We both had a really good nights sleep, not enough but a good one! Waking up on the boat was disorientating at first but then you look out of the window and the sea and the view was stunning. We had a wonderful breakfast, it was way too much food. It was just us, the polish couple ( Bart and Martha) and the Japanese/American couple ( Richard and we still don't know). The rest of the group had left for the morning because they were going back to hanoi at lunch time. We had noodles, omelette, actual proper bacon, sausage, muffins, apple pies, Danish thingys, rice donut things, toast, bananas, juice, coffee and tea. It was all so good!!
We then started the journey to another bay to go onto one of the coves. We changed over to another smaller boat with a lovely guide called 'happy'. The boat was nice, we all sat at the top and chatted and watched the views. It was a gorgeous hot sunny day. We arrived the beach which was a proper white sand, beach hut kind of beach nice and secluded in the cove. There were only a couple of other people there and we had an hour to either climb up yo see the views or go in the sea and relax. We chose relax! After the hour we hopped back on the boat, with happy telling me I was 'small' which was strange coming from a Vietnamese lady! And asking if we were married because we looked happy! We then traveled for another 45 mins to a pearl farm, we all sunbathed on the top deck and again just spent thetime talking which was really nice. The peal farm was really interesting. We were shown around all the different oysters and the process they go through to make the pearls. They cut some tissue out of the oysters that havnt produced a pearl and they transfer it into another one. It's used as a foreign body to make the oyster react to it. So they clamp the oyster open a bit, and make a cut within it and put the tissue (which has been covered in antibacterial stuff) inside. They then have a little pearl like thing called a core, which they put inside afterwards. The secretions from the oyster cover the core in layers and layers until after several months and years it makes a pearl. When they've completed the 'surgery' they put them all back into their oyster farms under the water and leave them for a couple of months or so before taking them out and cleaning the outsides and checking theyre ok etc. apparently only 30% of oysters even produce pearls, and out of the 30 only 10% make a perfect pearl that can be used in jewellery. The imperfect pearls are ground up and used in expensive skin cosmetics. The parts of the oyster not used ie, the meat, is cooked and eaten by the workers on the farm so nothing goes to waste. We got to pick a oyster out of a bunch to see if it had a pearl or not...Liam chose and it did! It was so exciting waiting with baited breath as it was opened up.We saw necklaces for £2000 so needless to say we wernt buying! The japenese lady and her husband bought a few loose pearls because their daughter makes jewellery which was a nice idea.
After the pearl farm we had about 45 minutes to just relax and sunbathe at the top of the deck which was so wonderful. I felt so relaxed and everybody was getting along really well.We were then called for lunch which again was so lovely. We again had a big variety of soup, rice, meat, some fish that was very similar to fish shop fish so I had lots, oysters, steamed vegetables, fried squid, dragon fruit and pear.
We then went kayaking to the 'bat cave'. Liam and I were in one, Bart and Martha in another, and Richard and his wife separated to be in one boat each with the guide and another Vietnamese man. It took a bit of practice to get the steering and timing right but when we'd got used to it it was wonderful. The water was so calm and green, the rocks were jutting out of the water surrounding us and so high. We were on the lookout for monkeys but we saw schools of flyng fish, jellyfish and big big birds. We were the only people around too so it made it special. It was like being in Jurassic park or a king kong film and we were all in awe of the scenery. We went through a 'cave' which was great because it was just like a wide tunnel through one of the rocks with lots of stalactites and you could hear the bats above you. It was a bit dark so it made it even more beautiful as you came out the other side because you rowed out into a big open lagoon style area of water surrounded by big green rocks on all sides. We rowed around into another lagoon and raced around a bit and generally messed about before heading back. As we were going out through the cave we saw lots of kayakes coming our way so we were really lucky that we wernt there at the same time as anybody else! We just felt really lucky in general for it being just us 6 and the weather was so glorious too. We were out on the water for about an hour in total before getting back to our boat.
We then had an hour to swim in the water around the boat, all the girls stood taking pictures and basking in the sun whilst the boys jumped off the boat into the water a million times trying to avoid the jellyfish! After that we started moving back towards the main boat, it took about 20 minutes and when we got back the boat was empty still because the new group had gone to the fishing village. When they arrived we all tried to give lots of eye contact and waved but we got NOTHING back, it was very odd. They were mostly French and when Martha said hello to one later she got a very stiff 'bonjour' back.
They all went to the beach but because we had been yesterday we all decided to stay on the boat. Martha and Bart had brought pear vodka so we shared that with some lemonade, we also bought some beer and pringles from the mermaid ( that's our nickname we have for the boat lady that comes with her boat shop) and just sat talking drinking and eating until it got dark and we were called for food.
The food, as you will already know by now, was fantastic. All the usual with lovely sea food, never too much of one thing just a little bit of a lot of stuff. It was Richards birthday and the staff had got him a big cake with candles on ( we joked it was from the mermaid), sn they sang happy birthday. It was such a lovely touch. We all sang too apart from the new group which was disappointing, then we all had a big slice and even after that nobody came over to say anything they just ate the birthday cake them went. So we shared the beer and vodka with them to celebrate and all sat talking about all sorts of things up on the top. We found out that richards wife had been convinced liam and i were brother and sister for a while before she saw us cuddling up for a photo! It's quite common, we get it in England sometimes and so far one person from each country has said the same. Our favourite evening of the trip so far. Nobody from the new group did squid fishing so we couldn't pretend we'd caught one the night before like we said we would, that was a shame! We all went to bed at perhaps 10.30 ready for a 7am breakfast in the morning.
