My plan was to get up at 6, load up my bags and stumble out to find a taxi sometime around 7. The tour joining instructions were super clear about bringing only a small bag, offering a left luggage facility in their office for larger items, so I crammed two days worth of clothes into a day pack, and hit the pavement right on time.

Taxis were elusive, though. I don’t know whether that’s because I was outside the main tourist area, or whether it was the time of day, but having been omnipresent the day before, there was not one to be found now.  So I shouldered my big rucksack, looped my handbag across my body, and hung the day pack off a forearm. Thus laden, I set off on the half hour walk to the travel agency.

Google maps is a wonderful tool, and humidity is not the backpacker’s friend, but at least this short proof of concept demonstrated that the mesh back panel on the big pack was well worth the premium price; and so I arrived on time and reasonably unwilted.

There were only 8 or so of us on the bus, and Duy (pronounced Zuwy) explained we would pick up others at the dock, and then join yet more others on the boat. So in total we are about 20 on the cruise. The journey to the dock took 4 hours from central Hanoi, broken by a comfort break at the halfway stage at a craft co-operative for disabled workers, which was a thinly disguised attempt to separate us from a lot of dollars. 

We joined the boat at Halong Bay and ate lunch. I had been adopted by a lovely group of young Irish women who were super generous with their company, and we had a very giggly lunch together. After lunch, we had a quick kayaking lesson before setting off in two person kayaks to paddle around Bai Tuo Long. We paddled for about an hour, with varying degrees of navigational accuracy (ranging from really shit to absolutely none, if I’m totally honest!). Eventually we reached a little sheltered cove with a sandy beach littered with shells and broken coral. We beached the kayaks and spent another hour swimming among shoals of tiny fish, with eagle circling overhead. Duy had explained that there were sea eagles and hornbills living in the karsts, and monkeys in the forest. We certainly saw eagles and I heard a hornbill, but sadly monkeys remained elusive!

After some swimming and a bit of a lounge on the beach, we wobbled back into the kayaks and headed back through the sunset to our junk. There was time to shower before dinner, which I spent with the group of women from.earlier. We shared beers and stories, and laughed our way through the evening.

To be honest, three beers and a couple of glasses of wine is more alcohol than I’ve taken in a long while, and I was grateful to past me for packing so many varieties of painkiller! I went to bed with my cabin windows flung open, lulled to sleep by water lapping at the hull. Although I’m sure the booze also had a part to play! 😐

There was Tai Chi on the deck at 6:30 this morning, but it was both too early and too energetic for my slightly addled brain, so I packed my bag and made friends with the coffee station. We set off to tour a floating fishing village, taking the junk’s tender to a loading station where we got into a coracle – up to six hulking great westerners paddled by a wee slip of a Vietnamese woman. The guide explained that the village consisted of floating houses built on platforms which each contain that farmer’s fish pens. When a couple marries, their parents give them each a boat, and the two boats are lashed together. The newlyweds live on this shared vessel, living, working and raising their family there until they can afford to build their own floating house. 

When we got to the village, it was not at all clear that the houses were much of an upgrade on the boats. They were not a great deal bigger than a garden shed, and from what we could see from our slightly voyeuristic path through them, there was not a great deal in the way of furniture. Some were reasonably solidly constructed, with wooden walls and tin roofs. Others were seemingly built from old pallets, with very rudimentary wood and tarpaulin roofs. Each was built on a large platform, floating on plastic oil drums and consisting of a grid of wooden walkways surrounding individual fish pens. Each platform held one house, one family, and at least two dogs. I was tempted to ask how they deal with all the human and canine waste, but I suspected that the answer may curtail my menu choices for the rest of my trip!
We stopped at a large farming platform where they grow pearls. We were given a demonstration of an oyster being fed a pearl nucleus, and shown the various types of pearls and the oysters they come from. Inevitably, there was an opportunity to buy, and to my inexpert eye, it seemed that the prices were fairly reasonable. In my mind, though, pearls belong on old ladies and Barbara Bush and so, being neither, I resisted…!

Back on the junk, we were fed another enormous, delicious meal while we headed back to Halong dock, and I am writing this on the bus back to Hanoi. This afternoon’s plan is to check in to my next AirBnB, and visit the night market. I have one more day in Hanoi tomorrow, before moving on to Hoi An for a couple of days on Monday. The girls have told me that Hoi An is excellent for getting shoes made, so I may investigate that!

(Edit: it’s Hue In going to on Monday; Hoi An is Wednesday or Thursday!)