Having been told to rise for 8 we all tip out for breakfast and the boat starts moving. No omlettes today, though there are some very well done fried eggs in their place. Feeling a little unwell I just have a little toast and some fruit. It becomes apparent that we don’t need to be up and about quite so early so I disappear back to bed for an hour hoping to make myself feel better.
When I rise again we are close to the shore, though many of the rocky islands are still visible. Sadly the morning mist still obscures the long distance views so we don’t get any postcard quality shots of the bay.
After only around an hour we are back on dry land and on the bus back to the hotel, another 3 hours of bumpy bus riding on bouncy roads. Because I don’t feel great and am still quite tired, it’s really not funny anymore. Thankfully we stop at a pottery place to break up the journey. Here they make all types of ceramics from clay to glaze and there is a chance to see items at all stages of development. Gaynor even has a go at colouring in. All a little tired we have a good look round and then hop back onto the bus to continue the bumpy ride back to Hanoi.
In the afternoon most go exploring the capital city that is Hanoi, risking life and limb in the crazy crazy traffic. As I’m still feeling crappy I stay in the hotal with the TV on and get some sleep for a few hours. Once Mrs Tom returns I hear that they explored quite a large part of the old quarter of the city, venturing much further than we had previously, seeing a lake and markets and the real places locals shop at.
Before dinner Rafaele has booked us tickets to see the famous Water Puppet Theatre show back in the heart of the old quarter. It’s certainly an experience. In the beginning I thought that they would be reading everything in English, French and Vietnamese as all the initial announcements were done this way. However, once the show kicked off it was all in Vietnamese so we didn’t have a clue what was going on. It was quite fun though.
Dinner is another gig organised by Rafaele for our post theatre nosh. We walk to the restaurant and climb up to the first floor where quite a nice dining room awaits. The menu has stuff from all over the world, so Barry and Gaynor take the opportunity to order some chips. Mrs Tom and I shared some Vietnamese spring rolls whilst I had Pho, and Mrs Tom had Duck. I was a little disappointed with my meal as pho is supposed to be a soup based dish I think and that’s not what I got. All in all not too bad a meal though.
After dinner we walked the night markets, which in comparison with Luang Prabang are basically a tat-fest, so we were all a little disappointed. There were one or two items of interest though, and Darren picked out a Chinese tea set which he liked, later to be bought as a present for his birthday the following day. It was also here in the night markets that I first caught glimpses of my celebrity here in South East Asia. As a tall man I am somewhat of a circus act to the locals. Here in the market I drew stares and sniggers, folks were pointing, I was a real show for them. Kind of odd, but in a fun way.
We finished up in the night markets minus Steven and Sunmer who had initially dropped out to buy Darren a present, but subsequently got lost. They later made it safely back to the hotel around 30 minutes after we did, where we had already turned in for an early night.