Wednesday, February 23, 2005
just a yellow lemon tree
pete and i arrived in hanoi and immediately booked not 1, but 2 package tours (will we ever learn?). we had intended to shop around at a few different tour offices, but one look at the glossy colour brochure in the first company we went into and we were sold. Luckily the risk paid off (sorry no tales of pete losing it on ill-planned group tours from hell.).
tour 1 (just completed) was 2 days of kayaking on ha long bay. we were treated to our very own private island with beach and 3 staff (a la Richard Branson) and all the equipment was imported from canada's infamous mountain equipment co-op (Bryan would have been proud!). pete took to paddling so enthusiastically that I didn't have to do any work at all on the second day... unfortunately his steering was less than accurate and we kept ramming our guide, Phu's boat.
tour 2 (departing this evening) is 3 days hiking and homestays amongst some ethnic minority groups. the last time we did homestays was the mongolian incident - so we are approaching the tour with caution.
in between these 2 completely out of character (at least for me) bouts of outdoorsyness we have been shopping in the french quarter of hanoi. so far we have bought enough plates, bowls, platters and chopsticks for a vietnamese themed dinner party for 10! you have been warned!
tour 1 (just completed) was 2 days of kayaking on ha long bay. we were treated to our very own private island with beach and 3 staff (a la Richard Branson) and all the equipment was imported from canada's infamous mountain equipment co-op (Bryan would have been proud!). pete took to paddling so enthusiastically that I didn't have to do any work at all on the second day... unfortunately his steering was less than accurate and we kept ramming our guide, Phu's boat.
tour 2 (departing this evening) is 3 days hiking and homestays amongst some ethnic minority groups. the last time we did homestays was the mongolian incident - so we are approaching the tour with caution.
in between these 2 completely out of character (at least for me) bouts of outdoorsyness we have been shopping in the french quarter of hanoi. so far we have bought enough plates, bowls, platters and chopsticks for a vietnamese themed dinner party for 10! you have been warned!
// posted by courtney and pete @ 22:59 
