A Birthday with Sue and Murphy

  Halong Bay, Vietnam
Sunday, February 24, 2008

Halong Bay

I am feeling so much better: the cough has nearly gone, my throat is less raw and my head no longer feels as if it's full of cotton wool.  I'm sure the antibiotics played a significant part but equally beneficial were the two days of sunshine which miraculously accompanied the boat trip in Halong Bay, and Sue's company, which I think should be available on prescription to the general public!  I haven't laughed as much in months as I did sitting on the boat deck listening to Sue's tales of Singapore.  It was wonderful! 

in the bay

our junk

Sue and me on deck

 
Our six fellow passengers included a nice French couple and an American foursome who were a pain in the arse: father and son were fine (mainly as their women spoke too much for them to get a word in edgeways) but wife and girlfriend were very much of the stereotyped humourless variety with the unfortunate need to bore the heads off everyone else... painful.  But we got some amusement from taking the piss out of them. 

sunset in the bay

 

the bay

  

girls on deck

 

our cabin

 Somebody in the boat office obviously misread the registration forms and so I appeared on the passenger list as being from Iraq.  We wondered if that had intimidated them and that was how we ended up being given the superior cabin... it was gorgeous and had the most comfortable bed I've slept in since leaving Ireland, with a duvet on it, no less.  That made it very hard to actually leave it...



 

a carved carrot!!!

Murphy's!!

The vegetarian food was pretty minimal - it would have been nice if they had actually cooked some of the veg instead of carving animals from it, but you can't have everything... and I did get to enjoy a couple of cans of Murphy's to celebrate my birthday, courtesy of Sue and Singapore Airport duty-free!