Nerd Cruise!

By Julia
Hanoi, Vietnam

  I was worried as soon as I stepped onto the tour bus.  If you have ever attempted to cruise Halong Bay in Vietnam, you may have experienced a similar feeling of foreboding.  Lonely Planet and other online forums contain endless streams of travelers expounding on the various horrors they endured while simply trying to see the beautiful bay, a UNESCO sight.  Scams, copycatting, and theft are common outcomes of a Halong Bay excursion due to the sheer number of "travel agencies" trying to cram people onto boats.  To get some idea about the scams going on in Hanoi, take a look at this website.

  Tom and I carefully researched every possible tour agency and landed on Kangaroo Cafe as the most reputable outfit to travel with.   I was sure we made the right decision until we stepped on the tour bus, which arrived promptly to pick us up, and surveyed the other passengers.  The first guy I saw looked like this:

Except with a fanny pack.

  The others included a suburban family of four from Australia, a weathered-looking German couple, and a couple from Belgium that didn't know America had mountains.

  I grew increasingly concerned when we arrived at the boat dock.  I stepped off the bus while our tour guide got our tickets together.  Another bus pulled up and a group of tanned twenty-somethings filed off wearing sombreros.  "That's our group!" I exclaimed to Tom.  "We should be with them.  I want a hat."
Tom ignored me and we were hatlessly ushered onto our boat, known as a "junk" in this scenario (to sound more rustic no doubt).

Our junk...hehe

  We sailed away from the harbor, sombrero hats growing smaller in the distance.   The crew served us lunch, which was eaten in excruciating silence, as I wasn't sure how to engage Buster and his boyfriend (also wearing a fanny pack) and the other Germans would not make eye contact.  The Australian family was nice enough, but when I tried to converse with the two teenage sons, I was met with stunted answers supplemented by their mom.  I was slowly coming to realize that we were not going on a fun-filled booze cruise, but a bonafide Nerd Cruise.

Limestone karsts jutting up from Halong Bay

  Tom and I still had a good time.  We went kayaking on the sea-green waters of the bay and enjoyed a beautiful afternoon lounging on the top deck of the junk.

Tom doing his best impression of a jaded rockstar 

 Dinner went a little better than lunch, although is it really a victory when you have to beg your tour guide not to make you sing karaoke?  Tom and I invited everyone to watch a pirated copy of The Other Guys after dinner, but our only companions were the Vietnamese crew members (and that could have been because the couch doubled as their bed).

  The next morning our tour guide, Thuy, took us to an impressive cave complex.  I insisted we get a group shot after the tour of the cave in order to share with you the sheer nerdiness Tom and I were made to endure.  As we were getting assembled for the shot, Nick the Aussie Dad, asked what Tom's and my plans were for the evening.  "We're going to the Hanoi opera," I said proudly.  Then I recoiled.  Could it be true?

  Were Tom and I also nerds?

 Like the revelation in an action-thriller movie, the evidence mounted up against us frame by frame in my mind: we complained about the techno music pumping from a young-person boat anchored next to us, we went to bed before midnight, we didn't even attempt to sneak unauthorized booze onto our boat and get drunk before dinner...yes it was true:

We were right where we belonged.

Nerds!

 I imagined this two-day cruise as an adventure-filled bonding experience culminating in Tom and I having to adjust our wedding guest list to accommodate all our new friends.  Instead, I avoided giving anyone our contact information as we parted ways to ensure I could write this scathing blog post.

  Tom and I arrived back in Hanoi just in time to shower, eat dinner and get to the opera house.  The building is an impressive remnant of the French colonial days, built in the early twentieth century.  The Vietnamese National Opera and Ballet put on a great show consisting of classical orchestral music in the first half and a ballet in the second.  We thoroughly enjoyed it - like true nerds.

Hanoi Opera House, via mvklbak on flickr