Up promptly to get to the airport for a flight to Hanoi. Then onto a coach for the 60 mile trip to Halong Bay. 60 miles which took about 3 hours driving time. The traffic is terrible, although there are much fewer motorbikes. But the traffic is dense, and everyone travels slowly, which is good in a way as they can safely avoid accidents, even when 2 buses are heading directly at each other.
Stopped off for lunch at a place selling statues (again) with hundreds of tourists
. Not my cup of tea.
Then stopped again at a factory where they insert a little ball into oysters in order to make pearls. Very interesting, but I refused to buy the $16,000 necklace Jem wanted.
Now we are in the north, the part that is died in the wool communist. Not sure what my reactions are. The courier speaks fast with a strong accent and I miss almost all of what she says. The buildings are very often grey and uninteresting, which I don't recall from the south. The rice fields are often very sparse, whereas in the south they were a lush green. Is this because the season is cooler here and therefore the rice is at a different stage of development? I'll keep a watch and see how things develop.
Lots of travel
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Halong Bay, Vietnam
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4Messing about on the river
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Comments

2025-02-11
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Stanley
2015-02-26
Do all the place names begin with "H"?
argieuk
2015-02-27
Seems so. They even changed Saigon to Ho Chi Minh City. Although the south still call it Saigon