Vuon Dao Halong Bay

... order to get through we all had to crouch down in the boat to avoid being decapitated!<br><br>We headed back to the harbor a few hours later and got back onto our minibus destined for Hanoi once again, to wait for our overnight train to Hue. Just enough time though for a quick visit to the Temple of Literature where Confucius did a lot of teaching in his lifetime.<br><br>As always love and miss you all and wish you were here....<br><br>The Gibbons x x x

... br><br>After dark, our XOs all had usable charges when the generator went off. Usually, village residents turn in very early here. The day starts at or before 5:00 AM for morning fishing, and, it seems to me that the village is on the schedule of nature's light.<br><br>Tonight was special. The teachers, Luan and Dung, and Hong, Huong, Nam and Mr. Ninh all wanted to work with the XOs in the dark until late!<br>

<br> First impressions of Hanoi was that it&#8217;s completely hectic. More like a long lasting one actually. And there are days it actually seems to increase those levels. Or perhaps those are simply the days when my tolerance is running low. I&#8217;m not entirely sure. I just know there are days when I&#8217;m flying through the city on a bike thinking how wonderful like is and then next I&#8217;m cursing the city for being what it is. But that just makes you appreciate the positives ...

... worked on the 4 or 5 we turned on.<br> Young adults and adults present were fascinated, especially the few that have used a computer before. Our young boat captain and another staff member discovered the built in Wiki Activity and all of the articles available there. I tried not to worry that Activities were left opened or that XOs were not shut down properly. The teachers will come to Hong Gai tomorrow afternoon for teacher training Friday and Saturday. And ...

... bay, made the next day's 2 hour climb up a mountain, in serious heat feel like torture. <br><br>The next night we slept at a hotel but the night sleeping on the boat was so relaxing, even if it was short. The sound of the water lapping against the side of the boat all night. Very niiiice.<br><br>The next morning we canoed around the bay at bloody 6am... I think some of the boys were still drunk. I was only dead tired, though giddy because I didn't ...

... for one night sleeping on a junk boat.<br><br>It took about 3 and a half hours of hairy driving to get to Halong City. So many near death experiences I won&#8217;t list them. From here we got a small taxi boat out to our junk to set sail amongst the thousand plus limestone karsts that come out of the water (for those familiar with Top Gear &#8211; this is where they had to get their mopeds working on water to get to a floating village). The junk itself was ...

Hey guys!<br><br>Well we got on another of those familiar 4 hour bus journeys punctuated by a western only service station after 2 hours. Now the reason its tourist only isn't any form of discrimination or racism, just that the locals aren't stupid enough to go there and be asked for triple priced food. They did manage to cheer me up no end though when I found a pretty piece of carved quartz necklace, asked how much expecting $3 or 4 dollars to haggle down to ...

... the food on the ship is good too &#8211; nothing fancy &#8211; a lot of seafood but it's<br>fresh, seasoned well, and the presentation is artful. Our shipmates<br>are pretty cool too &#8211; we instantly become buddies with Maude and<br>Sammie a couple from London. We spend the day on the water kayaking,<br>swimming, watching big monkeys (or baboons) on a cliff, and eating.<br>The water is nice and warm so even Carla jumps off the ledge of the<br>ship (she's the only girl ...

... Nous ne sommes que les 4 avec Sun et 3 de ses amis. La cuisine a bord est excellente, agremente des huitres que Jason et Mat arrive a pecher en plongeant pres des rochers. Le tout etant bien entendu arrose d alcool de riz local. Le pied total!<br>Le soir on amare dans une petite crique et dormons de facon rustique sur le ponton du bateau a la belle etoile, ce dernier ne comprenant pas de chambres. C est assez extraordinaire, si ce n est qu on doit rentrer a l ...

... boat for lunch and it was lovely and they had made these bouquet of flowers made out of fruit and veg for shirl. It was well made i have to say. they also had mad a fish out of a melon. It was well funny. After lunch i took out a kayak on my own for about an hour to explore a little further. Didnt see any of the monkeys that were suppose to be on the islands but it was still a really cool paddle. We they set of to the floating village. It was amazing. Its ...