DAY 71---HALONG, VIETNAM (DAY 2)

 

                    Day 2 at Halong.  Another cloudy/hazy day and 72 degrees early morning.

LAST EVENING

                             This yacht passed by all lit up before we left the suite for dinner.

We had Caesar salads to start with.  Six anchovies on mine!  We got dressing on the side so I could add Tabasco to it.  Dara got a double order for me and I could not finish it.  In the past there has been lots of stems but none tonight.

We had ordered this special veal piccata with polenta.

Key Lime pie

                             Photos of the city lights.  It is actually not a ferris wheel but a light wheel.

                                                                            Bridge

Her show was a good one.  Hardly anyone in the audience however because of the 8 hour tours to Hanoi today.    

TODAY

Had my Sunday caviar for breakfast.

After our treadmill time I headed down to catch the shuttle bus to the mall.  They said it was a 20 minute ride but that turned into 30.

                             Not sure what this was to represent but near front of the mall.

This is the front of the Vincom mall.  The mall was very nice but I took the side street before going in to see what I could find down the street.

        I passed this lady picking leaves our of the ground cover.  On a Sunday morning at that.

                               Lo and behold, at the end of the street was a local market.

All kinds of fruits, vegetables, flowers, foods, clothing, dishes.  Just about everything as it was very big.

I asked if I could take a photo and she said yes.  She was putting lunches in styrofoam containers for to go.

                This lady was cooking something.  It was about 11:15 so about lunch time.

                                                     Some photos taken in the nice mall.

                               There was a WinMart store.  Kind of like a giant grocery store.

                  The bay was out one side of the mall with the limestone islets and some boats.

                                              This is the shuttle I am taking back to the ship.

Not a good picture but remember yesterday I had pics of boats loaded with wood chips.  Well, this is where they were unloaded.  Massive piles of the wood chips waiting to be processed.

There were many of these boats coming and going.  They took people out for a night or two in the bay viewing the limestone islets.

        So I just spent a half hour at and around the mall and was back at the ship right at noon.  I took a quick shower before heading up to lunch.  During my mall trip I discovered that Halong had internet all over the city--everywhere!!  So my photos were uploaded as soon as I took them today.  I also figured out that my internet (wifi) at home was ok and working fine.  It is the ship's internet that is not allowing me access.  I could get access with Halong's wifi.  So I emailed Melissa (neighbor) to cancel having Spectrum make a service call.  Durango is to get another big snow Monday & Tuesday.

        Rebecca is reading again this afternoon while I attend to this post.  We will be sailing at 4pm and I want to view the sailing out through the maize of limestone islets.  The weather seems to be improving now at 2:30 as has been murky all morning.  It is a lovely 76 degrees.

        We will now be heading to Chan May, the port for Da Nang & Hue on the central coast of Vietnam.  We are to arrive there late morning (11am) tomorrow.  I have a tour at 1pm.

        We have our interdenominational church service at 5:45 this evening follow by communion in the Mariner Lounge as usual.

        Tonight's menu in Compass Rose.  Rebecca is eye-balling the shrimp entree and I have ordered a special veal osso bucco for my entree.  Show tonight is our favorite production cast show, "Blazing Boots".  Seen it many times but never get tired of it.

        As we sail out into Halong Bay I must say this has been one of our favorite ports so far.  The colorful fishing boats, junks, day boats, barges, not to mention the thousands of massive limestone little islands jutting straight up out of the sea.  This is truly a unique place in the world.  Halong city was clean and the people very friendly.  Of course, there is some poverty here but it is becoming a modern city with new buildings.  I especially liked that internet was free and available all over the city for everyone to use.  The mid 70's temperatures both days was perfect for touring.  I could have taken a thousand photos of the limestone islets as we sailed past them but photos just would not capture their incredible beauty.  Just wish you all could experience this.  I hope you enlarged yesterday's photos for sure.

Thought I was done with photo for today but about an hour of sailing out of the bay there were several of these cargo ships offloading imports and onloading imports onto smaller barges.  I guess there is not dock space for them at the port.  Ok, time for church!