Halong Bay and Farewell to Vietnam

Cruising among small, steep islands in a wooden boat on a beautiful bay outranked even our other adventures. Pictures tell the story.

For now, it's a sea day on the way to Hongkong. I have been using Marilyn's iPod Touch pictures for the last few posts, but can switch to my own iPad pictures for this post. There are limits to the use of an iPad in a crowded market.

Although I said I would post infrequently, I have posted several times at once because the transitions between places left little time. After a full day in Hue, for which we left at 7:45 am,

we took a 9 pm flight to Hanoi, getting to our hotel at 11, started the next day at 8:30 am, and returned to the ship in Halong at 7:30 after a four hour bus ride.

Thinking over the trip, the theme for Vietnam is change and pride. Recalling the Mekong Delta, the 73-year-old woman who owned the home factory making candy and spring roll wraps was able to build a tile house that probably replaced a minimal one on stilts. Everywhere this symptom of a prosperous family's house among humble dwellings indicates change at the individual as well as countrywide, even though many are still living as they were.

At the countrywide level, a large new airport is under constructions next to the one from which we flew. Construction and factories, many with familiar names, appear along the highway, which is itself being widened and improved, particularly in the north. For those of us in the generation that thinks of Vietnam in terms of a war that ended 40 years ago, the energetic reality is encouraging.