by Another early departure! Ready for a sleep-in! The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round, the wheels on the bus go…… Five hours worth. We stop for around half an hour at a silk embroidery shop. Very beautiful stone silk pictures where they copy paintings to fantastic visual effects-very impressed. So much so that we commissioned the next one off the loom to be ready by Friday when we returned from the bay. We chose the smallest size US$50 rather than the larger size US$260 unframed-not cheap-but certainly worth it. We shall see the results in two days
Lunch at Bai Chay on the western side of Halong city’s 2 peninsulas. Purchased a rain poncho for the first time this trip, the rain is falling.
We got a boat to take us out to the caves and CatBa-CatBa Island where we are staying for two nights. The boat was one hour late putting our arrival time Cat Ba back until 7 pm (in the dark) the boat Bai Tho was a twin-engine diesel sampan with a wooden house on it. We drank beer and played cards on our way to the caves.
Đầu Gỗ Cave and Grotto were impressive. This is where the mother dragon turned to stone after saving the Vietnamese people and with her two children, creating how long bay (Ha-descending, long-dragon).
Then off for another 3 1/2 hour motor to Bar. The reason I have not discussed in great depth the famed beauty of how long bay is that due to the weather-woman misty-we have not seen much. We caught glimpses as the afternoon progressed. Impressive and what we saw-but although clear towards the evening the light was failing as we were approaching CatBa.
We were joined on this tour by Susanne (Physio) and Nigel (?) from Sheffield and Wimbledon respectively. Both are good company.
