Matthew Wegner

I just got back from a trip to Halong Bay. It was pretty foggy throughout our time there (check my photos on Flickr), but even so the place is just amazing. It was remarkable to spend two days on a boat—eating, sleeping, and just sitting up on deck watching the islands drift by. The weather was a perfect, unnoticeable mildness.

Fun Activities

The full itinerary: four-hour bus ride from Hanoi, take a tender (small ship) to the big ship, steam over into the bay, disembark to visit a cave, go kayaking, before returning to the ship for dinner and karaoke. All meals and activities were included, although alcohol was not. They charge a little more, being a tourist trap and all, but it’s still about $1 per beer. You can find $0.10 glasses of beer on street stalls.

I Ate Seafood

Of course, seeing as this whole activity is centered on the ocean, much of the food was seafood. So I figured, hey, do what you feel. And the ocean feels like making all kinds of edible creatures. The food overall was very good, with a lot of variety and tons of small courses. I doubt I’ll be seeking out seafood when I’m back, but at the same time I expect I’ll be eating more on the trip (as it is along the coastline, after all).

Riding Tomorrow!

Tonight marks the official start time of the tour, although it’s all orientation and meeting people. We had 13 people from the tour in Halong Bay, so there are another 15 people to meet still. Tomorrow is the first riding day—a short 20 miles after we fly out of Hanoi to escape the crush of the city. I’m looking forward to getting into the saddle! It looks like I’m pretty squarely in the middle of this group’s skill set. There are some very skilled riders here; we’re talking 25mph max speeds without any kind of gearing. That’s something like a ~230 rpm pedaling cadence.

I probably won’t have Internet access after I leave Hanoi, but I’ll post updates as I can!

I was wandering around last night when I came across this stage. The honking is a little worse because of the crowds, but overall this actually a good indication of traffic, too. If you want to cross the street you just slowly and methodically start walking; the endless stream of motorbikes will just form around you…

Mind? Blown.

The view from my hotel:

And again, the whole Flickr set.

Exactly 24 hours ago I left my apartment and headed to the airport.  And where am I now, at this exact moment?  You may have guessed it—sitting on a plane!  There’s one more hour to go until touchdown in Hanoi, and maybe an hour past that to find our luggage and hotel.  I’m awfully tired but am going to fend off sleep by thrusting myself into walking around the city.

More Riders!

I met up with some of the other riders on the tour in Taipei.  I recognized Nathan Hoover, who was traveling with three others (Andy, Irene, and Corbin).  Turns out Corbin was a developer on the iPhone and the iPhone SDK.  In it seems that unicyclists are definitely a different breed of people.  I look forward to meeting everyone and getting to know them a little better over the coming weeks.

Overnight Trip

Apparently some of the group is going on an overnight trip to a nearby bay, and Corbin was in the process of emailing the tour organizer about joining up (with his iPhone, of course).  I piggybacked on that, so hopefully there’s still room for a few more people. Apparently it’s a gorgeous area.  Sounds like we’ll be sleeping on the boat!

Photos

I haven’t been snapping many photos yet.  There isn’t much of interest, at least to my untrained photographic eye—just a ton of people in crowded, dirty airline terminals.  I’ll leave the exact imagery as an exercise to the reader.