Friday October 18 Halong Bay
In my lovely stateroom on Halong Bay which I think is also the Gulf of Tonkin, famous as a faked crisis, trigger for the Christmas carpet bombing of Hanoi and Haiphong in 1972. We were skiing in Utah, Alex was two years old. I remember the horror, at our hotel breakfast when we understood what was happening. The Vietnamese we've met here are young. That's old history for them. Their government won the war as it did against the French, kicked out the invaders, restored their independence, rebuilt and continue to move forward. It doesn't gnaw at them, as it does me.
Halong Bay is unique, very beautiful. Enormous rocks dominate the bay, uninhabitable, sheer formations, some isolated,others touching. Watching through my stateroom window, they drift by as we sail between, around them. Some passengers swam in the warm water at a man made beach, climbed steep steps to the top of one massive rock, kayaked far from the boat. Interesting bunch, these 16 travelers, from Goa, Australia, Malaysia, Britain and Hong Kong. A Finnish family peeled off earlier.
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