We both had our best sleep of the trip so far. This was no doubt due to the hectic schedule yesterday and our relatively late night in the bar.
This tour is not called ‘A taste of Vietnam’ for nothing. 
We have tried so many new foods already that we feel like we’ve been here much longer than we actually have! New foods that we tried at breakfast today included green sweet potato which was served with the fruit buffet, sticky rice cooked in sugar and agar jelly! Our plan to have a light breakfast failed miserably as there were too many choices on offer!
Our guide Thin was keen to avoid the worst of the crowds for our trip to Halong Bay, so we headed off at 7:45. for our boat cruise. Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate in producing the azure water and blue skies of the brochures, but we did manage to keep dry and the scenery was nevertheless spectacular.
We sailed along the bay with the iconic limestone rock formations all around us, various craft pottering by ranging from larger working boats, tourist boats and junks to small Vietnamese fishing vessels. As we approached the shallow water by our cave stop, the greens and azure of the water became more noticeable.
Our tour leader Thin has been great at getting some lovely group shots for us (and is kindly letting us use his photos in the blog). He shocked us all when he sent this photo to the group…. good old AI, you can’t trust anything these days. Looks great though.
The weather was a bit dull, so I have to confess the header photo of this blog is a bit photoshopped! I need to get Thin to give me a lesson in AI image manipulation.
We then sailed off again and enjoyed a half hour on the beach. It was great to get our feet in the sand and also enabled us to add The Gulf of Tonkin to the list of places where we have paddled!
We got back on board for our seafood lunch which comprised the following: battered fish, prawns, battered squid, noodles, dressed salad, cabbage, dipping sauces, chilli sauce – all rounded off with a beautifully presented pile of crinkle cut chips!!! Dessert was a banana. It was great to have lunch on board with the beautiful views of the bay in the background.
After lunch, we rejoined the coach and stopped en route to visit a local pearl factory. It was interesting to see the process for growing cultured pearls. It was very intricate work and the pearls take years to grow. We visited the shop with loads of beautiful jewellery.
After this Thin had managed to arrange a visit for us to Dình Nhân Muc village to see a traditional water puppet show. This was a very special trip because it was the village where this art form originated. The puppeteers hide behind screens in the village lake to manipulate the puppets and their performance is accompanied by traditional Vietnamese music on drums and typical instruments. Several of the village children joined us to watch the event.
Scenes included fighting water buffalo, fishing scenes, peacocks, dancing people, a very entertaining swimming race and dragons. We were able to see some of the puppets at the end and meet the organiser, all of which made a very personal experience.
As we headed for our next hotel, we took the advantage of the coach journey for a siesta. We drove past miles of lush green rice paddies and rounded off the night with a dinner of chicken soup and spring rolls, followed by a lovely hour or so in the bar – subbed by our fabulous group members as we had still not succeeded in getting any cash out of the cashpoint for several days. This will need to be urgently addressed tomorrow!!! 🤣