When we got to the Bhaya boat terminal we were the first there. Sweet Thing mentioned he hoped that we were not the only clientele today :) By 11:45 the throngs started to arrive. There were 3 boats leaving at the same time. We trundled off to Bhaya 3 and collected with other passengers on the 3rd deck for dining. The cruise director gave his schpiel and then lunch began just after we departed pretty much on time.
We wound our way through the sea of small rocky islands rising above the sea as much as many hundreds of meters. The footprint of each varied quite a bit. Most had very clear vertical rock faces or close to vertical treed sides. A handful of boats left Ha Long at the same time. We motored for what seemed to be 90 minutes or so then anchored in a bay surrounded by these rock islands sticking out of the sea.
We were tendered onto a floating platform then ventured further into the bay on 4-person boats paddled by women standing up. The journey into the lagoon passed a cluster of boat houses populated by a handful of people here and there. Most seemed deserted. A few flat, barrel supported flat surfaces were home to a cluster of dogs. I guess one need not tie up an animal under these circumstances.
We were paddled by these women along a few channels between the rocky islands. We eventually pulled over and disembarked onto 3 or 4 floating platforms inter-twined. There were vendors there pushing s__t and I bought a t-shirt. Remember the t-shirt debacle from a previous post ... now I have one to wear tomorrow. We boarded Asian rowboat 00266 for the journey back to the platform where we were tendered back to Bhaya 3. ST is on her second Kindle book of the day and headed upstairs to avoid a conglomeration of people speaking what sounded like some form of Chinese quite loudly on deck #3. There is a cooking class if we are interested at 5PM which we will most certainly attend. Dinner is 7:30'ish I think and the rest of the evening will be hanging out with ST.
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