Day 5

This is late as spent the night on a cruise boat in Halong bay with no WiFi . Took all morning to drive from Hanoi , our guide giving us a verbal view of the political situation here and what it really felt like to be Vietnamese- and odd mash up of communism and capitalism with sinister undertones. We stopped off at a cultured pearl place to hear about implanting oysters to make cultured pearls( which felt rather cruel as only 30% survive ) - I didn’t make any purchases !
Arrived in Halong which is an odd place badly financially affected by covid .
Masses of cruise boats leave the terminal so whilst it’s great to see this beautiful UNESCO site - you do experience it with thousands of other people .
The yacht is very nice and we went to look at some caves by tender and then on to a beach ( equally packed with people to watch the sunset ) . Finally I treated myself to an aromatherapy massage .Read more