Being Rowed around Ha Long Bay Fishing Village

Christine and Pauline sent this photo of our day in Ha Long Bay when we were rowed around the Fishing Village by an old lady, who rowed us under part of one of the small mountains and all around the bays. A very happy enjoyable but extremely hot day.

We disembark Au Co

Today we have to disembark from the Au Co Cruise ship and end the lovely cruise around Ha Long Bay, I am so sad to be leaving, I could have so easiely have spent our whole time drifting around this beautiful Bay and all its small mountains, just soaking in the peace and beauty. I am also sad because Winnifred and Dorothy have not returned and will not be going on to Saigon with us and maybe not even continuing at all with us.
We all enjoyed a Tea ceremony on the deck before departing, I really like the ginger tea and plan to continue drinking it when I get home. Its very good for settling upset tummies.


Also it is the final day with our 2 lovely tour Guides Quang and Lilli, we have all got quite close to them as they shared their lives with us on bus trips, APT travel company certainly has employed some very good

people who work hard organizing everything and keeping us safe and happy. We shall all miss them.
We take the long bus ride back to Hanoi to the airport, where we had lunch with the two guides before catching the plane to Saigon, it was equally sad parting for the young guides, they had tears in their eyes as they farewelled us and wished us well. Quang quickly gave me his email address so I shall write to him when I get back home.
We arrive in Saigon and are settled into the  lovely Sheraton Saigon Hotel, very comfortable and luxurious as the Hanoi hotel had been.
We are just in time for a really extravagant dinner buffet, quite the best I have ever seen, We all had our fill and more!
There was a quick Group meeting to meet up with a further 60 who are joining our party of 46, its going to be crowded, we shall now require 4 buses to get around.

Another perfect day on Halong Bay

Next morning we were up early, so I could have another go at Tai Chi with the Dragon Master, it is a nice start for the day specially in such beautiful surroundings. Then it was time for another leisurely breakfast on board ship before we got ready for the excursion of the morning to a floating village where ladies will row us around one of the mountains.

 But Dorothy is really not well, Winnifred told us she had coughed all night and was very breathless, eventually Dorothy staggered down to sit in the sun but couldn't eat. Our guides were most concerned about her. They said there were no Doctors any where near so they must take her back to Hanoi, a long way to have to go to be looked at. Winnifred said she would go with her freind and so had to rush and pack up for both of them, all gear had to go with them.

All the rest of us had to pile into the two tenders and go off to the floating village, leaving our 2 freinds behind, they looked very dejected and sad and Dorothy looked very ill.
Quang took them both back as far as he could in the ships tender.It is hoped they may catch up with us when we go to Saigon, if Dorothy is fit to travel.

Our morning being rowed around by an elderly lady was very nice we went with Christine and her Mother Pauline two very nice ladies. It was so beautiful and we just soaked up the serenity as we slowly went under a big mountain that had eroded away and around another jutting mountain and back to the Floating village again, lovely in the morning sun, though in fact it was very hot and humid and we all had to borrow big straw conical hats to keep the sun off us.




Back to the ship for lunch and how sad it felt to not have our 2 mates with us, I am going to miss them a lot.








The afternoon entertainment of sorts is not something we intend to attempt, it is to enter a secret cave and climb up 700 steps to the top and them come down a different  set of 700 steps! There are lovely stalagmites and stalactites all in various pretty colours and nice coolness. Doesn't sound like us at all.

So we passed the time reading up on the deck with a cool drink at hand, just relaxing and enjoying this lovely cruise, til the hot and bothered step climbers all returned exhausted and ready for a swim in the deep ocean around the ship.

I don't think I have ever swam off the side of a ship (actually the tender tied to the ship) in deep water before, I knew I could because of my natural buoyancy it is almost imposable for me to sink, I just float to the surface and virtually lie on top of the water. It is a talent I have always had, very useful it is too.




 Everybody else donned a life jacket in case they had any difficulties but I did not and was completely at ease in the water for a long time swimming and chatting to everyone as they all tried to float like I can, not many people can, they needed their life jackets.






After diiner on board ship we waited for the sunset and took a photo before we retired

to bed early and started packing as we leave this ship in the morning.
Going to be hard to leave as I have really loved this cruise, except for losing the 2 freinds we had made. I could easily spend the entire time just drifting around this lovely place

Beautiful Ha Long Bay Cruising.

As the adverts say; awake surrounded by the beauty of the Ha Long Bay - and we certainly did, it was so surreal so peaceful and serene and beautiful.

There is a Dragon Master  lady Tai Chi up on the top deck taking classes, I had never seen Tai Chi before so I was not very good at it, but I enjoyed the stretching and movement so early in the morning at about &am! before I went down and joined Erle for an extended breakfast. 

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Today we are to go visit a fishing village, we are meant to mountain bike to it, the guides say I don't think so to us, so we just roamed around on shore then took the tender boat back to the ship when we were ready, a little Vietnamese girl had been assigned to us to keep us safe! She was sweet and anxious to improve her English so she chatted to us all the way. She took our photo, in fact many of them! We were able to relax for an hour or so! before lunch.

After lunch we are to go to a beach for an afternoons swimming. Nearly everyone came along, several heavy drinking Auzzie men took a chilly bin full of beer cans and they threw them around while they were swam. Never seen that done before, they had great fun though., so did we but without the refreshment.
After dinner on board Au Co we were able to just laze and enjoy a couple of the free drinks as we watched the evening slowly close and night slowly arrived, we spent a good while chatting with our new pals, Dorothy was not feeling at all well and stayed in her cabin for the evening. 
There was Squid fishing for the men when it was dark enough, not that much squid was caught, in fact I think only about 2 landed on the deck.

We head for our sea cruise on Ha Long bay

Today we are leaving for Ha Long  Bay right after breakfast. We are told our big cases must be out by 7am and worse, we are to have packed into our small hand luggage all we will need for the days on the sea cruise of Ha Long Bay, the rest goes into storage for a few days. Its a bit of a rush getting everything sorted and packed then breakfast and back out on to the bus for a quite long bus trip of about 4 hours. But ofcause we are all ready .
It was a pleasant trip in the bus, Quang our tour leader told us a little of his life story and it was very interesting. He also gave us lessons on how to cross streets in Vietnam and Cambodia, one must first catch the eye of a scooter driver so he knows that your about to cross the road, then one steps boldly out into the traffic and walks at a measured pace right across the road, never stopping and more importantly, never running. The drivers of all the vehicles cars, buses and scooters will automatic work out your pace and carefully drive just in front or just behind you. It works every time, they are very considerate there are no accidents or at least none we saw.. Takes courage to do it, but we did.
He also started teaching us some Vietnamese Language, we all took to this  and were soon saying a number of things.
We drove through masses of paddy fields, rice is the major crop although there is some corn growing too. The land is flat and wet with sort of moats around the paddy fields full of water, some places had thick plastic around the patches of rice, this was to keep the rats from eating the grain!
There were many small towns along the way, and eventually we came to a regular stopover place where disabled people make and sell paintings embroidery sweets and clothing as well as big statues of Buddha and other things. We all raced in and many bought the high quality goods, we just bought some sweets to bring home for all our friends and neighbours.

When we got to the ship we had a lovely cold welcome drink and nibbles and speeches before going on board our home for the next 3 days. The ship is impressive and there was a band to drum  us on to it, very noisy but nice.

The cabins are very nice, small and compact not a lot of spare room but we all have ensuite rooms. We are soon in for a lovely lunch as we pull away  from dock and out on to the bay with all the wonderful little and some huge  mountains jutting from the ocean, most beautiful, kind of very Oriental looking in a misty sort of way. This is a World Heritage listed site and I can see why, it is so beautiful, peaceful and serene just drifting slowly around the mountains in tranquillity.