The bus arrived, we loaded up, picked up the rest of the group and set off. The French couple in front of us kept making out, which made it even harder for us to hold onto our breakfasts, but eventually the guy settled in to sleep on his girlfriend's lap and we were spared any more overt PDA.
Most of the people were only going for a day trip, so when we got onto our boat, it was just Jen and me and two Aussie girls, Dorothy and Caroline.
Once we were settled in our cabins and headed out of port, we sat down for lunch. The table was covered in white linen, our napkins were elaborately folded and we had two servers waiting on us.
Even better was the food: The first course was crab, which the waiter had to crack for all of us except Jen. (Not bad for a recent vegetarian!) Next were oysters, then seafood salad, then chicken and rice and tofu and veggies. For dessert, pineapple. It was delicious, but someone needs to explain to the chef that fruit is NOT dessert! (I know you agree, Scott.)
In the afternoon, we stopped to walk around the largest caves in Ha Long Bay, but it was quite touristy. When we got to the first section, there were these two Russian women, wearing low-cut pants with even lower-cut tops and espadrilles, posing somewhat seductively against the stalactites (stalagmites?). Jen and I could barely contain our laughter, but we managed to leave the spectacle behind and made our way to the turtle formation and rub its head for longevity and good luck.
We tried to see the crocodile and prince/princess formations our guide pointed out. (Or, as the French guide behind us said, "Napoleon et Josephine!" Why does everything sound so much funnier in French? Especially French with a Vietnamese accent.)
After that, it was back to the boat to kayak. Jen and I went around quite a bit, and then met Dorothy and Caroline back at the boat for a swim. Jen even jumped off the top deck!
Dinner was spectacular, with stuffed crabs, fishballs (like meatballs, except with fish, duh), prawns (eliciting a "that's one head I won't be sucking" comment from my traveling partner), fried pork and calamari, green beans, fresh fish and rice. I couldn't finish it all, but Frank, you'll be happy to know, they had normal Coke. (I tried to explain the difference between the Cokes, that different factories use different kinds of sugar, but I don't think the girls believed me. You'll have to give me the rundown again, ok?)
The rest of the evening passed in a blur of good conversation, although Jen and I did most of the talking. (Ok, ok, I did most of the talking. Somethings never change, no matter how many international date lines you cross...)
2 comments:
too bad it wasn't canadian pineapple. (see next post's comments for reference)
I've decided that Dorothy and Caroline aren't real people, but rather imaginary people that Kristen and Jen named "Dorothy" and "Caroline" but really meant "Audrey" and "Judy." Ok, now I must go read the next post's comments to decipher the mysterious canadian pineapple reference.
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