"I feel so old! When did I get so old.!" Emily said cowering on the third story deck of the boat.
She kept looking down at the 30 foot drop to the water below and despite her bravest desires, she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
So, I uttered a stinging incantation, "You're usually the brave one in the relationship. I guess I'll have to be the brave one of us now."
As expected, she shot me the stare of death. I could see her determination build. She didn't want the story to end with me doing something more daring than her. And neither did I.
About 30 minutes prior, I stood at the rail of the roof deck of our Chinese junk surrounded by green foliage covered limestone scale islands and watched a brave Vietnamese Canadian guy take the first leap. I needed physical evidence the water was deep enough.
Once we all saw he was alive and well, Adam - one of our new found friends - took the leap. Of course, he took his time, got his footing on the small, downward sloping ledge, and worked up the nerve before he took the plunge. As soon as he returned to the surface, he was glad he did it.
It was my turn. The short, downward slope of the ledge beyond the railing was the hard part. It doesn't fully make sense, but I needed a firm footing before I could let go and drop. I carefully got out there and spent a minute psyching myself up - flashbacks of childhood swimming lessons and fearing of the high dive coming to mind. I never did go off the high dive head first. But I jumped feet first many times. So, I mustered up a jump again and 10 seconds or less later, I found myself deep in Halong Bay.
After that, I didn't hesitate anymore. I jumped three more times and Adam jumped four more.
But my wife - my usually brave and daring wife - just stared down at the drop. It didn't matter that others had done it and lived to tell. Emily got as far as standing on the ledge and then admitted how scared she was and wondered what happened to her youth. Ten years ago she would never have hesitated, she said.
Shortly after my incantation, she got up her nerve and jumped - and she was immediately happy she did. She then wanted to do it again at which point she revisited her fear and hesitations for a good ten minutes before again making the exhilarating plunge.
Adam and his wife Mai had taken a plunge of their own. Two months ago, they packed up all their things in New Zealand (Mai's Kiwi) and shipped them to Toronto (Adam's Canadian) and then left for a year for a trip across five continents.
In order to do so - at age 33 and 31 respectively - they moved in with Mai's parents, cut their expenses to about $40 a day, and saved up enough to go around the world for a year.
Adam, an engineer by both trade and mindset, mapped out their entire itinerary beginning in Southeast Asia and going to Hong Kong, China, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and South America. In order to achieve this, they need to keep a jaunty pace with rarely more than two or three days in any given location.
Talk about an amazing race.
When it's all over, Adam and Mai plan to go to Canada and start fresh, including starting a family. It's a very similar story to ours. They're going on an adventure for a year before committing themselves to kids.
Naturally, we had much to discuss in what became a fantastic evening and next morning chatting with them, as well as a fantastic Filipino couple, on a gorgeous boat anchored in green waters, surrounded by islands.
Emily and I would have been perfectly happy just to enjoying the comfortable bed in beautifully outfitted cabin of the wooden Chinese junk and then lounging around the boat - soaking up the phenomenal natural beauty around us. However, that's not how these things work.
The first day of the cruise had some of that - followed by a visit to a massive cave filled with varied and impressive rock formations and then an hour of kayaking. After that it was back to the boat for diving and swimming - and we know how that went.
It turned out that the companies that operate the Chinese junks on Halong Bay - and there are maybe 50 or more boats doing these cruises - make it so that anyone doing a cruise of more than one night must do activities all of the second day. That's because the junks do the same run every day, exchanging passengers - most of whom are doing one night cruises.
Those doing a two night cruise get to choose between kayaking for a full-day (basically, being given a boat and told "good luck" until 5pm) or visiting Cat Ba Island. Not being people who should or want to be left to paddle themselves around for a day, we went to the island.
We then had a choice of hiking up the highest peak of the island, or doing a bike ride to a cave followed by visiting adjacent Monkey Island to see Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys - an endangered species - and to enjoy the beach. The choice was clear.
We peddled our way through swarms of butterflies. They filled much of the incredibly lush limestone island with its deep valleys. We passed families with rice farms and old, traditional homesteads as we made our way through a lush basin to the Hospital Cave.
We hadn't thought much about what we might find at the cave - we just knew it was better than being set adrift or hiking in the tropical heat. It was a very different experience than the butterflies and meadows let on.
After climbing a steep staircase, we entered a fairly hidden cave at the back of which was a cement wall with graffiti and a small metal door. The guide explained that the Viet Cong used the cave as a hospital from 1965 to 1975 after spending three years setting it up. He opened to the innocuous looking door to reveal a three story complex that was indeed a real - albeit very rough - hospital complete with patient wards, operating rooms, swimming pool, movie theater and meeting areas for military commanders.
The upper stories made use of the natural, cavernous rock while the lower floor that had the patient wards and operating room was a man-made cement structure. I shuddered to imagine the pain and suffering that went on in that hospital. I imagined badly wounded soldiers getting remedial care in an environment that was far from sanitary.
The guide explained that the hospital used Chinese doctors and treated Chinese in addition to Vietnamese soldiers. Those who made it past their wounds and could fight again were given a training routine of crawling through tight spaces in the caves and swimming in the natural pools of the caves.
In order to keep the cave a secret, soldiers had to drop three stories into a water cistern through which they crawled to a hidden back exit well guarded by foliage.
Based on the guide's description of the many meeting rooms, I surmised the Hospital Cave was more than just a hospital. After all, Geneva Convention prohibits targeting medical facilities. It was clear that military leaders also operated from what was a practically invisible base.
During the subsequent bus rides through the island and along its breathtaking coast, my mind repeatedly wandered back to the cave. Although many Americans of both our generation and our parents' generation have trouble understanding why America fought in Vietnam, I understand our leadership's thinking.
Vietnam - like several countries - went through the horrible experience of being a proxy battleground of the Cold War. American leaders thought the Soviets were supplying the North Vietnamese (although it later turned out it was mainly the Chinese who were not in fact, allied with the Soviets as originally thought). So, America supplied the South Vietnamese. As the war escalated, so did America. We went from supplier and advisor to combatant - determined not to let the Communist giants win.
The sad part is that the Vietnamese people got caught in the middle. Innocent farmers and fishermen - like the people on Cat Ba Island - paid the price. The media had just evolved enough to capture this and bring images and stories home to Americans who found the consequences to both the Vietnamese people and American soldiers - their husbands, brothers, sons, grandsons, nephews, and friends - abhorrent. In the end, there were no winners in the Vietnam War.
When the fighting was over, the Vietnamese people instead suffered through political oppression and being cut off from the world. The communist leadership then persecuted Chinese ethnic Vietnamese citizens and drove them away - charging them $5,000 a head for the privilege of getting on a refugee boat and floating out to sea, rather than face worse in their own land.
Years of inflation and economic hardship followed until generations of leaders changed.
The Vietnamese government means for the cave to be a remembrance of the past. Instead, I think it represents the present and future. The very fact that two Americans - as part of our tour package on a luxury junk cruise of Halong Bay - got to see the inside of a Viet Cong stronghold would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.
Vietnam is moving onward and upward. We were impressed at how many Vietnamese tourists were on our boat and the island. Apparently, May is the beginning of the high season of domestic tourism. That's a strong sign of upward mobility and economic advancement.
Vietnam has developing infrastructure and a blooming tourism industry. People from all around the world are here enjoying this beautiful country and its friendly people - who have always been welcoming of us as Americans.
Sometimes, the most difficult leap is from past to future. Vietnam has clearly succeeded. It has taken the plunge into being an outward looking nation, rejoining the world. Maybe it took Vietnamese leaders a little while of staring off the ledge and saying, "I feel so old!" before they were ready....but in the end, we're all enjoying the beauty and waters of Halong Bay together now.
She kept looking down at the 30 foot drop to the water below and despite her bravest desires, she just couldn't bring herself to do it.
So, I uttered a stinging incantation, "You're usually the brave one in the relationship. I guess I'll have to be the brave one of us now."
As expected, she shot me the stare of death. I could see her determination build. She didn't want the story to end with me doing something more daring than her. And neither did I.
About 30 minutes prior, I stood at the rail of the roof deck of our Chinese junk surrounded by green foliage covered limestone scale islands and watched a brave Vietnamese Canadian guy take the first leap. I needed physical evidence the water was deep enough.
Once we all saw he was alive and well, Adam - one of our new found friends - took the leap. Of course, he took his time, got his footing on the small, downward sloping ledge, and worked up the nerve before he took the plunge. As soon as he returned to the surface, he was glad he did it.
It was my turn. The short, downward slope of the ledge beyond the railing was the hard part. It doesn't fully make sense, but I needed a firm footing before I could let go and drop. I carefully got out there and spent a minute psyching myself up - flashbacks of childhood swimming lessons and fearing of the high dive coming to mind. I never did go off the high dive head first. But I jumped feet first many times. So, I mustered up a jump again and 10 seconds or less later, I found myself deep in Halong Bay.
After that, I didn't hesitate anymore. I jumped three more times and Adam jumped four more.
But my wife - my usually brave and daring wife - just stared down at the drop. It didn't matter that others had done it and lived to tell. Emily got as far as standing on the ledge and then admitted how scared she was and wondered what happened to her youth. Ten years ago she would never have hesitated, she said.
Shortly after my incantation, she got up her nerve and jumped - and she was immediately happy she did. She then wanted to do it again at which point she revisited her fear and hesitations for a good ten minutes before again making the exhilarating plunge.
Adam and his wife Mai had taken a plunge of their own. Two months ago, they packed up all their things in New Zealand (Mai's Kiwi) and shipped them to Toronto (Adam's Canadian) and then left for a year for a trip across five continents.
In order to do so - at age 33 and 31 respectively - they moved in with Mai's parents, cut their expenses to about $40 a day, and saved up enough to go around the world for a year.
Adam, an engineer by both trade and mindset, mapped out their entire itinerary beginning in Southeast Asia and going to Hong Kong, China, the Middle East, Europe, Africa and South America. In order to achieve this, they need to keep a jaunty pace with rarely more than two or three days in any given location.
Talk about an amazing race.
When it's all over, Adam and Mai plan to go to Canada and start fresh, including starting a family. It's a very similar story to ours. They're going on an adventure for a year before committing themselves to kids.
Naturally, we had much to discuss in what became a fantastic evening and next morning chatting with them, as well as a fantastic Filipino couple, on a gorgeous boat anchored in green waters, surrounded by islands.
Emily and I would have been perfectly happy just to enjoying the comfortable bed in beautifully outfitted cabin of the wooden Chinese junk and then lounging around the boat - soaking up the phenomenal natural beauty around us. However, that's not how these things work.
The first day of the cruise had some of that - followed by a visit to a massive cave filled with varied and impressive rock formations and then an hour of kayaking. After that it was back to the boat for diving and swimming - and we know how that went.
It turned out that the companies that operate the Chinese junks on Halong Bay - and there are maybe 50 or more boats doing these cruises - make it so that anyone doing a cruise of more than one night must do activities all of the second day. That's because the junks do the same run every day, exchanging passengers - most of whom are doing one night cruises.
Those doing a two night cruise get to choose between kayaking for a full-day (basically, being given a boat and told "good luck" until 5pm) or visiting Cat Ba Island. Not being people who should or want to be left to paddle themselves around for a day, we went to the island.
We then had a choice of hiking up the highest peak of the island, or doing a bike ride to a cave followed by visiting adjacent Monkey Island to see Golden Snub-Nosed Monkeys - an endangered species - and to enjoy the beach. The choice was clear.
We peddled our way through swarms of butterflies. They filled much of the incredibly lush limestone island with its deep valleys. We passed families with rice farms and old, traditional homesteads as we made our way through a lush basin to the Hospital Cave.
We hadn't thought much about what we might find at the cave - we just knew it was better than being set adrift or hiking in the tropical heat. It was a very different experience than the butterflies and meadows let on.
After climbing a steep staircase, we entered a fairly hidden cave at the back of which was a cement wall with graffiti and a small metal door. The guide explained that the Viet Cong used the cave as a hospital from 1965 to 1975 after spending three years setting it up. He opened to the innocuous looking door to reveal a three story complex that was indeed a real - albeit very rough - hospital complete with patient wards, operating rooms, swimming pool, movie theater and meeting areas for military commanders.
The upper stories made use of the natural, cavernous rock while the lower floor that had the patient wards and operating room was a man-made cement structure. I shuddered to imagine the pain and suffering that went on in that hospital. I imagined badly wounded soldiers getting remedial care in an environment that was far from sanitary.
The guide explained that the hospital used Chinese doctors and treated Chinese in addition to Vietnamese soldiers. Those who made it past their wounds and could fight again were given a training routine of crawling through tight spaces in the caves and swimming in the natural pools of the caves.
In order to keep the cave a secret, soldiers had to drop three stories into a water cistern through which they crawled to a hidden back exit well guarded by foliage.
Based on the guide's description of the many meeting rooms, I surmised the Hospital Cave was more than just a hospital. After all, Geneva Convention prohibits targeting medical facilities. It was clear that military leaders also operated from what was a practically invisible base.
During the subsequent bus rides through the island and along its breathtaking coast, my mind repeatedly wandered back to the cave. Although many Americans of both our generation and our parents' generation have trouble understanding why America fought in Vietnam, I understand our leadership's thinking.
Vietnam - like several countries - went through the horrible experience of being a proxy battleground of the Cold War. American leaders thought the Soviets were supplying the North Vietnamese (although it later turned out it was mainly the Chinese who were not in fact, allied with the Soviets as originally thought). So, America supplied the South Vietnamese. As the war escalated, so did America. We went from supplier and advisor to combatant - determined not to let the Communist giants win.
The sad part is that the Vietnamese people got caught in the middle. Innocent farmers and fishermen - like the people on Cat Ba Island - paid the price. The media had just evolved enough to capture this and bring images and stories home to Americans who found the consequences to both the Vietnamese people and American soldiers - their husbands, brothers, sons, grandsons, nephews, and friends - abhorrent. In the end, there were no winners in the Vietnam War.
When the fighting was over, the Vietnamese people instead suffered through political oppression and being cut off from the world. The communist leadership then persecuted Chinese ethnic Vietnamese citizens and drove them away - charging them $5,000 a head for the privilege of getting on a refugee boat and floating out to sea, rather than face worse in their own land.
Years of inflation and economic hardship followed until generations of leaders changed.
The Vietnamese government means for the cave to be a remembrance of the past. Instead, I think it represents the present and future. The very fact that two Americans - as part of our tour package on a luxury junk cruise of Halong Bay - got to see the inside of a Viet Cong stronghold would have been unthinkable 20 years ago.
Vietnam is moving onward and upward. We were impressed at how many Vietnamese tourists were on our boat and the island. Apparently, May is the beginning of the high season of domestic tourism. That's a strong sign of upward mobility and economic advancement.
Vietnam has developing infrastructure and a blooming tourism industry. People from all around the world are here enjoying this beautiful country and its friendly people - who have always been welcoming of us as Americans.
Sometimes, the most difficult leap is from past to future. Vietnam has clearly succeeded. It has taken the plunge into being an outward looking nation, rejoining the world. Maybe it took Vietnamese leaders a little while of staring off the ledge and saying, "I feel so old!" before they were ready....but in the end, we're all enjoying the beauty and waters of Halong Bay together now.
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