Ha Long will this blog be???

Ok, so back to Ha Long Bay... Where to begin??? Let me start by saying something. (I feel like most of my blogs come with disclaimers...) The one lesson I've learned from traveling aroung the world is this: The world is amazing and full of cool stuff, but it's never as cool or as breathtaking as you think it will be. Now indulge me as I wax philosophical:

My thoughts are as follows: Americans are spoiled by Hollywood. Take any adventure movie - Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, Bon Voyage Charlie Brown! - and you will see beautiful, exotic scenery that appears remote and larger-than-life, what-have-you. Ok, so I'm kidding about Charlie Brown, but he did go to France in that one... My point is we see these movies and get an idea in our head that is a little mas grande than real life. A beautiful example is a comment made by my new friend and team mate, Erin Gripper. In our taxi on the way home from Highland's Coffee (so good!) Erin was telling Megan and me about going to Egypt. She said the pyramids were, "very cool but not as big as I'd thought they'd be." That's a fair sentiment, I think. Honestly I expected her to say something like, "It was the coolest thing ever!", but the more I thought about her response the more it made sense to me. It's really easy to make something on film or in pictures seem larger than life or more exotic or more remote, and then when you show up you find out that it's really not any bigger than a warehouse and there are tourists running around everywhere and, "Oh look! A Starbucks!"

So, back to Ha Long Bay. I went into this expecting less than what was offered, and I honestly still came up short. I'll have to explain what I mean, and in all honesty I want to be fair. It's a part of the coast east of Hanoi (in the North) where there are literally over a thousand of limestone islands of various shapes and sizes. Some are as small as half a football field, while others are miles in diameter. Most are jutting sharply and steeply out of the water. The pics below was taken by my friend Berkeley, a teacher going to Laos. In fact many of these are his 'cause he has a killer camera and mine camera went dead after the first night.

As you can from these and the one in my previous post (that pic was actually mine) there is some really cool geology/geophraphy to check out aroung the place. Here are a couple more to give you an idea of what it looks like:

So the one on the left is Berk's pic. Mine on the right here is a view from our boat. More on that later..... I have to go to bed. I'm a little under the weather and just took a couple nyquil. They're kicking in big time. Next time I'll put up some more cool pics and talk about how my disclaimer ties in to Ha Long Bay. There will also be some funny commentary via me as our bizaro tour guide.

Grace and peace!