July 24th, 2017
Halong Bay day 1
Driving along on our way to Halong Bay and Dai gets a phone call. After he gets off the phone he turns to us and says that on the second day of our trip, airAsia tour is coming to our boat and there will be many Chinese tourists. Would we like a complimentary upgrade to the Starlight cruise? Bigger boat, bigger too , sun deck, better amenities. 5 star. We are currently booked for Oriental Sailing 3star. We are like heck ya! He emplaned they are concerned we won’t be happy on original tour because Chinese tourists are very loud and bake a lot of noise 😂😂😂. Shocking information-not. We see this everywhere. Chinese tourists are notoriously difficult to be around for a wide variety of reasons. So the travel gods are looking out for us. Or Ritchie maybe OR they just saw our Caucasian names with “Canada” after it and knew that would not make us happy to be sandwiched on a tiny boat with lord knows how many Chinese tourists. Regardless we get to be on a much nicer boat (almost twice the price) for same $. Yay!!!!!!!!! After the room upgrade last night, we are on a roll here the likes of which we haven’t seen since 2009 when we were here either all four kids.
Oh yeah and the sun is shining bright and hot, so I am cautiously optimistic about the weather. 🙏
As it turns out it is gorgeous for the rest of the day. I grab as many chances to sit in the sun as I can between getting on the boat at 12:30 and when the sun goes down. You just never know how long it will last…..
The agenda for this cruise is pretty well set. Lunch at 1:20pm, activity (either going to fishing village or kayaking) at 3:30, back at 5 to freshen up and happy hour starts, spring roll cooking class at 6:15, supper at 7pm.
Lunch was amazing! So much excellent food. 7 courses….when we booked, we told them no fish for Troy and no fish or seafood for me. So sometimes when you get picky, you get subpar options. This was not the case here. The alternative dishes are very very good, so I’m happy I’m not eating from the sea today.
After lunch I spent some time chatting with the couple at the table next to us. Andy and Lily. As fate would have it, they are from the US and they are both educators. So we had lots in common and talked right up until the 3:30 call for the Fishing village. Tory was up on the top deck taking pictures and met a gal Stephanie, who was also from he US and works in the tech industry. She lived in Seattle for 6 years before spending 4 years in CA, and has been traveling SE Asia for 5 months. She goes home to Minnesota on Wednesday.
We chose the fishing village tour 3:30 as we have kayaking as our defined day 2 activity. We got on the transfer boat and it quickly whisked us off to a small dock where there were lots of nice elderly ladies waiting to paddle us through the village in their rowboats. It was hot and sunny. I finally feel like I’m in paradise. I have pictures, will upload when I am getting stronger internet.
Andy, lily and step all went kayaking as they are on the one night tour so don’t get to do the stuff we are doing tomorrow. So we parted ways briefly, but we’re all back together for happy hour at 5. We hung out and had fun with the cooking class, then ate supper together (moved some table to be together-pretty sure that didn’t make us too popular) and continue to chat well into the evening. Around 11pm in fact. Now that really late (specially considering we have to up and at Thai Chi on the sun deck at 6:30 am😂😂😂). But it was wonderful to make new friends and I learned all about the education system in New York City. (Spoiler alert-very very different than WA state).
Alsoo the boat is AMAZING…..couldn’t be happier with the upgrade. There was another couple that was upgraded and the woman had a major hissy fit. Apparently she specifically wanted to be on a small boat. Why would you ever want that?? Anyway, she a,an aged to get herself and her travel companion off the boat and moved to a small boat. Am going to keep my eyes peeled for them, bcz that boat was the one we were supposed to be on and we likely will see it looked somewhere around here with all the multitude of other cruise boats.
Well off to bed as tomorrow will be a very busy day…..
