Halong Bay, Vietnam, January 25, 2010

Boarded the wooden double decker boat that will take us all around Halong Bay this morning.  The 6 of us have one all to ourselves but we'll have to share the bay - as in really share with what looks to be a hunderd more boats.  The other charters seem to be mostly Asian tourists.  We may very well be the only token Americans.

The morning fog and drizzling rain would seem ill-timed to be taking a scenic cruise through the geological wonders but after the first hour, the fog lifted, the rain ceased and we were weaving in and out of thousands of limestone mountains.

We eventually docked and climbed a winding set of slippery stairs into the most phenomenal work of nature - Hang Đầu Gỗ Cave.  Only discovered in 1994, the find is credited to a fisherman who supposedly wrecked his boat against the rocks during a difficult storm.  Seeking shelter, he scaled the side of the steep rock where he found an unassuming opening.  Climbing through it, he beheld one of nature's perfect masterpiece's. 

Now the cave is a major tourist attraction and if you can stand the chatter and echoing of countless languages all at once and can maneuver around, you might just be able to find a stalagmite to rest on and take it all in. 

Back on the boat, true to form, the two teenage girls, Essie and Sara, seem to raise the level of enthusiasm among the young Vietnamese men.  The girl's spy a karaoke machine on board and before too long, the crew men have turned it on and set everything up.  Essie and Sara provide us with a stellar version of Tainted Love.

And now returning the favor, the young men decide to give us a show, serenading us with a series of Vietnamese pop tunes which we lamely but earnestly try to join along with..

Perhaps the most surreal moment to date was our show stopping version of Abba's Dancing Queen - complete with choreography.   Really, how many of you can claim to have sung Dancing Queen while dancing on a boat in a bay in Vietnam?

We laughed and waved at the other boats that passed us by.  Afterwards, these same karaoke singing crew members provided us a with a lunch of crab and vegetables.  With about three hours of sail time and cave exploration under our belts, we finally docked and began the three hour journey back to Hanoi.

I presume it was the singing that wiped everybody out, because we were all doing a bit of head-bobbing through the now familiar chaos of traffic.

Dinner that night had a bit of a French influence with delicious fish and incredible flavored sauces mixed in to the other dishes - then, we were shuffled off to one of those tourist shows - this one with water puppets and traditional Vietnamese music.  Not your most riveting, but it was fun to be sitting by a row of Buddhist monks who evidently found the humor in the traditional story.  You could watch their saffron robed shoulders bounce up and down as dragons, snakes and fish puppets told what must have been an ancient morality play. 

Walking through the amazing night life towards the hotel - it was evident by our staggering that we were all ready for sleep.