Saturday, November 4
At 8 am this morning we headed out on our bus for the 2.5 hour drive. I thought I would have some time to sleep and / or read, but our guide Hein talked almost the entire time giving us insight into Vietnam, how the health care system works, the different classes of people, costs, etc. it was pretty interesting and made it feel like Vietnam isn’t really a communist country. Hein said they are in between. They even have a lot of companies like Apple coming into the country as the companies pull out of China.
Since we were running early (or maybe it was planned that way), we had time to stop at a pearl shop. They showed us how cultured pearls are made, by taking small balls that were made from shells from the Mississippi River and then placing it with a piece of something into the oyster. I didn’t catch what it was, but it is used to keep the oyster healthy. They then put the oysters in racks that were placed in the bay for 5 years. She said about 30% of the pearls come out usable. They even showed us how they harvested the pearls. It was all very interesting.
We then headed to the boat. Since we are with A&K, we had a private charter to the boat and arrived at the before the other guests that would be traveling with us. They showered us with rose petals as we walked up the stairs of the boat. After settling in I went upstairs to take some pictures the scenery is very beautiful.
The activity for today was a cave hike, we took a boat to the island of Cat Ba which means island of women as I guess all the women and children would stay on the island when they were at war and the men would go to a different island. When we got to the island, we then took a bus to the cave, then walked about 80 steps up. The cave was filled with stalagmites and stalactites.
Then it was back to the boat. There was the opportunity to swim at 5 pm, but I decided to hang back in the room and sit on my deck as we drove and look at the scenery. In the evening there was a cooking demonstration and then we headed down for dinner. The food is just amazing! And way too plentiful.
Photos
Additional photos coming