There's a small Vietnamese boy dressed as Spider Man sitting next to me

Thought that was pretty cool. I'll start off by telling you this is a long post, but as we begin to travel more and more, posts will become more scarce and scarce, so read me while you can. Also, there is no longer spell check on the browser because it's a poor connection, so screw spelling!Sorry it's been a couple days since our last correspondance. I should start out by saying that I have two regrets over the last two days. My first regret is that I didn't buy a waterproof camera. I decided to splurge on a really nice 10.2 megapixel 5x optical zoom camera, instead of getting a same priced camera that was both waterproof and dropproof. So, as you can imagine, while kayaking this weekend, I dropped my camera in the water. I think it might still work, and if it doesn't the warranty will cover it and Sam will take pictures, so I'm really not worried or stressed about it at all, kind of my theme to everything that I do here.

Which brings me to my second regret of this blog post, which is that I regret that anyone out there reading this post is sitting at home at a computer, rather than traveling the world with me. I remember my AP English teacher telling me that literature and writing changes people, however, I am sure that even if Shakespeare, or my favorite author Kurt Vonnegut, attempted to write about what I have done the last 3 days, they would fall miserably short and do a disservice to the reader in leading them on to believe that they actually understood in full comprehension the experience described.

To put it short, my last 3 days were freakin' sweet paradise. After spending Yom Kippur at Big Man Beer restaurant with Chabad, we decided to go on a 3 day organized tour to HaLong Bay, a coastal town which is a 3 hour drive from Hanoi. Our group, which was with other backpackers from our hostel, consisted of 20 20 something year olds, mostly from Canada and England, with a couple Americans also on board. We left the harbor mid-day Friday, and spent the afternoon relaxing on the Jolly Roger, kayaking and swimming. What one must understand, however, is what we do everyday here traveling is super relaxing, so when we're in an environment like this, I guess one could categorize as ultra relaxing. We played several games of hearts, drunk many cans of Bia Hoi and Tiger Beer, and ate delicious 7 course meals of home cooked goodness (and surprisingly, most of it was not seafood). That night on the Jolly Roger was a party of epic folk, a party which puts all the parties I have been to at various Big Ten schools to shame. The entire tour was pissed (drunk in British English) and crazy. Can't write more about that, mom's reading. The next day, the more cost conscience and less adventurous of us left HaLong Bay to return to Hanoi, and the other half of us transfered boats to where we would prepare for rock climbing. I had never rock climbed on real rock before, only at indoor gyms and at the climbing wall at Camp Horseshoe. There is a large, and from my opinion, unanticipated, difference between climbing on real rock and fake 2 dimensional rock walls. Mainly-real rock really hurts. My arms and legs look like I went into a cage with several rabid racoons with razors attached to their already sharp claws. However, with all the pain that accompanies real rock climbing, my experience climbing in HaLong Bay puts Mount Shoe or any indoor gym to shame. In fact, I shouldn't even be comparing the two. I climbed 4 walls, deciding to opt out of the near impossile 5th climb due to sheer exhaustion, overlooking white sandy beaches, crystal clear water, and varying rock formations on islands in the distance. It was really great. I descended from my 4th climb to lay under the shade of a tree in a comfortable hammock, and followed that with some beach soccer and a far swim back to the boat, my 4th swim of the day. As I got back to the boat, I thought about all my friends in high school and college studying, and I laughed. After an exciting yet tiring day, we arrived to Cat Ba island, the largest of the islands in HaLong Bay, which has a small village on it. As we arrived to our hotel, I saw a street soccer game in the square just out front. It was my calling-and as it was getting dark, I quickly put on my shoes and raced down to play. After reading How Soccer Explains the World several weeks ago, I feel like I could write a whole chapter of a book on how that game related to my experience thus far in Vietnam. This post is long enough already, so I'll just tell you that they were really quick and had incredible dribbling skills, and when they tried dribbling around me, I would push them and they would laugh. We played for nearly an hour, and afterwards I stuck around, passing the ball in the dark with several of them, speaking with eachother in small words, but mostly communicating through the ball. I'm used to relating to the Vietnamese by way of declining their offers of books...books...marijuana, or returning water bottles I've bought because I noticed their seals were already broken, or telling the 45th tuk-tuk driver in an hour that I don't want a ride. But last night was just me and some dudes kicking the ball around, just like Max, Darren, Glabby, and even JT used to do. Last night, I was the happiest man in Vietnam.

So now that I've given you a little taste of what I've been up to the last several days, maybe you'll get excited for me, or excited for yourself and decide to come to HaLong Bay. And although this has been a long post, here's three really funny things that have happened in the last couple days:

1. A Canadian friend was standing at the HaLong bay port, waiting to get on our boat, when a young Vietnamese shoe repairman approached him, examined his sandals, and stole them one by one off his foot. He handed one sandal to his friend, and they both started going at it with polish and glue and all these things, and 30 seconds later they looked brand new. Still in shock about having his shoes stolen, my friend Brad had his shoes returned to him, and the salesman quoted him a price of the Vietnamese equivalent of 35 dollars. This is freakin' Vietnam, not the Forest Bootery. Brad, who reminds me of a teddy bear type, offered him 3 dollars, to which the

man declined. Brad then flipped our and threatened to beat the shit out of him, to which the Vietnamese men ran away. That was funny.

2. I saw two women competing stand owners in the soccer square get into a WWE style fight. While everyone stood around and laughed, one woman grabbed a beer bottle, which was soon taken by an on-looker, than a chair, which was also taken, and then a broom with which she sweeped her competition in the face. The other woman just used her claws to scatch and slap. I have a funny Borat line which I won't use that would describe this whole thing very well. That was also funny.

It was a long post and I still have so much more to say, I haven't talked about the crazy Vietnamese dance guy, the gorgeous French girls, or told you anything about the drivers here. Instead of wasting another day in Hanoi we decided to get an overnight train to Sapa with a New Yorker out of law school and some Israelis, so we'll speak in the next few days. Until then, be well and remember that it's never too late to take a year off from whatever you're doing!