We both woke up feeling a bit better then yesterday but still extremely tired and in need of a lot more sleep! We ate at the buffet again before heading downstairs to store our bags, check out and get our refund for the taxi money. The mini bus arrived full of people also on the same tour as us and away we went. The tour guide is lovely, and spoke to us for about half an hour about Vietnam, the places to go, a bit of the culture etc. then he for us to introduce ourselves to get to know each other.There's a polish couple who live in china, a Canadian couple, a Japanese woman and Boston man who are married and divide their year up living in each place, a German couple, an American couple and 2 men from Australia. It's a nice group, everybody is talking to everybody, Liam and I are the youngest by far but there are a couple in their late twenties and a couple in their early 30s amongst the older people. We travelled for 3 hours with a couple of stops in between, we went to a pearl place and learned how pearls were made as well. The views were nice because there were loads of rice fields, banana plantations and all the people on their bikes with their hats and face masks. We saw a bike with a massive live pig tied up and strapped to the back which was quite strange. People were making comments about the place being quite 'third world' and dirty but in all honesty Liam and I thought it was lovely compared to where we'd been before. I love that you see people actually cleaning things and using chopsticks to eat rather than their hands!
We arrived at halong bay around 12pm, and all boarded a small boat to make our way to our junk. It's lovely and sunny so it's a really nice feel to the whole thing. We boarded our boat which is very nice. Our cabin has a double bed with an ensuite shower an toilet. There is our floor with all the cabins, the next floor up with the restaurant and bar, then the deck with sun loungers and an area to sit with drinks and relax. We had a welcome drink, talked through what we would be doing for the afternoon then had lunch.Lunch was very nice, we had a big selection of food including chicken soup, pork, rice, vegetables, fish, chips, clams, dragon fruit and a strange fruit s combination of apple and pear.
We had some time to ourselves and most people went up to the top deck to watch the scenery pass by as we weaves around the massive chunks of rock jutting out from the sea all over. We then went onto a smaller boat again to be taken to one of the fishing villages. We got onto a bamboo boat, there was me, Liam, and the polish couple on our boat, with one of the fishing village locals rowing the boat. There were 3 boats in total. We went along the the village, it's got 100 families and 300 people, all the houses are built on the water, floating. To get anywhere you go by boat, even to next door.They only had houses built in 1994 because the government funded them to get some help with building, before that they just lived on the boats. In the stormy seasons they all tie their boats together so if anybody has a problem people will know and they can all get to each other to help. It was such a lovely village, it was surreal seeing everybody going about their business like we do but on the water. The shops are all boats with the shop owners rowing up and down. The kids are out playing but instead of running around playing football they're out in the boats. We visited a fishing farm and saw lots of different fish, most of them absolutely massive. We also went past the school with all the children in their lessons and on their breaks just looking really at ease in their floating school. Apparsntly the school is mostly rugby only volunteerS too.
After that we went back to our junk to sail a bit further along to one of the beaches. During the journey we had a 'cooking lesson' which was basically all the chopped ingredients we needed already mixed in a bowl and shown how to wrap it all the make a spring roll. Although it was hardly a 'lesson' it was still really fun and it was funny watching people. They cooked them all afterwards and we ate them with sauce, they tasted really good!
The beach was small with quite a lot of people and we didn't get there until 5pm. We all decided instead of going in the water we would climb the 400+ steps to the top of the rock for s good view of the sunset. We had been watching the sun gradually get lower, redder and rounder on the way to the beach, it looked stunning from the boat in amongst all the rocks and the other boats. So we rushed up the stairs hoping to make the sunset, which we caught just in time. We then went back down and a couple of people went into the water, some just wandered the beach. Liam and I took our shoes off and stood in the water for a while, it was a very nice 20 minutes or so and we both felt really relaxed watching Bart and martha in the water and looking at the scenery.
When we got back to the junk we had a shower, a lovely hot shower! Or a least mine was, Liam's wasn't and we don't know I I used all the hot water or if it was just because everybody else had showered by that point too and the hot water was gone. We bought 2 beers from one of the ladies selling stuff from her little boat. Liam bartered it down to be a lot less than what we'd pay in the bar here so that was good. Then we went and as up on the top with a few others and chatted for a while before dinner.We sat with the polish couple again, and this time the Americans joined us. We had lots of conversation and it was a very nice meal. We had soup, beef, vegetables, shrimp, crab, rice, chocolate cake and water melon. Again we ate it with chopsticks just for the sake of using them.
A few of us then tried squid fishing at the front of the boat. They're just rods with a fake fish on the end. People tried or a while and gradually began to get bored and go up to the top. Me, Liam and the American couple stayed for a while longer and we were just about to give up when Liam pulled something odd looking out of the water. We'd been told the squid were only small but other than that no idea. This thing was white and chunky. Liam touched it and said it was pulsing, so dee touched it too and thought the same. We got one of the men to come and look feeling all excited for the new find, but the man old us it was a bit of cabbage!! We all found it very funny although we're still not convinced it was a piece of cabbage, we know what cabbage is!
After that I bored, went to tell the others the story of the cabbage, which they found hilarious, talked for 20 minutes or so before checking on the fishing again. Still nothing, just about to give up again when we saw a squid. We were all beginning to think there wernt actually any there but we saw one, so the interest was fresh again all of a sudden. We saw 2 or 3, but despite me going to bed after about 10 minutes and liam staying another 45 mins we still didn't catch anything. I heard them all laughing though, when he got back and I asked I he said they'd got bored too and were throwing bread into the water and messing around. Maybe more luck tomorrow.
Anyway it's 11pm, so much for an early night! Off to bed now or a full day tomorrow.
