The Road Well Travelled Around the world in 365 days: SE Asia - Europe - UK - USA

We decide, much to the disappointment of the hotel manager/travel agent/desperate salesman, to do a one day tour to Halong Bay instead of staying out there overnight on a boat. It is a 3.5 hour ride in a minibus made for children...again The Doctor’s giant like proportions do him no favours in Vietnam and he struggles to contain himself to his seat, forcing me to make do with half a seat and some aisle space. And yet the trip goes by in no time as I am able to fall asleep on The Doctors shoulder...it’s a miracle!

Its tourist central as we board one of the millions of boats at the dock. The bay at this point is looking more like a swamp and the weather is doing us no favours by being misty and blocking the view but once we head out I can start to see the appeal of the place. After sailing out for half an hour we turn in between the enormous rock formations and stop at a floating village. Each house is on its own floating platform, and apparently one of them is even a school. Wondering what the hell these people do out here living in the middle of the bay, we invade one of the houses and learn that they breed different kinds of seafood. There are  various pools built into the platform containing what looks like some kind of small shark, crabs and sea slugs. It is interesting to see how these people live but I start to feel uncomfortable the longer our group nosey around this poor family's digs.

Next stop is a cave which is...well...cavernous inside. It takes us probably 20 minutes to walk through it and I am impressed by nature’s art. Not so much by the blue and green disco lights that have been installed among the stalagmites. Needing the loo I have no choice but to use the facilities on the island. Walking in I realise there are 5 stalls but only one with a door. And all are occupied. How...awkward. Especially as I refuse to allow anyone to watch me go to the bathroom(!) so am forced to wait for the doored stall. Needless to say my eyes are fixated on the floor and I remind myself ‘do NOT look up, do NOT look up’.

Back on the boat The Doctor and I take a seat on what we decide must be the make-out couch (don’t ask me why there is a lounge on a boat deck) to enjoy the peaceful and romantic sail back to shore through the atmospheric fog and faint outlines of the jagged islands peering through. Or it would have been had we not been joined on said make-out couch by The German. As The Doctor noted, three people on a two-seater lounge is quite intimate but The German ruined the mood by wanting to talk about the global financial crisis. At least The Doctor ended up with a contact for IT work along with The German’s email address (hmm perhaps I was the third wheel here?).

After a 4 hour minibus ride from hell back to Hanoi the hotel manager tells me I look like crap and should go to bed. I do just that and remain in bed for the entire next day. As I have been applying insect repellent religiously to the ridicule of The Doctor, I decide that it would be too unjust for my extreme tiredness to be a symptom of dengue fever and drift off again to the sounds of endless bike horns and playing children.