Yesterday in Ha Long

We have learned an important lesson about cruise excursions - do not choose one based on the description in the brochure alone - get details. For example: how long is the bus ride each way? What portion of the time will be spent on each activity?

Yesterday we had booked “kayaking in Ha Long Bay,” only to discover that the kayaking was for one hour and the other three hours were going to be spent doing the exact same junk cruise around the bay as we had done the day before!

So it goes - we did have an interesting conversation with two fellow kayakers on the way back to the ship. This was quite a contrast to our interaction with several of the alpha males on the trip. Early on in the trip, we were about eight (four couples) sitting on the upper deck of the boat having an interesting conversation about what we were learning about southeast asian history, politics, and economics, when one of the guys launched into a self congradulatory riff on the companies he had bought and sold, his favorite being Beretta (which I think he worked for at a senior level). This led to a conversation between alpha 1 and alpha 2 about the guns they owned, the guns they had purchased for their wives, and where they did their shooting. Alpha 1 allowed as he had a gun range in his home and one in his back yard.

We left Ha Long for Hong Kong around 7:30 pm.

Kayaking Location