We were awake early on the fourth day mostly because we didn't believe what time our guide said the sun rise would be, so we didn't wan to miss it. You won't believe this, but we were the first people out of our cabin on our boat, and on the two other boats we could see nearby. That gave us some really lovely quiet time in the bay by ourselves, and we sat quietly and
watched the sun come up as others slowly made their way to the upper decks. A reasonable breakfast w
as served that included a pho, and then we got ready to go out to a floating fishing village. That's got to be a strange life, living in a floating village, watching the crazy tourists wander in and out all day. They even had little fish farms where a net would hang below the floating wooden platform and the people would catch small fish and feed them until they were big enough to eat. The more active species would really get after bait thrown into their cage. They also had pearl farming demonstrations and pea
rls and artwork to buy of course. A little Vietnamese lady rows you around in a boat for a while, which was almost as nice as the kayaking, especially since you weren't doing any of the work. The trouble was you did have to deal with the guilt of an impoverished old lady rowing your fat butt around for an hour. The boat serves an a la carte lunch while cruising back, and you get some time to sit out on the deck and have a few beverages while you make your way back to halong city. We had to wait a little bit four our travel agent's bus to come back and pick us up, but eventually it did and we made the
long trek back to Hanoi (with a stop midway at the same tourist trap). Oddly enough the bus didn't even bring us back to our hotel, when he got close he unceremoniously dumped us out about 2 blocks away and left us to fend for ourselves. Fortunately the walking tour left us familiar enough with our immediate neighborhood to get back to where we belonged.We did some more wandering about town and mostly just had a lazy evening out, and a stop in for a beer at the little cafe across from our hotel turned into a stop for several beers and eventual dinner at a place we were referred to by our new ozzie friends. Our friends on the boat talked non-stop about a place called
New Day on 72 Ma May in Hanoi. I don't always buy tripadvisor.com reviews, but in this case (it's the #6 restaurant in Hanoi) it earns the lofty billing. The food was cheap but fantastically delicious, and the service was great too. We even sprung for a bottle of wine (Chilean imports are common for some reason) and didn't feel gouged by its price. We left stuffed, and waddled all the way back to our hotel.
We were awake early on the fourth day mostly because we didn't believe what time our guide said the sun rise would be, so we didn't wan to miss it. You won't believe this, but we were the first people out of our cabin on our boat, and on the two other boats we could see nearby. That gave us some really lovely quiet time in the bay by ourselves, and we sat quietly and 
watched the sun come up as others slowly made their way to the upper decks. A reasonable breakfast w
as served that included a pho, and then we got ready to go out to a floating fishing village. That's got to be a strange life, living in a floating village, watching the crazy tourists wander in and out all day. They even had little fish farms where a net would hang below the floating wooden platform and the people would catch small fish and feed them until they were big enough to eat. The more active species would really get after bait thrown into their cage. They also had pearl farming demonstrations and pea
rls and artwork to buy of course. A little Vietnamese lady rows you around in a boat for a while, which was almost as nice as the kayaking, especially since you weren't doing any of the work. The trouble was you did have to deal with the guilt of an impoverished old lady rowing your fat butt around for an hour. The boat serves an a la carte lunch while cruising back, and you get some time to sit out on the deck and have a few beverages while you make your way back to halong city. We had to wait a little bit four our travel agent's bus to come back and pick us up, but eventually it did and we made the 
long trek back to Hanoi (with a stop midway at the same tourist trap). Oddly enough the bus didn't even bring us back to our hotel, when he got close he unceremoniously dumped us out about 2 blocks away and left us to fend for ourselves. Fortunately the walking tour left us familiar enough with our immediate neighborhood to get back to where we belonged.We did some more wandering about town and mostly just had a lazy evening out, and a stop in for a beer at the little cafe across from our hotel turned into a stop for several beers and eventual dinner at a place we were referred to by our new ozzie friends. Our friends on the boat talked non-stop about a place called New Day on 72 Ma May in Hanoi. I don't always buy tripadvisor.com reviews, but in this case (it's the #6 restaurant in Hanoi) it earns the lofty billing. The food was cheap but fantastically delicious, and the service was great too. We even sprung for a bottle of wine (Chilean imports are common for some reason) and didn't feel gouged by its price. We left stuffed, and waddled all the way back to our hotel.
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