to build and it's pretty cool. Being inside it is a little eerie when I imagine the dark dank rooms full of medical equipment and sick and dying people.

Hospital Cave.

Theu says that when the Americans were trying to attack and go through Halong Bay, they found the way very difficult because of the thousands of islands. Several of the taller points on some of the islands, like the one I climbed yesterday, had lookout points on top to spot the American invaders.

This day is hotter than the last two. I put on sunscreen because the sun’s strong enough to burn. My two adventure companions, the French guys, are beginning to look a bit lobstery.

This Vietnamese woman isn't taking any chances with the sun.

The ride is not very long, perhaps only 1.5 hours at most, but the road is good and the ride was fun we had a nice view the whole way, sometimes with coastline. Several little hills add challenge and interest to the ride. I have to do more bike vacations.

At the end of our ride we end up at this small and incredibly welcomingly breezy restaurant. After lunch and picking up yet another cat, (when will I break down and get my own?) I relax with more of “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.”

After lunch, we take a high-speed boat back to our minibus. Roman really is a lobster now.

We’re on a 3 hour bus ride back to Hanoi. Bye bye Halong Bay. I would recommend Ocean Tours for anyone wanting to see Halong Bay. They were very organized, had good English speaking guides (not perfect English, but helpful, enthusiastic and nice.) The adventure activity package is also perfect for someone who wants to move their blood a bit, but not necessarily feel like they’re completing a marathon. Lots of time to relax as well as to play.

When I get back to Hanoi and drop off my stuff at Minh's, Cuong picks me up for dinner at his place. So besides my dad, bro, his wife and the little squealer, there are also three others. The woman is my cousin; she's there with her husband and son. Just more and more relatives are coming out of the woodwork. They also tell me that I have relatives in Saigon who have invited me to stay with them whenever I want to visit.

After dinner a couple of friends of Cuong's come to see the baby to celebrate its reaching the one month mark. I encourage Cuong to show me some talent and he busts out his guitar and sings an Elvis song. After a few lines the baby begins to cry (in criticism) but Cuong finishes out the song exclaiming that she was in fact singing with him.

My father then shows me three black and white photos. Two I recognise from my mom's collection of my baby photos, but one I have never seen before. It's one of me and my father. Before this trip, I had never known what my father looked like because my mom got rid of all his photos when she left him. It's weird to see me with him as a kid - visual proof that I was here with him. On the back is written stuff in Vietnamese and dated shortly before my mom left Vietnam with me. My father says he was very sad that day and wrote a poem on the back of the photo. I think it basically says that he is really sad that I'm leaving and will miss me a lot and that I should grow up to be a good person and take care of my mom.

He said that when I was not yet even two years old, he taught me Vietnamese poetry and I was able to recite this very long and complicated famous poem. He said that when I was learning to walk, I would always try to get up and walk on my own and break free of his arms if he tried to help. He also said that I was really smart. It doesn't feel like he's talking about me, instead it's like he's talking about this other person who existed in the past. I'm not sure if I can even believe the memory of an old man who has probably recreated and embellished the past in fond ways. I'll have to verify these facts with my mom...but then again, when questioned about my childhood, she always says she can't remember. She doesn't remember how long she was in labour, what time of the day I was born, how I behaved as a child. She doesn't really like talking about the past.

This is all kinda strange still.



Time to go back to Minh's place for some shut eye.