The only thing better than a gorgeous sunrise over the bay is...
pho with bacon for breakfast. And it wasn't even my idea. Just when you thought pho couldn't get any better, they took it to a whole new level.
This was our dining area.
After our bacon pho, we hopped in a smaller boat and headed to explore more remote areas of the bay. From the transfer boat, we boarded our kayaks and went for a paddle. This is Laura and Nils, the German couple with whom Starr and I spent the day.
The scenery was spectacular.
This is Starr, my kayaking buddy and our official navigator. It was great to have her onboard.
We paddles through a few caves, including one that had a bunch of bats flying around.
This one was pitch black and the tide was rising, so we didn't stay too long.
We stopped at one of the islands for a quick break. We were the only ones on the island. Hai, our guide, is on the far left. He kept Starr and me in line--we kept dilly-dallying instead of paddling. We were talking about how gorgeous every island was and taking pictures.
I am wielding the pocket knife I used to eat my mango.
We were all loving our pitstop.
After a couple more hours of kayaking through the islands, we made it to this beach and went for a swim.
I couldn't resist swimming across to the other island. I was pretty sure it would be the only time I would have a whole island to myself. You can barely see me in the picture, but I'm in there somewhere.
By lunch time we were all starving and paddled back to the smaller boat for lunch. I loved our little group. Laura and Nils both spoke English very well so we could all communicate.
It was another feast.
I called dibs on the fish tongue. Strangely, no one else seemed to want it....
One of the sinks on the boat. I'm pretty sure there is something missing....
We lounged on the upper deck before jumping back in the water for another quick kayaking trip.
During the day, we ran into a few different fishermen. Most seemed to live on their boat but a few had floating houses.
The woman who lived in this home was very friendly.
She was holding up the large shrimp she caught.
She also pointed out the dried fish she hung to dry in the sun.
This is a skate drying in the sun.
She had also hung squid out to dry.
Local fishermen at work.
They catch a lot of clams in the bay.
The water was so clear you could see the clams near the coral.
We reluctantly paddled back to our transfer boat. The captain put on his official hat for the picture.
It was a relaxing ride back to our larger overnight boat.
Oh, how I love vacation sunsets.
Tonight we stayed on the Pheonix 1. We had another seafood feast.
This fancy boat mored near ours made our boat look like an old dingy. I heard it costs about 3x the price of our boat.
Nils, Laura, Starr and I had a fun and tasty dinner then went to bed early for an early wake up in the morning.
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Location:Halong Bay, Vietnam
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