Before our trip to South East Asia even had a discernible beginning, Raffi and I had a vision of where it would end: Halong Bay.

From the start, we had planned a trip that was grand in scale. As part of starting our own non-profit organization – which promoted women’s rights and condemned sex trafficking out of Asia -- we had decided that we’d be able to connect with the most local people if we spread our message on bikes. And no, I don’t mean “bike” as in a motorcycle. I was scared of roller coasters until college and Raffi’s innocuous benevolence alone wouldn’t let him pull off a leather jacket and chaps. We’re talking bicycles.

Our expedition was originally intended to be an epic cycling trip, spanning Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos PDR. It was dubbed the “Tour for Equality” and was to take place throughout the summer, when the sun was at its hottest and brightest.

Idiotic? Perhaps, but it was for a cause which we believed in. As we had worked to build this grass-roots NGO, we had become increasingly committed to the education of women and children. Sex trafficking was - and still is - a pandemic in SE Asia, and we were ready to ride 8 hours a day in 100 degree heat in order to hit the most remote places and get immersed in the culture. Our success with that is the subject for another time.

This story is about our plan to reward ourselves at the end of this physically debilitating trek. We would look back on our travels and accomplishments from Halong Bay, a notoriously beautiful piece of photographic eye-candy in the South China Sea’s, The Gulf of Tonkin. Known across the globe for one unique characteristic - a heavily saturated spattering of large limestone rocks extending into the sea for miles - this was going to be our farewell site. We even had a couple of cheap cigars buried in the bottom of our backpacks specifically set aside to commemorate the end of the adventure at this paradise. Yet despite our meticulous planning, our journey turned out to be far more of a saga than we had planned.

As we knew we would have had enough of our bikes, we had entrusted our trip to the hands of a travel agency in Vietnam’s capitol city, Hanoi. biggest city Our agent, Ms. Binh, a blunt and pragmatic woman who ran the Hanoi Star Hotel cradled Raffi and me into a package deal that would whisk us to and from the bay on a series of low-luxury buses and shuttles. All we needed to do was be at the pick-up locations according to her schedule. Looking at our itinerary to know when we had to rouse ourselves from mini-comas induced by heat exhaustion, we were ready. Read More...