30th Dec. Halong Bay

30th December

Breakfast was pancakes, and soon after we climbed onto the back of some three wheel vehicles and taken to the harbour where we got onto a similar boat to the day before.
The trip was again beautiful and Tu, our guide, came to sit with us upstairs a while. It was cold but the view was with it. Tu has a very nice innocence about him. He was showing me pictures on his phone of other trips he'd done when he told me a story about someone who got drunk and at a market and crashed his motorbike into a truck and killed himself. Here was a photo of his father and the death ceremony where they were giving him his last rice wine drink and then they slaughtered a dog for him. Here, let me show you the video, Tu said. I told him firmly I really didn't want to see it. How awful.

We stopped for kayaking in a bay sheltered from the wind. We tied up to the jetty of a fish farm, where two dogs living on the island of planks and walkways barked at us. They had some shelter built for them and she was either pregnant or breast feeding; both terribly thin. After our paddle I gave him, the thinner, a left over egg and rolls I'd kept for him (or any thin dog I saw). He took a while investigating it before he'd eat so perhaps it was his first egg.

We paddled around the island which was pleasant enough.

And soon after we headed back, lunching on the way. It was very frustrating that both ways we were served lunch at the time when the view was most spectacular. But schedules must be followed.

At the harbour we split up into our various cars and drove the hour plus back to Halong Bay where we boarded our sleeper boat, only to see two of the couple's we'd just been with and a new French lady.
Now this boat was what we had expected. Lovely. Again we were so frustrated we'd been duped into the previous nights crappy hotel instead of being here. It is hard to describe how beautiful Halong Bay is. Truly magnificent.

The trip was idyllic. There were lots of other boats heading home.

When we arrived at our sleeping place I didn't mind that there were so many other boats around. In fact it felt quite festive.
Dinner was a grand affair with prawns beautifully displayed, enough vegetarian food and lots of seafood. A most enjoyable evening.

Our neighbors were playing loud music which is quite a "f... you" in a place like this, but at least they liked Bob Marley so it didn't offend me as much.