Ha Long Bay, Gong Gai (Hanoi) Vietnam Day 2 of 2

Still in Ha Long Bay, Gong Gai (Hanoi) Vietnam. It is still cloudy today but not foggy. It is also colder. The high was about 60 degrees.

The government changed it’s mind and decided we could not have the dock for the second day. They like to push us around. The people and even the government employees we run into are very friendly but their higher ups have to push their weight around. We had to anchor ten miles up the bay. It turned out to be okay for us though.

We had a 9:00 AM tour on a junk. These were big boats that could hold more then fifty people but they only put about fifteen of us on them. They were fully enclosed with opening glass windows and doors. These were made for tourists and were nicely finished inside. Everything was well varnished and clean. There were booth like tables with padded benches to sit on. The tour was of an area of many of these dragon like formations. Some were large and were inhabited and even had nice beaches. There were many caves. In one area there were people living in houses built on rafts. Much of the construction was with blue plastic covering and all looked like they were ready to fall over. Whole families lived on them and some even with cats and dogs.

Naturally they had people on these junks trying to sell us junk. Being so sales resistant, Bobbi would never buy a thing except many decorated chop sticks, picture post cards, and several strands of pearls. She wanted more kimonos but they only had small ones and they were highly overpriced and were not reversible.

This was a real good junk ride and we saw a lot of interesting stuff. We then met the Kapels for lunch. Muriel was feeling better and had an appointment to revisit the doctor in the afternoon. The ship left for the next port at about 3:00 PM.

We had accepted a dinner invitation from the Hotel manager, Lars. At the time we thought Muriel would still not feel well enough to come for dinner. We had already called and said we were coming and we could not get out of it at this late date. We felt bad about leaving the Kapels.

Dinner was fun and Lars told us of a time when this ship had gone through a Hurricane on last years world cruise. He said the waves were coming up over the seventh floor. Many people were scared enough to wear life preservers. He said he almost put his on. As we were having dinner, we had waves washing over the windows on the fourth floor dining room. It was getting very rough in the Gulf of Tonkin.

We also spoke of the pirate problem. He said they were well equipped with fire hoses and procedures to repel boarders. I mentioned I use to see rooms with many rifles chained down in them on the ships years ago. He said international law changed disallowing them in the 90s. The captain could not even have a hand gun.

Big Wave Sherm Out.

(Posted on behalf of Sherman Rootberg)