Halong Bay

The past couple of days were spent adoring the beauty of creation once again. We did an overnight boat trip in Halong Bay, and had great weather for it as well. Today is overcast, as were several days leading up to our trip, but while on the boat for two days we had nothing but cloudless skies. It was perfect!

I won't bore you too much with trying to describe what we saw...I'll let the the pictures do that (the describing that is). But I will tell you of two situations that split our sides a little before we embarked on the journey.

The night before the trip, we were relaxing in a restaurant and enjoying a glass of wine. Near us was a table of some very roudy Chinese tourists. At one point we could tell they were talking about us, and I happened to make eye contact with them. They really must of liked us, because right after that three of the girls came over and had there picture taken with us...well with Craig actually. That's right, the young buck was up to his same tricks as in Hoi An. The lady lingured a little, and the conversation between Craig and her was as follows...

-where you come from?

-Canada

-what's your name?

-Craig

-are you man or boy?

(looks of confusion and blank stares was all she got back from us...and a lot of laughing)

-finally Craig responds, with a fair amount of intelligence, "what do you mean?"

-how old are you?

-oh, oh...22.

-me 30.

-oh

-you are my sister.

-(more laughing from our crew)...what?

-I am your daughter!

...and with that she left and went back to her table. We were killing ourselves laughing. It was perhaps the funniest moment of the trip.

The following morning at the breakfast table, the three of us ordered banana pancakes. (good Vietnamese food eh?) It was a small family run restaurant in which the husband takes the orders and the wife does the cooking...sounds fair enough. After we asked for 3 banana pancakes, he gave us a look that clearly communicated that he wasn't sure whether or not that was available. He shouted something towards the kitchen and after the response gave us a goofy smile and made a motion with his hands as if he were praying. We assumed that perhaps the wife was praying and maybe we had to wait to eat. But he said "ok no problem", and gave us another goofy grin. He then went behind us and removed that bananas from the families ancestor shrine. He smiled again, put his finger over his lips, and tiptoed into the kitchen to hand his wife the bananas which had been stolen straight out of the mouths of their desceased loved one. Now our consciences would have been clear had this only been a little meat sacrificed to idols or something...but bananas. We weren't to sure what Paul would have to say about that...let along their starving dead family. Anyway, we ate 'em, and they were the best banana pancakes on the trip thus far. Kudos to the guys who took them from the shrine!

The boat trip as I said was great. We dined on fresh seafood, and had some amazing views of the stars at night. We also had a chance to get off the boat and kayak through a cave that was almost 200m long. The gave had an exit out the other side, which formed the only entrance into a beautiful lake. From this lake there were two more caves that each led into another 2 small, clear lakes. We had it to ourselves as well. It was amazing! We also got off the boat to explore a massive cave on shore. It was really cool, but a little precarious, since the guide was the only one with a light, and it was really weak. It was as dark as dark could be in the bowels of the cave, so we couldn't see too much, but it was easily the biggest cave any of us have ever been in.

that's our junk...it's what this type of boat is called.

mmm squid. It's actually not one of our favs. but it's ok.

We're now back in Hanoi, and getting ready for Craig's departure in two days...had it been 3 week already. Wow! We ourselves have almost already used up our one month visa in Vietnam. We have to be in Laos by the 5th.