Halong Bay

The weather has definitely turned cooler. Matt, who so far has been in vests and shorts was searching for something warmer to wear when we arrived at the port in Halong Bay today. Having finally found something that fitted his rather large frame Nicky promptly nicked it as she was cold and couldn't find anything small enough to fit her!

We are taken by a small gig (life vests dutifully donned) out to our junk, where we have a delicious lunch as soon as we board. The boat is ours exclusively, we all have lovely cabins. The mist refuses to lift, so the rocks in the bay take on an eerie but quite atmospheric shape. In the afternoon, we again get into the gig and are taken to some limestone caves, where we wander through enormous stalactite formations with several hundred other tourist who seem to have arrived at the same time as us. The only creatures still living on these rocks are a breed of monkeys. Some of our group managed to glimpse a couple of them, but we missed them.

Later in the afternoon, half the group went kayaking in the bay, Mike would probably have wanted to join them, but he has a humdinger of a cold and it was drizzling with rain, so decided to give it a miss.

After that it was time for dinner. Several delicious dishes were put on the tables and we even had a demonstration of how they make their beautiful decorations out of fruits and vegetables.The junk had dropped anchor for the night as had several others and the twinkling lights in the bay was a pretty backdrop to our evening on board.