Update: Vietnam is one country

Hello from Bangkok again! I'm back from Vietnam and staying here one night before I leave tomorrow night at 2 AM for Johannesburg. A lot has happened since I last posted. Bill left me all alone in Hanoi, and I was despondent for a couple days, and actually physically ill as well although I think that was probably due to the water in my lemonade the day before. But then - sunlight shone through the clouds, angels began singing, and Alex rescued me from loneliness and boredom (Constantly being with someone 24-7 for two weeks makes you a little dependent, apparently). A couple other St. Anford people showed up as well - some of you may remember Liz Cretti, of SHPRC fame, and I'm not sure any of you will know Matt Evans because he was a little older (and wiser). We ate at food stalls and at Alex's favorite restaurants, took long walks by the water, spent hours studying Vietnamese supermarket offerings, and sang karaoke...

Sure as Kilimanjaro rises like Olympus above the Serengeti
I seek to cure what's deep inside, frightened of this thing that I've become

It's gonna take a lot to drag me away from you
There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do
I bless the rains down in Africa
Gonna take some time to do the things we never had

If anyone really understands what Toto is singing about, let me know. Otherwise I will just enjoy the melody and assume that all the references to Africa are meant to get me excited about going there.

So - back to real life. Since Alex actually has a job (I know, isn't that lame?), he did not join Matt, Liz, and I on our epic journey to Halong Bay, a heavily touristed but beautiful bay where huge limestone karsts jut dramatically out of the water like so:


That's not actually my picture. I do have about 100 pictures of the sunset, which you'll get to see sometime if you're very good. Anyway, we were supposed to be on a boat with Alex's friend Natalie, who apparently knows everyone in Asia. Some of her college friends were visiting her, and we were all going to drink and be merry. Somewhere along the line, though, the reassurance of "Yes, yes, of course you'll be on the same boat" became "Oh no, you will not be on the same boat. No, we cannot change this now." We persevered, and our kind, concerned guide persuaded the captain of our boat to anchor near Natalie's boat, even though this was an inconvenience, because they are different companies or don't like each other or something. We thought we'd swim over after dinner and hang out. But as we were preparing to leave, our guide became agitated and started talking about jellyfish. Jellyfish veterans Matt and Liz merely scoffed, while I started wondering how I knew Natalie and her friends would even be fun to hang out with, much less fun enough to offset jellyfish stings. Just then, a commotion arose from the back of the boat. A crew member had jumped into the water to swim, our guide told us, and he'd been stung by the jellyfish. She led us down below deck to the kitchen. Someone called out in Vietnamese, and the victim emerged from a darkened doorway, shirtless and shivering. They shone a light on him, and a collective gasp of horror went up from the crowd at the angry welts covering his torso. So - we decided to stay on our boat and teach our 3 new Australian friends how to play Kings.

We met a lot of people on the Halong Bay trip. The Australian girls were a lot of fun. We also kept running into a British couple with 3 young children who had been traveling for 15 months. Harry, their youngest, got lots of rides on hips and shoulders.

After we returned from Halong Bay, we had to split up. Matt and Liz went to join Alex and his girlfriend Maria in Sapa, where Bill and I had visited. I couldn't bring myself to face the 8 hour train ride again, so I was looking around for things to do when I learned that Diana Dinh, yet another friend from college, was in Saigon down south. Diana's family fled Vietnam when the North Vietnamese took the Saigon, and this was the first time she'd been to Vietnam and met her numerous relatives. You'd think she'd be wide-eyed, walking around with her mouth open, but instead she settled right in, berating motorbike drivers with the demeanor of a testy auntie. I met her siblings, who are just as crazy and fun as she is, and together we researched the tastiness of dishes at food stalls and restaurants around town.

...which brings me to today. I'm back in Bangkok with a day to kill before I leave Asia. The one thing I really want to do is get some pad thai at a street stall - surprisingly Bill and I never had pad thai when we were in Thailand, and it seems a shame to go home without trying it.

As a side note, aren't we all glad that the Bush administration is now trying to cut Medicare payments? What's that, Grandma? You need a hip replacement? Too bad, your local hospital has stopped taking Medicare patients because they lose so much money on them. Need a stent to prop open your arteries? Too bad, we've cut Medicare's already low payments by a third. Well, on the bright side, Bush can celebrate, because as we lose our grandparents who don't receive adequate medical care, that's fewer people Medicare has to pay for anyway.