Day 18 - Last Day in Luang

We woke up fairly early. About 2am... and then again at 2:30... 2:45... 3:00 etc etc.

The monks were driving us insane . Closely following them were the staff of the hotel. You might remember we had no towels or hot water the day befroe. This time, we had no glasses (useful for brushing your teeth when you can't drink tap water) and no second roll of toilet paper. Oh yeah, and we'd come back one night to find all our windows wide open and the room freezing. Add to this the fact that we'd been bitten by mosquitos the owner said couldn't possibly exist at this time of year and the horrific suburn we'd picked up from our tubing the day before and you can understand why we weren't quite up to much on our last full day!

What we did do was explore the town a bit more. We'd seen signs here and there for Mister Mouse and we'd wondered what it was all about so were pleased to find ourselves outside the office in the early afternoon.

Mister Mouse is a fantastic literacy project that was started by a university student who grew up in a village nearby. Having been taught English and how to read his own language as a child, he got a vision for passing on the privilege to others who lack the opportunities in the villages of northern Laos. Returning to Luang Prabang after university, he gathered other student and youthful friends and set up a literacy project creating books in both Lao and English. These are illustrated very well by teenagers with stories of local traditions alongside health and social issues such as AIDS and international relations.

We were very impressed partly because we ourselves are considering working in a similar area in the future and the art element really appealed to Sheena. What impressed us more than anything though was their vision and attitude. With very sparse resources and no training whatsoever, they were managing to have a very positive impact in some of the most needy areas of their country. Very worthwhile.

We meandered around the streets making the most of the evening light. In Luang Prabang the sun sets down all the streets that run east-west and the sunlight is a photographer's dream. Streets, temples, everything was lit in the most intense and piercing light.

Returning to our favourite watering hole for a last dinner, we watched the boats slipping by in the dusk on the Mekong, then did a bit of final shopping at the night market before making our way back to endure another night of hellish chanting from the everpresent temple. For once, the staff had got it right, we had everything we needed for a good night's sleep except silence.

Day 17 - Rub a Dub Dub

We awoke this morning, despite inserted ear plugs, to the sounds of the people in the next room and the persisitent chanting from the local temple playing as it had been when we'd gone to bed and was still.

A buffet breakfast in town lured us in to enjoy fruit, homemade yoghurt, museli, toast, bacon and even pancakes on a terrace overlooking the Mekong. John even tried a local breakfast - rice noodles with a spicy soup with fried garlic, beansprouts and fresh herbs. It smelled good but not my cup of tea in the morning!

After being well satiated we headed over to the tour office where we had booked to go tubing the day before for the bargain price of $5 each. Tubing is all the rage in Laos and it's great because it is completely environmentally friendly. It involves drifting downstream in a giant inner tube. We piled into the back of a truck with two Germans and the giant inner tubes we would soon be riding in. The staff drove about 20 minutes out of town, dropped us off at the bank of the Nam Khan river, helped us into life jackets and gave us a waterproof bag to put any personal belongings in.

Before we set off on the river - we all slathered oursleves in suncream and changed into swim wear. The river looked good and surprisingly clean. In the water, we could see lots of feathery seaweed being swept in the flow. It made the river look a brilliant green colour from a distance.

The morning had started out so chilly with such low cloud that we feared it wasn't the right weather, but it seems to be the norm here that by 11am the clouds lift ansd the sun breaks through and it is a different scene altogether. Now it was nearly twelve and warming up.

One by one we plonked into the tubes and off we went. The water was refreshingly cool, the current quite strong in parts and it was surprising how fast you could move in places. When you looked down at the water under you you could see more clearly the speed you were going. But in other places the flow was very slow and sometimes stationary. It hardly mattered. The scene was so tranquil and pleasant we were in no hurry.

The plan was to float down river for about 3 hours and then be picked up at the other end. It was lovely just drifting enjoying the sunshine, leaning back and closing our eyes breathing in the stillness that was periodically interrupted by village life on the banks or in the river itself: children at play in the water, locals rowing boats going about their business, cows and water buffaloes drinking and bathing at the water's edge.

It was so funny how we all went at different speeds with the currents and sometimes one of us would be separated from the group for some time. This happened to me - I lost sight of the others ahead of me for ages and got stuck in a very slow patch. During this, I drifted into a group of young guys going out in a boat and some standing at the bank. They seemed very surprised and curious to see me and said greetings in Lao and English and some tried to ask my name in very basic English. They were embarrassed and so was I and I was trying hard to paddle out of their area and away form their staring. As I passed them on their boat, the boy at the back coyly called "I love you!" Embarrassed, I hurried to paddle away.

Later, I found John and one of the German guys disembarked and waiting on a small sand bank. Then we set of together again.

Downstream, we came across a busy operation of people in the river with boats scooping up stones in various sizes and sifting them into their boats and others collecting large bucketfulls of sand form the riverbed. Obviously, they must sell this for building materials, but we wondered what effect this must have.

We could have happily floated all day I think but eventually, we came upon a sign boldly informing us to "STOP TUBING " But it was difficult to do so there as the current was quite fast and in my case the guy had to come in and get me!

We'd lost sight of one of the German guys - getting out the water only one bend before the stopping point, he'd wanted to get something to eat. We ended up waiting for him to come back so we could all return in the truck together. After about 40 minutes he turned up. Apparently he'd been invited in by some locals and they had given him food and beer and he couldn't get away!

We returned to town in the truck for a well-earned cool drink in a cafe and watched the street life in the late afternoon sun. It was there we discovered that, despite our best efforts with factor 75 suncream, we had some souvenirs that would last us a week or more. John's knees were particularly red. If it hadn't been for this, we'd have probably done it all again the next day!

Day 16 - Loafing in Luang

Luang Prabang is a really sleepy town. This is a good thing. After our hectic time in Vietnam, we were grateful for the small scale and quieter mood of Laos.

This said, we were rather put out by the temple behind our house. Buddhism has quite a name for tolerance and this too is a good thing. Why they need tolerance was very apparent to us when the temple behind our hotel began broadcasting chanting through loudspeakers in the wee hours of the morning.

You know how uplifting Buddhist chanting is with its lilting melodies and energising rhythm? Well, by the time we pulled ourselves out of bed, we'd had just about as much lilting as we could take.

What made it worse... much worse... was the fact that our hotel room walls, while appearing to be made of teak, were in fact made of nothing at all. The priest and his monotonous drone could have been right there in bed with us. In fact, thinking about it, that would have been much more convenient. We could have just smothered him with pillows and helped him on the path to enlightenment.

This also meant that the temple had several accomplices. Our room was one third of a traditional Lao dwelling. We could hear conversations in other rooms, whenever they walked across their floor, the moving floorboards in our room made the bed sway, and when a group left early on wheeling their luggage past our door it sounded like they were dragging heavy machinery over gravel. Add to this the incipient whine of the water pump under our floor and you'll understand why we didn't get a great night's sleep.

But the gardens were lovely and we were right by the river and, surely, the temple would stop soon right?

We found our own way into town along the Nam Khan river through some ramshackle buildings (all of which toted satellite dishes despite being on the verge of collapse) and over an open sewer that had been a stream in some long-forgotten previous life back at the dawn of time.

First stop was the Sticky Rice Exhibition. We'd been told about this by our hotelier but hadn't really intended to go. But there we were standing right outside it. Good thing too because it really was excellent. Very well produced and extremely informative both about rice itself and the culture of Laos. There were insightful exhibits though such as the Contented Rice Farmer Song, a good glimpse into how socialism has become part of the mindset here.

Town was sleepy by day too. There were restaurants, Internet cafes and tour offices lining most streets in the main area but still plenty of areas of temples and houses where the locals lived. It was a great town to walk around. Better still to bike and we rented bikes for the three remaining days we were to be there.

We didn't do much but explore that day. We'd toyed with the idea of doing some trekking, rafting or even some mountain biking out in the forests but Vietnam had scared us out of the idea of an organised tour. Then we hit on something which turned out to be one of the best things we did on the whole trip. We booked it for the next day and spent the rest of the day in cafes or exploring.

We got back to our hotel late, but the Buddhists were still at it in the twinkling darkness. To add to our joy, the hotel staff had left us without any towels. We had to get the owner out of bed to get us some. It hardly mattered though. There wasn't any hot water either.

Day 15 - Laos at Last

For more pics, click the links below.

Well, we had 12 days in Vietnam and I think that was enough. It was interesting but the full-on hassle was starting to wear us down by the end. Originally we had planned to do this trip clockwise going from Laos to Vietnam. I think that would have killed us actually. Going the other way was just perfect. Laos is a refuge after Vietnam.

We didn't do much on our last morning in Vietnam. We'd forgotten it was a Sunday and some of the stuff we would have done was closed anyway. We sat by the lake and Sheena enjoyed a coffee and then headed to the airport in a taxi.

The flight was uneventful. It was Lao Airlines and so we exchanged Vietnam Airways' horrific pate for some strange green goo. Ah well, at least it was edible. The flight into the town was quite spectacular. You fly right down the main street quite low.

We landed on what looked like a cloudy day. It was early evening. By the time we made it out of the airport it was dark. It took immigration quite a while to process everyone's visas. A sign at the counter informed us that we had to pay an extra couple of dollars because they were working at the weekend. Poor dears.

A guy was waiting to take us to our hotel. This was pretty close to the airport and was off the main road set alongside the river in some great tropical gardens. These were lit when we arrived and we were welcomed by a couple of friendly dogs and the Australian wife of the ex-pat who own the Nam Khan Villas.

She showed us our room. It looked very rustic and we changed and headed to the restaurant for something to eat. She'd encouraged us to have a bite to eat there before we headed into town. It was New Year's Eve and we were anxious to see if we could find somewhere to catch the vibe.

Our first impression of the menu was that it was a bit limited. This became acute when we discovered that of the buffalo steak, chicken and fish available they were out of both buffalo and chicken. Suddenly, fish seemed a capital idea. We had fish... er two fish.

It was obvious that the staff were learning the ropes. While the manageress taught the cook to cook, we chatted to Joy, our waiter. He wasn't local. He was from Udomxai north of Luang Prabang. He was here for university and he was amazed at how developed it was. This only left us to imagine how undeveloped Udomxai must be. Luang Prabang is little more than a large village. We described Seoul and, thankfully, he wasn't able to imagine it at all. Seoul has nearly twice as many people in it as the whole of Laos put together. Hmmm...

We'd already exhausted conversation topics a number of times when the food arrived. It was okay but neither worth the wait nor the price. This was to become the trademark of our stay at the hotel but little did we know.

After dinner, we headed into town on a tuk-tuk. At $3 each way, we knew we had to solve the transport situation. That was simply too much to be spending on this kind of holiday. Town was, well... quiet. Lovely and quiet.

We were dropped off on Sisavangvong Street which is the main one. All along it were cafes and restaurants overflowing with tourists. The atmosphere was great. Nice and relaxing. Best of all was what we found at the end of the street.

I wanted to explore and we set off down some inviting side streets. We found a beautifully lit temple and then, as we were passing, I caught sight of something interesting in the grounds of a house. Being a tourist grants you immunity to take risks sometimes. Wandering into someone's private property wouldn't normally be okay but we were welcomed curiously.

What had caught my eye was the sight of a long row of fires on which something was cooking. It turned out to be rice cooked Lao style which I'd never seen before. Rice is put into baskets and these are suspended in the mouth of metal pots of boiling water. The rice is steamed. Even more curiously for us was the quantity these people were making. It seemed to be, and turned out to be, one family. But they were emptying the cooked rice into a coooler box that was almost full. It would have fed a hundred people.

We were invited to sit down. They brought us some beer and we began the lengthy process of figuring out what they were doing. Only one guy spoke any English at all and this was minimal. He also had terminal pronunciation and it took us a long time to figure out that he was saying "monk" We eventually realised that they were cooking rice to give the temple monks in the morning and would be cooking all night.

Luang Prabang has something like 16 billion temples and between them they have more monks than any country could possibly need. In the morning, every morning, a sea of saffron greets the dawn and the local people hand out alms consisting of rice mostly but also other types of food. We wondered but never discovered how often this family did this. I guess it must also be a sign of wealth to be able to give this much rice to the monks.

Sisavangvong Street hosts a night market. It is very tastefully done on a small scale that perfectly fits the town. Immediately we noticed that we got no hassle. Everyone left us alone. If we wanted to look, they helped us but they were never pushy. Sheena was in her element!

Time was moving on. It was getting near 11pm and we had no idea where to go to see in the New Year. We walked and walked but just couldn't settle on a place. In the distance, we could see lanterns rising on the horizon. In the end, we followed the crowds to their source and discovered a huge open-air party going on. It was really quite wild with a band and dancing and everything.

For a price, you could purchase a huge rice paper lantern and a paraffin burner. These were what we had seen rising thousands of feet into the sky. Groups bought these and lit the paraffin. They then held them over their heads until the air inside had heated up enough before releasing them. They looked beautiful as they rose up and drifted away. Not so beautiful was the one that caught a downdraft and landed on the wooden roof of the adjoining French colonial building. A fire engine turned up and doused the building but there was no damge.

We hung around until about 2 and it was getting quite chilly. We headed home eager to cosy up in our nice bed...

Day 14 - Tam Coc

Click the pic to go to our Tam Coc Gallery.

Should we or shouldn't we? That was the question. After the Mekong tour, we'd had enough of what being a sheep was like. We'd thought our Dragon's Pearl experience would be different. Having paid a vastly larger amount of money only to find that it was pretty much the same, we were now pretty much convinced that another tour was exactly what we didn't want for our last day in Hanoi and in fact in Vietnam itself.

Which was, of course, why we'd found ourselves handing over $30 to a tour agent the evening before. Now we were sitting on two stools outside the the tour office watching the morning bustle as we waited for our tour bus. We were off to Tam Coc via some temples in the old capital of Hoa Lu.

"Ha Long Bay on land" promised the advertising. We were all set for karsts. Clearly, we couldn't get enough of them. Karsts were all we lived for. What it felt like though was that we were really living for hours of bone crushing misery on tour buses. This one was relatively empty when we got into it. By the time it picked up it's last passenger, a lone Japanese, it was so crammed that she visibly recoiled in shock as the door slid open to let her in. "It's just like the Tokyo subway!" I encouraged her in Japanese.

Hours later, we were poured onto the gravel outside our restaurant. We'd had our appetites whetted by the site of four men carrying an enormous dead pig, skinned and gutted up the road nearby. All of a sudden, kosher seemed the way to go.

Just beyond the restaurant was a flailing mass of rowing boats. The Vietnamese had capitalised on the local beauty by building quite an impressive dock and lake housing something like 200 long narrow rowing boats. Each was manned by a desperate farmer. Allow me to explain.

Some decades ago, when the tourists realised they could come here without being hit by shrapnel, someone paid someone to row them along the river through the karsts of Tam Coc. Someone told his brother and pretty soon there were hundreds of someone's wanting people to row them through the fast disappearing mystique of the idyllic valley. Competetion for this new trade among the local people, devastated and impoverished by war, was fierce. Things got to a head not so long ago when registration took place and a rota was established. It was decreed that whoever wanted to row could do so only they had to do it once a fortnight and do it only once.

While this spread the wealth so to speak, it meant that it spread it so thinly that it now provides hardly any supplementary income at all for the local farming community per individual. This is communism in action in fact and, just like in capitalism, it results when taken to extremes like this, in greed of the most insidious kind.

So, amateur capitalists that we are, we suspected nothing too extreme as we lowered ourselves into our boat. The rower was a middle aged woman with a smattering of French and no English whatsoever. I quickly dragged my French from the bowels of my subconscious where I'd last left it after a less than memorable five days in Paris 15 years ago. We got on okay. She explained how much she got paid for the two hour row and how many children she had and how dependent she was on all this and, fools that we were, we didn't really see anything coming.

Meanwhile though, the scenery was amazing. Picture if you will silence of an intense nature, stillness of water scattered with pond weed and the thrust of immense limestone upward so shearly it almost screams as it rises from the shallow, still waters. Got that? Good. Now add in approximately fifty boats of noisy, camera toting tourists, rowers calling out to each other, boats of touts trying to sell you photos of yourself and louts amazed at the obvious, generating echoes in a cave that is only slightly higher than your own head as you pass through it on your boat. It was a curious mixture of the sublime and the ridiculous. Again, it was Vietnam concentrated.

The ride took us through this stunning landscape and two caves until we came to what was suddenly The End. All this consisted of was a few bamboo poles across the river. You could easily have got out and waded further. But no, the tourists had their own defined area and we had to make do with that.

On the way back, the softsell got harder. We pulled alongside another boat and a small metal trunk was brought on board. From this, regular souvenirs were revealed as if they were the treasures of the orient. We really weren't interested. She persisted. We really weren't interested.

We pulled up closer to the dock. She slowed her rowing and went into overdrive. Apparently, there's a whole family starving in Tam Coc now because we didn't give her a dollar tip. You know, the irony is, we would have tipped her had we not been pressured to. And the pressure was intense. As I got out of the boat, a guy on the dock grabbed me forcefully pushing me back towards the boat screaming "Tip! TIIIIIPPPPP!!!!" at me.

I fought my way to our tour guide who was standing in a yellow suit and high heels on the dock. Then began what was by far the most bizarre insight into Vietnam we had while we were there. I asked her how much the rowers get paid for their two hour fortnightly trip. It was a paltry $2 and the price was fixed by, who else, the tour operators.

"But we paid $15 each for this trip." I began.

"Oh but you pay for much more than the rowing," she countered, "You have to pay for me all day but them only two hours." She'd done little more than walk us around some temples earlier and give us some memorised details of their history. Hardly taxing stuff.

"And," she continued unashamed tapping her head, "You pay for my thinking." I was amazed. I wanted to push the boundary here.

"But Vietnam is a socialist country." I ventured. "Aren't you supposed to treat each worker more equally?"

"No!" I was surprised at her conviction. "We need to change this country but change comes too slowly."

What could I say? She was young and the winds of change were definitely blowing through her hair. I honestly don't think anyone would have said something as boldly as that ten years ago in Vietnam. Change seemed, to me at least, to have come so rapidly the country was almost falling over its own feet in an effort to modernise. How she could be impatient with it I really wasn't sure. When she had been born the country was dragging itself from the devastation of thirty years of the most intense and brutal war the century had seen. Now its cities were screaming maelstroms of development. It bewildered me.

Back in Saigon we headed over to an Internet cafe. It was there we learned the sad news that Sheena's grandmother had passed away probably very close to the time that I'd had this conversation. Being 90 it wasn't exactly unexpected but it still came as a shock to Sheena especially. And, as if it knew she needed comforting, the Internet cafe cat walked across her keyboard and curled up on her lap. It was kind of crusty... but comforting at the same time.

Click to go to our Tam Coc Gallery.

Day 13 - Dragon's Pearl II

John attempts to warm himself over the toaster at breakfast...


Our humble homely cabin

We woke to the sounds of other boats pulling away. It was an overcast chilly day - a perfect day to be inside. This was a good thing. First item on the itinerary today was a visit to the Amazing Cave. Well, I have to say, cynic that I am, that I was quite prepared to be less than impressed.

It took ages to dock our immense vessel as smaller, less cumbersome boats nipped in to the dock ahead of us. We finally emerged and climbed the steps to the entrance. Sure enough, we entered a small-ish and much molested cave complete with graffiti. It was amazing the amount of stuff that had been destroyed by wandering souvenir-hunters over the years. It almost made me weep when you considered the millenia it took to form the stuff in the first place. The only consolation was that they'd installed some pretty lights... (click to enlarge pics)

But then we moved on...

and on...

and in the end, I was very impressed indeed. Not by the intricacy so much as by the sheer scale. It really was well worth a visit.

At the exit of the cave with the bay and boats behind us.

Most of us on the boat retreated down below decks until lunch. Sheena did her best to brave it, writing postcards up above.

By lunch, we'd figured out where the vast bulk of the $100 per person we'd paid had gone and it wasn't on the trip itself. It was on the food. The lunch buffet was great. We'd wondered why we hadn't had the luxury of a buffet before after we'd sat through interminably long courses twice before. Someone in the kitchen though obviously had too much time on their hands...

I shouldn't mock it. It was the only glimpse of a junk's sails we'd had on this boat!

By the time we were finishing lunch, we were arriving at the dock. They really rushed us off, quite forcefully evicting us from our cabins mid tooth brushing which wasn't nice at all. The Vietnamese can be really pushy when they want to be (like when people invade their country and so on) and we were getting pretty fed up with this after our tenth day.

The ride back to Hanoi took forever and wasn't worth describing. We'd found ourselves a much cheaper and nicer hotel option close to where we were dropped off. We had a nice meal in a restaurant nearby at the Bamboo Hotel (which interior isn't worth the time to describe - you can guess right?).

Sitting next to our table was a young man, obviously an East Asian tourist, poring over a guidebook. We didn't realise he was Korean until his fried rice came. He then promptly whipped out what looked like a toothpaste tube and covered his meal with red chilli paste. I guess it's the equivalent of us carrying tomato sauce with us and slapping that on everything. It makes you wonder why people bother to leave their countries sometimes!

Day 12 - The Dragon's Pearl I

John looking dissaffected?

We hadn't slept badly in our strange room at the Lotus Hotel, but we didn't want to pay for a place that wasn't where we didn't want to stay. First thing, we packed up and crept out. Thankfully, there wasn't anyone at reception so we just left the key with $12 under it.

We lugged our packs the 20 mins north past the lake that sits in the middle of old Hanoi. All along the shore the world and his wife was out getting their morning jerks. In several places, they'd strung badminton nets across virtually the only place you could walk. Rather than playing badminton though, they were playing a game we'd seen all across Vietnam. Using something that resembles a shuttlecock but seems heavier and a bit more flexible, they were kicking this over the net volleyball like in teams of five or six. Oh yes, we did see one game of badminton - six-a-side!

Some old ladies were leading tai-chi sessions. Other, less martially qualified old-ladies were leading aerobics workouts to what sounded very much like communist marching songs. In this, the old North Vietnamese undefeated capital of the communist victors in the American War (aka the Vietnamese War), that would hardly be surprising really.

We made our way sweatily to the offices of Handspan, the tour agency that we'd booked a two day and one night trip with to Ha Long Bay. A bit pricey, we'd decided to book with them on the recommendation of a freind in Korea who'd been on three separate Ha Long Bay tours. Their office was located deep inside a cafe in the heart of the old quarter.

This cafe stood in stark contrast to the rest of Hanoi. Pushing past the glass doors, you left the screaming world of mopeds and hassle behind you and entered a sanctuary of waffles, westerners and wi-fi. It was early but the place was packed, mostly with people, like us, on tours leaving that morning. Entering was also to leave behind one thing which, above all, makes Vietnam worth visiting: dirt-cheapness. Everything was in dollars on the menu which is a bad sign for backpackers in SE Asia usually. We contented ourselves with watching others eating breakfast. We'd already got ourselves something from a nearby bakery.

Soon though, we were bundled into a minibus and were off to fight the rush hour tide as we left Hanoi south east. Our tour guide was cut from the same cloth as all the others we had in Vietnam. As we left the city, she did a spiel about the trip and that was about it. Tour guides are allowed to say whatever they want to each bus-load they accompany as long as it includes the following: ironic comments about how long it's going to take to get there, apologies for the traffic, warnings about how many people die every day on the roads in vietnam, reassurances that the driver is the best in the company, apologies for the traffic, how many mopeds there are in Hanoi/Saigon [delete as necessary], why no one ever wears a helmet, apologies for the traffic, explanations as to how difficult their name is to pronounce and claims that in "your country" the journey that we were now on would only take ten minutes and not over three hours because of the (sorry) traffic. Apart from that, they can say whatever they want.

A long time later we were sitting on the deck of the Dragon's Pearl, a junk with an engine that was state of art and sails that were a right state. Still, they did give us a nice drink on deck and a wet towel to rid us of the dirt of the road. And the sun was out. It wouldn't last long. We were treated to a barely comprehensible speech by the chief man wearing a white uniform and then shown our cabins.

The man in white is visible on deck... (click to enlarge)

We were two decks down and had a teak-panelled nook with twin beds and a little shower/toilet. Very nice it was too. As lunch was being served we headed for the restaurant as the boat pulled away from Ha Long quay.

The attraction, according to our guide book was the World Heritage Site of Ha Long Bay with it's innumerable karsts rising from the calm bay. But according to the brochure for the boat in our room we'd entirely missed the point: "leaning over the railing you can feel like a character from a film" I can't tell you how grateful we were that we'd found this out right at the start. After lunch we hurried up to the sun deck to find out which particular characters we were going to feel like.

Well the sun deck should really have been named the "windy haze deck" We weren't there at the best time of year and it was pretty chilly in the wind. Unfortunately, having lured us all the way here from the four corners of the earth, the staff onboard had done their best to keep us eating our way through 17 courses of food below decks while the World Heritage rolled past. By the time we got up there, we were miles into the bay. It was stunning through (stun deck?)

Sheena takes in the view (click to enlarge)

Free filter... use your sunglasses! (thanks dad!)

The bay is immense and there are literally thousands of karsts ranging from immense islands to tiny pinnacles. In the haze they only had to be a few hundred metres away to be silhouetted. This gave the whole place a very surreal atmosphere. There wasn't another boat to be seen. It was dead quiet and peaceful. We just lay back and took it all in.

We passed through a couple of floating fishing villages on the way. These are small communities that live entirely on the water. Because it's a national park, no settlements are allowed on land. These twin girls stared in wonder at our boat as it passed their home. Apparently, they were new arrivals and hadn't yet had time to build a proper floating home.

After a while, we docked at a small island which had a beach not 50m wide. There was a path up the mountain and we went for a stroll. Curiously, only one other man apart from us from the 30 or so people on our boat bothered to climb to see the view. The water was pretty nippy so Sheena simply paddled. We managed to get 10 mins in a kayak that was supposed to be for another tour group. We'd have liked longer but that may have to be for another time.

Click to see the view from our kayak under a karst.

Back on board we chilled out as the sun disappeared taking with it whatever heat remained. Dinner was again 24 courses or something including what apparently have the honour of being one of the most expensive delicacies in Vietnam: dragon prawns. I was the only one on our table who could be bothered to fight their way into them for the scant meat that they supplied. Not bad but hardly worth the effort.

We finished the night off with a game of Scrabble with another guest as our boat nestled among the seventeen hundred other boats that ply the bay with tourists every day. Dreams of nights in secluded isolation have given way to the terror of nights of piracy it seems.