The weather is decidedly dodgy today with threats of high winds preventing the junks leaving Halong Bay. I guess one good thing is that the air pollution will be blown towards some other poor country to wallow in China’s appalling neglect. Dominique’s Kayak tour is cancelled. We wait. At 12.30 we get the all clear that conditions have improved with a clearer day (better than yesterday) the conditions are still arctic and our tropical wear could pose a problem despite the fact that my menopausal heat gauge is now doing flips. A Parka and Carmen lending me a Pashmina plus layers of clothes prepares me for the onslaught…
Halong Bay is a short trip to the wharf. It is a veritable circus with all the delayed tours arriving enmasse. The junks are all vying for position with lots of collisions and clunks.” Happy”, our tour guide has perfect English. She informs us she received her Master’s In Tourism with First Class Honours at Victoria University in Wellington. Halong Bay’s Limestone rock formations are quite unique. The closest we have is Milford Sound. Halong Bay has World Heritage Status. We also passed through a floating Fishing Village. Again the photos are self-explanatory. After the jostling and jockeying for position of 15-20 junks, there were the additional hazards of little sampans caught in the middle trying to sell us stuff. Exceedingly dangerous. One particular Sampan fastened onto our junk. A little two year old girl clambered precariously up on this narrow ledge and was trying to slide our window open. She succeeded as Bill after taking photos previously had just slid his window ajar. She thrust a bunch of bananas under Bill’s nose wanting $2 US. Happy, handled the situation diplomatically and they went back to their sampan. We then watched with horror as this same 2 year old girl started slicing a piece of fruit with a very wicked looking hunting knife and then sliced her tiny hand open. We felt sick. The excursion was great. We came back to the ship rather chilly. A blanket wrapped around the shoulder s and a steaming hot chocolate did wonders. The ship sailed at 4.30 as we anticipate another sea day to Da Nang. Tonight we had another invitation to dinner. This time Denise Heywood, the guest lecturer doing a series of enrichment lectures on Vietnam. Very interesting lady, a very learned academic who had lived in Vietnam for 5 years and has made Vietnam her life’s work. A very stimulating dinner.
Questions:
Hi Roddy, in answer to your question. Your mate Nick was on the Pride as Cruise Director just recently. He has left this ship taking up his new position as cruise director on the Seabourn Sojourn which sails from Singapore in a couple of days. Our new Cruise director is Steve Wood from Australia. xxx
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