"I will love you good!"

I've got an offer of marriage today. From 60 years old Chinese man.
"Hello! What's your name? Are you married? Boyfriend? Marry me than! I'm better than all those young boys, I will take care of you, I will love you good!" Mom, dad, what do you think?

Jobs

I'm boarding the ship to Ly Son Island and what I see is the floor of the passanger cabin covered with green plastic bags full of vomits. Pukes should be the logo of  vietnameese  means of transportation. Bus - pukes, ship - pukes. Unfortunately vomitting is like yawning - when you hear somebody fighting two rows behind you, all that you have in your stomach start bubbling joyfully and wants to catch some fresh air as well. I managed to avoid this till now somehow, but I'm also not stuffing myselfe with the big bowl of beef soup before the bumpy ride as others do.
Back to the topic. Through the cabin goes a boy with the bucket and collects those plastic bubbles filled with half digested soup. What a job... Just the view makes me dizzy so I immediately decide to spend the whole journey on the sun burned deck but at least with the wind in my hair. Soon after the puke-picker follows with the bucket full of bubbles and of course empties it straight to the sea. Some of them go straight down, but some sway playfully on the waves, glistening in the sun.

Ly Son. Beautiful shore, cliffs, white sand and super nice people. Completely off turistic track!

Island of garlic fields. They even put it in rice wine and drink garlic alcohol. Cant imagine the morning breath after a night of going wild... ;)

Viet Nam+ Ba Lan = Number 1!! A beer with locals and only phrase I could understand. I happily went on in polish, they talked vietnameese. We had fun.

Beautiful sunset on the beach full of waste - thats the landfill of the village :( kids take a swim and have fun anyway)

Mekong Delta 8h boat ride. Was nice but my buttocks acquired the shape of the bench...

Sunset under the monsoony sky

A Co To? and others

So many places and not so much feel for writting so here are some pictures:

 Ship ride to Co To Island

 There is so much trash all over the place. One would think that is something is off the tourist track it would be clean. Well, unfortunately that is not the case. In the water - medusa, medusa, plastic bag, medusa...

 Trenches on the side of the island facing China.

 Sleeper bus :)

Sleeper bus closer look.

Cat Ba - Ha Long photo update

It seems that I made it through the hardest time and from now on everything will be going nice and easy. Got cleared of money often enough to learn what is the real value of things, was lonely enough to go out and speak to people and got brave enough to venture on my own a little bit off the beaten track. I' spending the night in Cai Rong and catching an early ship to Co To Island at 7am tomorrow.
Ha Long Bay was so indecently beautiful that one could just ride around on a scooter and keep laughting to oneselfe. Quite surreal. Well, see for yourselfe.

 Disco Cave

 Kayak in Ha Long Bay

 Lost in the jungle. Unplanned treck with no food or water.

 Zmija's twin bro randomly met on the boat.

 Well, why not a self portrait at the sunset...

 This delicious food came over from America!

Some fun in Hai Phong. Learning vietnameese, english and playing ukulele

This delicious food was made and ate in Vietnam!

At the end a few reflections on travelling without a plan:
1) its nice to travel without plan
2) when you travel without plan anything can happen
3) anything means really anything
4) it can be problematic when one has problems with taking decisions
5) Last minute takes more time and is usually more expensive

Cat Ba

With an overnight train, morning bus and afternoon boat I made my way from Sa Pa to Cat Ba island in Ha Long Bay. Very scenic, beautiful place. How were those rocks formed this way...
Today I took a ride on a scooter around the island and hiked 20km through the jungle. What was awaited to be a leisurely walk turned out a serious trek! Up and down, up and down through bushes, grasses and rocky mountains. 10km there and 10km back when it turned out there is no other, easier way... Fiuuu. I deserve my soup and my drink now. Cheers :)
Cat Ba Town is rather ugly place for a change. Reminds me of Costa Del Sol in Spain. Big hotels in front or the beach and ugly, grey beach. Thank god there is no beach here, just port. Beaches are a bit further away. One can miss Sopot sometimes!

Sa Pa

So Sapa. Another town destroyed by tourism. Luckily some views are still beautiful.

Vietnamese and tourists, they both say that Sapa has lost it's charm. They are right, although I can't really say that if I haven't been there before. Well, in Sa Pa all is done for money now. Street sellers are very pushy, hotels are big and are obstructing the views, prices are high and the landscape- the main attraction is degrading. There uses to be a Valley of Roses, now the roses are mostly gone, simply not taken care of or cut down for construction space. Terraced rice fields look idle, but maybe it's just the wrong season. Without all that it doesn't look like pictures you can google and is rather disappointing. What a pitty...

Hanoi

I dare say it is so far the most pleasant Asian city I have visited. Hanoians love the activities on the fresh air, so they have quite a lot of smaller and larger parks and squares, where they play badminton,  roller skate, have dance classes or just hang out. Curbs are low or reasonable and sidewalks rather wide, so it is really nice to walk around, although in some places they are blocked with parking scooters.
I'm enjoying a lemonade in cafe L'etage- a small room with a narrow balcony over busy Trang Thi street. Difficult to access, through the backyard, narrow staircase and somebody's house, but worth all the confusions.  On the opposite side is Hoan Kien Lake and it would be so pleasant if a girl next to me wasn't training for "the voice of Vietnam" with plugs in her ears! Where are mine? Better.
The lake than... Three lakes even, all with organized waterfronts and pagodas on the islands. Jogging foreigners, pissing grandpas, kissing kiddos, policemen taking care of order and disorder and unity of the nation. Sexy Vietnamese girls with lousy, old white faces, woman carrying a tree on a bicycle,  newest BMW, another wave of scooters.
Yesterday spent a few hours with American guy. "What do you do" I asked. "I used to work in law enforcement" he said. "What does that mean?" I really didn't know. "I'm an ex soldier" he explained. Aaaah! Those euphemisms...
So I kept looking at the shapes of balconies and the height of curbs and counting benches along the lakeside (something he found a very refreshing attitude) and he, it turned out later, was analyzing types of crowd and counting policemen with guns by their belts. It was definitely the safest walk i had in this city:) He was a nice guy, so trying to be friendly I marked that his mind must be really twisted. Dear honesty! He didn't seem to be very pleased... 

Jet lag

Granny Basia thought me to count something if I can't sleep. Since the jet lag got me rolling over for last three hours I gladly took her advice. There was a woman with a questionnaire at the airport asking me how many flights did I take within last 12 months. Feeling guilty about Mother Earth I estimated around 10. After a closer look at the subject and careful calculation of all connecting flights it turned out to be... 26! Twenty six! Oh damn, I'm killing this planet. Should have sticked to the sheeps...

Transition

So, here I am. Hello Vietnam. Trying to get a grip of myselfe with such a change. Suddenly no language, money or food I can understand. No job! Haaa! The only preparation I've made was checking a LP guidebook in the airport's bookstore for an area to stay in Hanoi. Made it here, found a room, a bed, a clean pillow! The moment I put my head on it the omnipresent loudspeakers started the morning-motivation-talk followed by cheerful songs praising the unity of the nation and its beloved Party. I'm dreading 7:30 tomorrow morning! :)

Guys, I had so much fun those last weeks it was superhard to leave (as some of you might have seen). I guess it will take me some time to readjust. You filled me with so much joy and love, it's probably pressing on my brain right now and affecting my perception of the things around. But I've learned these days that there is no time for hesitation, no place for prejudices and no fun in keeping for oneself. The Force will guide me. Amen.

So long!