an intro to vietnam

so the next day in hanoi we went to see ho chi minh. he's in a mausoleum. so we walked there and went through all the security and fortunately were told by security to cut in line because the line was really really long. when we finally got up to the mausoleum, we had to be silent and in two lines. we were ushered through and there was ho chi minh. lying there in middle of the room, embalmed in a glass box. i guess that's what he looked like when he was sleeping. we walked through and saw him for less than one minute. it was a thing that i felt like i should do because he is really really important to vietnam and vietnamese people. but also it seemed a little messed up because his will said he wanted to be cremated. but they embalmed him anyway. it feels sort of disrespectful to the person to stare at his embalmed body that he wanted cremated and in an urn somewhere.
we also saw 'the proposal' which was surprisingly not terrible. it was pretty funny. and betty white is in it, and who doesn't love betty white? mostly we go to movies in other countries to eat the popcorn. this popcorn was ok. not as good as the movie. also it was set partly in alaska, around mountains and forest and a lake. it made me want to move to a more rural place. and have a garden.
from hanoi we went to cat ba island. three bus rides and one boat ride later we were there. we found a hotel pretty quickly for $15, which we later found out was pretty expensive for around there. we ate some terrible food on that island. terrible. fried rice which was not cooked over a big fire, covered in tomato sauce. fried noodles cooked in a similar way. we did get gin and tonic. more than once. that was good. well, more like a diy g&t. we ordered the gin and tonic water separately and i ran across the street to buy a lime from some vendor lady. but we made it happen.
the next day we went on a boat tour. we never do organized tours but couldn't figure out a way to see the things we wanted to see on our own. so we did the tour. so we got on the boat and went out to ha long bay. we went kayaking, which was pretty fun. but also not really safe. without making sure any of us actually knew how to do it, we just got put in 2 person kayaks and were given paddles. and told to go look at the caves. where? over there...with a vague hand motion. there are tons of giant rock islands. so pretty much we were able to explore far away and out of sight of the boat for like 2 hours. in the ocean.
then we ate our 'seafood lunch'. foo said the seafood wasn't very good. they made me tofu. it was, well, it was tofu. we went to see a natural cave with lots of stalagmites and shiny things. i'm pretty sure it was harmful to the cave for us to be in there touching stuff.
we went kayaking/swimming again. and we went to this island with monkeys. we didn't do the hike to go look at monkeys. because we were tired from the whole day. but the monkeys came to us! (i don't like monkeys too much because one attacked me in nicaragua in college. they are mean beastly little creatures.) but like 10 monkeys came to the beach. and two mothers with little baby monkeys holding on to the mom's belly while she ran around. and some trying to drink beer out of the empty beer cans. we were all up to our knees in the water to avoid too close an encounter with them.
but we got back at 5pm or so. and we accomplished a whole day of tourism. foo wanted good seafood, and we were surrounded by the sea so it didn't seem like it would be too hard. we found a restaurant with grilled calamari on the menu. so she got it. and guess what. seriously, this is how they made it: they cut up squid into pieces and threw it on a grill. no sauce, no nothing. charred it a bit and put it on a plate. foo was really disappointed. it only cost like $3. but it was sure a waste of that money. so we got french fries to go from another restaurant and went back to the hotel to feel sorry for ourselves. the next day we went back to hanoi to decide where our adventure should go from there.