Thursday, November 7 - Halong Bay to Hanoi

Going with the Flow!

We were all alone on the upper deck by 5:30 this morning.  We were in a very quiet bay, surrounded by the rounded limestone karsts characteristic of Halong.  They made the sunrise difficult to photograph, but the quiet, the mists, and the gradually lightening skies were just magical.  As the ship began to come to life, there was pre-breakfast tai chi on the deck.

Then, it was off to visit a floating fishing village sheltered among a series of karsts.  Three hundred fifty people live on a series of floating houses, sell their fish to a distributor each day, and farm pearls.  We toured the village in a sampan rowed by a dainty woman, passed the floating school, and saw a young woman prying open oysters to implant the foreign objects that will eventually become  pearls. 

Back on board the Treasure Junk, we checked out of our room and enjoyed brunch while cruising back to port.  Once on land, we rode by bus back to Hanoi, where we reclaimed our luggage at our hotel and waited for our driver to take us to the airport for our evening flight to Hue.

No sooner had we arrived at our gate then all flights to Hue were cancelled, due to bad weather there.  (We've been watching reports of approaching typhoons ever since we arrived earlier this week.)  We joined hundreds of other passengers, all trying to get information, reclaim checked bags, and re-book flights. We were also in communication with our Vietnamese travel company.  They sent a car for us, re-booked our hotel in Hanoi, dealt with the hotel in Hue, but were unable to get a flight out tomorrow before the 2:00 departure the airlines had already reserved for us.  They'll continue to work on that. 

So, we're back in Hanoi, tired but comfortably situated, and we'll see what tomorrow brings.