The Last Hoorah

Our adventure teaching in Vietnam came to an end last week (April 19th). Through no fault of our own, the job didn't work out due to a corrupt administration at the school. Most of the other teachers we started with have already moved on, and now we are doing the same.
We moved to Indonesia last week to start a new teaching job outside of Jakarta. Before we left, we were able to see the rest of Vietnam on a two week trip. Here are some of the highlights:

SAPA

First, we went straight up to the northern mountains for a breath of cool, fresh air.

To get there, we took a plane to Hanoi, a sleeper train to
Lao Cai, and a minibus to Sapa.

The town was full of hilltribe people.
These are the Black Hmongs
(named so because of their clothes)

We bought our only souvenir from this lady,
a pair of embroidered belts.

They teach them to drive so young up there.

We trekked in the mountains for 2 days and saw what life
was like in the hills.

Sun was our local guide.

HALONG BAY

After Sapa, we traveled through Hanoi again and went directly to Halong Bay, one of the New 7 Wonders of the World. It's a bay full of thousands of small, steep mountains, some with small beaches and caves.

We took a big boat out to a big island, Cat Ba.

Then we took a small boat to this small island "resort"
(group of huts).

Then we took a kayak around the bay and explored the
smaller islands, random caves, and beaches.

On the disco sleeper bus (this is not photoshopped)

Mmmm, dog hot pot

PHONG NHA CAVES

Next we went back through Hanoi via boat/bus/boat/bus/bus/overnight bus to get to Phong Nha-Kẻ Bàng National Park. This was the one place I said I must visit before we leave. This is an area that holds the world's largest cave, Son Doong, just discovered a few years ago. While that cave is off-limits, there are so many other giant caves in the park. We went to Phong Nha Cave, Tien Son Cave, and Paradise Cave.

It was a beautiful and surreal place.
Like all of these places, I can't show you what it looks like in
pictures. They just don't get across how amazing it really is.

Phong Nha is a "wet cave." You take a boat right into it.

a view from the boat

Paradise cave
This was one of the most amazing places I've ever been to. The enormity of the rooms is hard to capture.
You could walk on a boardwalk about 1km into this cave. It continued another 30km.