Asia by Hammock

Imagine mixing one part Robin Williams, one part Ozzie Osbourne with two parts grain alcohol and you would come up with someone very close to Ray. He would look at you with a crazy glint in his eye, crack a one-liner about the tsunami (I didn't even know there were tsunami jokes) or his fat son and then pound his beer. Ray was so passionate about drinking he brought his own koozie to Vietnam (and left his wife), which might be acceptable for a twentysomething but was quite remarkable for a man who had pickled himself to nearly 60 years old. Ray also left about twenty five school kids waiting for their bus driver (him) when he decided to turn his weekend in Bali to a month in Vietnam. We liked Ray very much.

Ray took a liking to us as soon as we produced the Rice Wine/Rocket Fuel/Devil Juice we had bought from a floating market. And by floating market what I mean is a mad old lady on a row boat whose eyes lit up when we asked for whiskey, kicked a floorboard and started pulling bottles out of the secret hold in the bottom of the boat. The process was phenomenal, the liquor left something to be desired. The only english on the bottle read "Ethanol=39.87%" and that was good enough for us. We drank with Ray, an American couple (Hi Dawn and Andrew) and two English girls (one who criticized McDonalds beef - see: Fast Food Nation - then told of the wonders of picking magic mushrooms in the morning dew back home, the irony was lost on her) and then retired to our cabin on the boat. There is a fighting chance that the cabin was big enough for two midgets or one medium sized dog, and the one bed simply did not cut it for us (though it did live up to the promise of a "romantic night on the boat"). In the end, Ed and I ended up in hammocks on the back of the boat and were lulled to sleep by the dulcet tones of the generator.


In all seriousness, Ha Long Bay was great. The sunset on the first night was incredible and the people we met were really neat. The scenery was great, the kayaking fun and the food fried. We did a hike the second day and I honestly thought I was going to die (see: afermentioned rice whiskey) though the view from 250 meters (covered in less than a kilometer) was breathtaking. Literally. On Cat Ba island we had drinks in a floating restaurant, we're still not entirely sure the management knew we were there but Vilam, our rather drunk ferryman who didn't speak a word of English, took it upon himself to sit us down and fetch us three cold beers - one for himself. The ordering process for food seemed simple enough, you walked to the big hole in the middle of the restaurant, pointed to the live fish still swimming in water and moments later it was cooked and ready for your consumption. Getting a menu was considerably more difficult and took well over twenty minutes and two tries.