Day 20

7.11.09

Today we got up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at 5am to hike up Monkey Mountain! It was quite a walk to the entrance itself, and then we started our way up the road to the monkeys! Altogether, we had Vincent, Allen, Alex, Todd, Karen, Grandma, Jennifer, Nga and two other guys, friends of Vince and Todd. It was ¥10 to get in, and well worth it. We hiked up and saw the monkey cages, but ignored them at the time, opting to hike in the forest/rainforest to try and see wild monkeys. We didn’t have any luck, so we headed back to the cages. Once we got to the cages, the free monkeys came out to play! The boys were feeding them bread they had brought, and Grandma got to pet one! They had little faux-hawks, very adorable. After we got back from Monkey Mountain, we rested at the hotel for about a half hour before heading out to the open market up the street. We looked for a bike at the market, but to no avail. After the two rows of random things like electronics, shoes and bags, there was the actual market- there were rows of vegetables and fruits, picked no more than 2 hours before. Then came the rows of meat. To show potential buyers how good the quality was, the sellers held the raw meat in their hands and poked and prodded it with the customer until a deal was reached. The smell was overpowering, something we’ll never forget, unfortunately. Well after that we ran into Vincent and Todd at the bus stop, waited for a while, and took a taxi with them to their dorms, where I bought a bike! We tried to imitate the students who have a friend on the back of their bike, but it didn’t work for us. After that, we tried to catch a taxi to Mr. Mai’s. There was another guy who came over from 100 yards away to wait near us to what we thought was stealing our potential cab. Instead, we ended up sharing a taxi to Mr. Mai’s! he refused to let us pay for our part of the trip (he was going downtown), and it turned out that he is a professor at HUST! Mr. Mai’s was really relaxing, and after dinner we just chilled and relaxed in the room.