24.12.2002 - Paris We landed on CdG airport at about 1045 and immediately took the train downtown. Our luggage was through checked, so no need to carry the "heavy" (7.5kg for 2 persons - how about that. Always travel light, that's the rule.) backpack around. The natives seemed slightly amused (and annoyed, I bet - the French have a tendency to get aggressive when foreigners criticize their wonderful language and/or culture) by us wondering what the hell was the railway route map saying - naturally there is not a word in English in France. After a boring 45min trip we reached the city. After seeing the obligatory sights like Notre Dame, Eiffel tower and some museums (didn't bother going to Louvre - only had 10 hours to spend) we went to have lunch. Since this was to be our Christmas dinner at the same time, we had - nothing less than mussels in cream sauce. Yum. One thing the French actually CAN do is cook. After the breakfast/lunch/dinner we briefly visited Virgin by the Champs Elysee where I bought an Edenbridge album for 16euro. Robbery, but what can you do. Then, since we couldn't find a terrace in the sun serving beer (temperature would have allowed sitting outside), we saw some more sights (Concorde plaza and some more frontal walls of nameless museums) and headed back to CdG. Enough Paris for one lifetime. 25.12.2002 - Bangkok After a 12 hour flight we landed on the Bangkok international airport for refuelling and dropping of people to stay in Thailand. The flight was ok, and the first movie (xXx) was so boring that even I got some sleep. At the airport it was a cool 20 degrees, but outside it was over 30. Nice, in comparison to Helsinki where it was something like 10 below when we left. There wasn't much to do and there was only a 90 minute pause before takeoff, so we just sat at the gate and waited. The flight to Ha Noi was only a 80 minute one, so it was over before it even begun. A very annoying japanese kid was sitting behind me - AGAIN - and constantly kicking my chair. At some point I sort of lost it and threw a piece of a plastic spoon at him. Hell, the kicking stopped. There was angry sounding murmur in japanese from behind. Had they been a Yakuza family, I figure I would be a tad shorter right now. 25.12.2002 - Ha Noi We arrived a good hour before dusk, and immediately sought out a money exchange desk. After receiving a cool 1.5M dongs for 100 euro, we headed out for the cab line. After short negotiations we found out it would take us 10 usd to get to the city center. We promised that to a reliable looking cabbie and off we went. On the way the cabbie tried multiple times to make us pay for the 2 dollar road toll.. I wasn't getting any happier for having to fight about such stuff after being on the road for almost 40 hours. And when we reached the city, he was very persuasive about taking us to another hotel we had booking in, trying to push the hotel that would pay him commission. Again, no chance with us. Tourist 2, cab driver 0. After sitting over an hour in a taxi, we got to our destination - an overly luxurious hotel with ridiculous rates. It was clear that it had to go. But for the night (and, sigh, the night after) we would settle in paying over 60usd per a double room in a city where you can live like a king for 10usd for a double. Enough bitching - the city was plainly fascinating. When I got past the deafening cacophony created by everyone honking horns all the time, I noticed the liveliness everywhere despite the chilly 15 degrees (for the locals it was such a chill, that most people wore woollen hats and full winter gear). There were people and mopeds everywhere. Mopeds were coming and going from everywhere, despite any normal traffic rules, and usually carrying at least two, and often 3 persons (there were whole families up to 5 or 6 persons on a moped having maybe 10hp). As soon as we left the hotel area for dinner, the air was full of delicious smells of food and incence all around. We scoped around for a while before entering a small seafood restaurant (as it turned out, almost every vietnamese restaurant was a seafood restaurant in some way at least) - and a laugh when we got the menus. All main courses on the list cost under 20k dong :) So without further hesitation we ordered noodles, rice and squid - and some Tiger beer of course. After dinner there was an amusing incident across the street where we ended up buying water and beer. As I stood outside this small market, I heard a thud - and when I looked closer, there was a turtle on the sidewalk. I gazed up, and there was someone in the window of the restaurant upstairs. Not long after they noticed the turtle on the street, a staff member came to pick it up. I wonder if it (the turtle-to-be-souped) knew what it was running from :)
	It was raining turtles.
	Meet mr Local Money. The notes were leathery of frequent use, yet held together fine.
	Riikka eating the first noodles of the trip.
26.12.2002 - Ha Noi It was raining. The skies were grey and it wasn't much warmer than +10. That shit had to go. I decided that after breakfast I'd book us flights south. We went walking around the city. I bought a raincoat for 12k dong, but tore it soon as it was like 3 sizes too small for me. We also bought ourselves those funny conic hats you see the vietnamese using in movies. What came as a somewhat surprise to me was that they actually use them still - as do carry food with the bamboo pole with baskets hanging from both ends. Having seen all that in the movie Good Morning, Vietnam, it was weird suddenly being in the middle of all that. Everything appeared very similar to the movie, with the exception of bicycles having changed into mopeds. I was awed. The old district of Ha Noi is indescribable - there is not 10cm of sidewalk where someone hasn't parked a moped, isn't sitting while playing a board game or eating with their family. After seeing some of the sights like a few Lenin statues, Thien Quang Lake and some of the military posts, we attempted to book the flights - and heard that because of the season, the flights were full and that the earliest we could leave was in two days. I wasn't exactly keen about having to spend two more days in the rainy north - but what could you do. Don't get me wrong - Ha Noi was one of the most interesting place in the whole Viet Nam, but the weather was totally something one does not expect to get in a tropical country. So, we changed our plans on the fly over a beer and a pot of lotus tea, and decided to proceed with the original plan of going to the island of Cat Ba. For dinner we had crab with s & s sauce. That was the last drop - I fell totally in love with their food, and decided not to eat anything else ever again (naturally that lasted only until the flight back home afterwards).
	Typical vietnamese street view. This one was one of main roads (Nguyen something) through the city, so the sidewalks were wide enough to actually walk on. Also it seemed forbidden to park the mopeds there, giving room for walkers.
	The main - and only - railway leaving in Ha Noi. Notice the massive safety measures around the rail.
27.12.2002 - Hai Phong We got up at seven. For a change that wasn't even a challenge, thanks to my messed up rhythm due to the time difference. I decided to eat well on breakfast since there was no idea when the next meal would be - it might be one long journey before we got to Cat Ba. After having a ham sandwich, a sausage sandwich, a custom omelet made by a chef, some melon, papaya and pineapple, eggs, cheese, bread and 3 cups of strong vietnamese coffee, I felt more like sleeping than setting out to find transportation. Anyway, we got into a cab and drove to the Kim Ma bus station where buses for Halong City and Hai Phong were to depart according to Lonely Planet. The taxi trip through the impossible morning traffic was fun in a weird sadomasocistic sense, and once we got to the bus station, we were immediately pulled from the cab and pushed into a bus. I was dazzled for a moment, but once I was sure that the bus we were ushered in was headed to Hai Phong, I sat back and enjoyed the ride. And what a ride it was - the "bus" was a japanese made van, with benches for some 10 people, yet they crammed almost 30 people in it. Us being foreigners, no one sat our lap, but among the natives there were as many as 3 people on top of some poor sucker ;) And naturally, everyone smoked inside. The bus was airconditioned, which meant that the rear windows could be opened. We were charged 50k for the trip, while the locals paid less than half of it. This was common throughout the country as a way of funding the infrastructure and tourism facilities. After rather colorful 2 hours we arrived to Hai Phong, a lively old harbor town for Ha Noi. The city was bombed to ground during the American war, but still manages to be fourth biggest in the country. Reminded me in many ways of an anthill. We wandered heedlessly around for about an hour, after which an elderly fellow tugged my sleeve and seemed to ask where we were headed. I showed him the map in Planet, and pointed at the harbor. He pointed a direction and babbled on for a while, after which we thanked him with a bow and headed to the direction he was pointing at. After a 20 minute walk we got to the seafront, and by asking a young boy for more direction, we got a free guide of him - all the way to the docks. I begun to understand what Planet meant by stating that the people in Viet Nam are very hospitable and friendly. I slipped the kid a few thousand dongs, and he took us to the ticket office for the ferry. After purchasing the tickets we had an hour to kill before departure, so we bought some bread, fruit and beer and sat down. The ferry didn't look like much, but we figured we could swim ashore if went under - the archipelago was full of small islets. A girl approached us aboard and offered us a hotel for 5usd for a double (now that's the amount one's supposed to pay for a room) and we took it as it was recommended in Planet. 27.12.2002 - Cat Ba We had approximately 2 hours before sundown to go, so we hired a minibus and a guide for 24usd (all too much, but we were in a hurry) from the hotel manager (an 18 year old boy who was running the hotel, a restaurant next to it - and was even the cook in the restaurant :)) and off we went. We cruised around the island for 45 minutes or so and then visited the National park in the center parts of the island. The park wasn't much but the journey there was just unbelievable. The scenery was more or less like one from Jurassic Park - only thing missing was a T-Rex galloping after the vehicle. After the island cruise we had dinner and went to a panorama bar down a block for a beer. We were very sleepy though, and didn't even finish the drinks.
	The distance to Cat Ba was some 40km, and the ferry covered it in little over 2 hours.
	On arrival to Cat Ba, our course took us through an armada of fishing vessels moored in the bay in front of Cat Ba village.
	The view from our balcony over the bay. Behind the islands in horizon lies the famous Halong Bay, one of Viet Nam's four UNESCO World Heritage sites.
28.12.2002 - Cat Ba Since our flight to Da Nang was to take off at 5pm, our only chance of making it was to take the first of the two possible ferries off the island. The ferry departed at 5.45am, so we got up at 5 and woke a staff member to let us out of the hotel. I bought a few loafs of bread from a stinking old lady at the pier, and off we went again. We witnessed a sunrise at the sea - it was wonderful how the ocean was all golden around the small isles. Damn shame there was pretty heavy fog preventing getting decent pictures. From Hai Phong we took a bus back to Ha Noi, and then a cab to the airport. Time to leave the cold north behind.