Relax, why don't you! On board TGS Halong Bay.

Today's "3 hour run" to Halong Bay started with a 2 hour tour of old Hanoi, picking up fellow passengers for the cruise, some of whom hadn't made it out of bed and had to catch up by taxi. Then the 3 hour bit became 3.5, so 5.5 in all. About par for this neck of the woods. Weather poor. Dry but little visibility due to fog.

Arriving at a very modern but under used harbour, we were embarked on a small boat to join our cruise "Junk" This turned out to be a 7 year old purpose & traditionally built timber vessel with 12 guest cabins. For a relatively young ship, the side decks are remarkably spongy underfoot!

Fabulous lunch & dinner sandwiched a trip to a traditional floating village housing fishermen and their families. The men venture to the open sea at night and return at dawn with their catches which are pooled for transfer to market. At least that's the verbal picture painted before arrival. Unfortunately the truth is somewhat larger and tacky. The fishermen still go what fishermen do, but income is supplemented or supplanted by selling fruit and other produce from small bamboo boats.
There are pontoons from which the intrepid tourist can, for a price, venture to inspect some caves in 2 man kayaks, or take a more leisurely transit in one of the bamboo boats, rowed by a be-hatted & masked lady of the village. Ours rowed us, in the Vietnamese way, standing at the stern facing forward, directly to her best friend's floating shop where it was discovered that, in anticipation of such a move, I had forgotten my wallet. Shame. On the return leg, our lady pointed out the floating school, in response to an earlier remark which I had made about how the village kids got their education, so she had been listening and understanding!

Back on board our.ship, there was a cookery lesson - how to make spring rolls. We were supplied with all the ingredients and achieved fair results although our token teenager made a fist of his, literally. They were deep fried for us and consumed with gusto, and of course freshly made dipping sauce. Sue declined to eat hers despite having been provided with a veggie mix. Perhaps I shouldn't have pointed out the presence of ground pork in that mix. What's not to understand about "No meat please".

In view of the mist, or lack of view because of it, the sundown party was lacking it's focal point, but still achieved it's main aim to some extent, that is to flog overpriced booze to a captive audience. Ah well, so it goes on. We'll see what the morrow brings

G&S